Children of Immigrants

Abstract

This chapter addresses the education experiences and outcomes of children of full or partial foreign parentage who grew up in Japan. It highlights some of their education strategies and practices and discusses how migration channels, parents' socioeconomic situations, and cultural backgrounds affect such practices and children's education achievements. Immigrant parents, regardless of their class and ethnic and cultural backgrounds, share an eagerness to advance their children's education. They strategize among different educational options and choose those they believe can produce better outcomes as well as match their mobility goals. However, the educational outcomes of the children vary widely, across national groups and along class lines. This has to do with the variant cultural, social, and economic resources that can be used to advance children's education. Meanwhile, the easiest educational choice available to them, Japanese public education, falls short in facilitating immigrant children's education mobility. The different choices of educational institutions in Japan include Japanese schools and “foreigner schools.” There is also the option of transnational education.