Cross-border Shadow Education and Critical Pedagogy

"This book bridges Japanese education inside and outside Japan through a cross-border critical ethnographic study. The oppressive and dehumanizing nature of cram schools is accepted as a means to invest in the potentiality of children's future development. It is refreshing to read how the author makes this connection. This observation is notably convincing when discussed among Japanese expatriates in the Singapore context." - Watanabe Yukinori, Professor, Sagami Women's University, Kanagawa, Japan "The author masterfully problematizes the blurring of business and education in Japanese cram schools in Singapore, whose practices both shape and are shaped by essentialist trajectories pertaining to who 'Japanese people' can or should be or become as members of Japanese and Singaporean society. In doing so, the author details how such cram schooling: 1) affords, limits and eliminates space for being, belonging and becoming, and 2) potentially inflicts mental, physical, emotional and spiritual damage upon young learners." - Nathanael Rudolph, Associate Professor, Kindai University, Higashiosaka, Japan This book explores critical pedagogy and issues relating to entrepreneurialism, commodification, and marketization in education, and their deleterious effects on student agency and subjectivity. The central theme of the book is a cross-border critical ethnographic study of the shadow education practices of an overseas Japanese business community in Singapore which draws attention to the elaborate extent to which families are engaged in shadow or cram tutoring practices as part of their children's education, supported by the strong presence of overseas branches of well-established corporate tutoring businesses headquartered in Japan. The author ultimately critiques a banking approach to education, particularly in terms of its oppressive and dehumanizing outcomes, sustained by the inner workings of neoliberal forces and mercantilist ideologies. Glenn Toh is Senior Lecturer at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Before returning to Singapore, Glenn taught in Tamagawa University in Tokyo and in the City University of Hong Kong. He has published books on language, ideology, power, and education and maintains a keen interest on developments in the area.

Auteur
Glenn Toh is Senior Lecturer at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Before returning to Singapore, Glenn taught in Tamagawa University in Tokyo and in the City University of Hong Kong. He has published books on language, ideology, power, and education and maintains a keen interest on developments in the area.

Résumé
This book explores critical pedagogy and issues relating to entrepreneurialism, commodification, and marketization in education, and their deleterious effects on student agency and subjectivity. The central theme of the book is a cross-border critical ethnographic study of the shadow education practices of an overseas Japanese business community in Singapore which draws attention to the elaborate extent to which families are engaged in shadow or cram tutoring practices as part of their children's education, supported by the strong presence of overseas branches of well-established corporate tutoring businesses headquartered in Japan. The author ultimately critiques a banking approach to education, particularly in terms of its oppressive and dehumanizing outcomes, sustained by the inner workings of neoliberal forces and mercantilist ideologies.

Contenu
Chapter 1. Considering Issues of Criticality and Humanization in Education.- Chapter 2. Ideologies of Japanese Education Within a Normalizing Cultural Politics of Japaneseness.- Chapter 3. The Japanese in Singapore: A History of Trade with a Habit of Transplantation and Transposition.- Chapter 4. Issues and Epistemologies Concerning Education, Work, Labor, Human Capital, (Identity) Investment, and (De) Humanization.- Chapter 5. Ethnographic Insights into the Culturalized Routines and Regimes of After-School Tutoring for Japanese Expatriate Children.- Chapter 6. A Concluding Critique of Education, Entrepreneurialism, and Essentialism./