With expanding global interdependence, it is vital that 4-H youths learn more about the ever-increasing diverse cultures in their own communities as well as expand their global mindedness and understanding of globalization. The 4-H International Village (a) offers a comfortable yet engaging avenue for youths to expand their knowledge of and…

We report on international research that compares linguistic ecosystems, that is, socially constructed public attitudes and ideologies concerned with foreign-language (FL) learning, in Canada and Japan. Analyzing responses to three interview questions from 125 interviews with five categories of respondent in each country, we suggest that there are…

Throughout the world, young children are introduced to some form of nursery rhymes. In Japan, the first type of rhyme a child encounters is called "warabeuta"--songs created through play. The English translation fails to accurately capture the degree to which "warabeuta" include body movement, touch, and interaction with other…

This essay is a history that relates the Japanese tradition of accepting and adapting aspects of foreign culture, especially as it applies to the learning of foreign languages. In particular, the essay describes the history of English education in Japan by investigating its developments after the Meiji era. The author addresses the issues from the…

In the past, philosophers discussed cosmopolitanism as a normative ideal of allegiance to humanity as a whole. A debate among social theorists, however, has examined cosmopolitanism as an incipient empirical phenomenon: an orientation of openness to foreign others and cultures. This paper introduces actor-network theory to elaborate the…

English education in Japan and Korea are similar in some respects. Although both countries are not completely but mostly monolingual societies, where citizens do not need English in their daily life, they have begun to realize the importance of English as a tool for international communication, and as a result their English education is becoming…

History and social studies textbooks have often been the object of heated political debate in various countries, since they relate directly to issues of national identity and citizenship. This article analyzes how "foreigners" are portrayed in two versions (the 2000 and 2006 versions, date of issue) of the best-selling elementary social…

This article is written in line with the debate on internationalisation in higher education, especially taking into consideration the connections between the rise of East Asia and the need to internationalise the universities in the West. The author focuses specifically on his professional experience as a member of the Expanding East Asian Studies…

This study examined the development of implicit race attitudes in American and Japanese children and adults. Implicit ingroup bias was present early in both populations, and remained stable at each age tested (age 6, 10, and adult). Similarity in magnitude and developmental course across these 2 populations suggests that implicit intergroup bias…