Japan's "International Youth"

by Roger Goodman

Published 13 September 1990
This book examines the way in which Japanese schoolchildren have been treated on their return to Japan after spending some time overseas, due to their parents' work. Known as "kikokushijo" or "returnee children", they have been the subject of great interest during the last decade. Roger Goodman examines the assumption that it is inevitable that these children will have problems because Japanese society is historically and socially conditioned to be exclusivist. The study concludes that there must be a fundamental rethinking of the definition of minority groups and marginality, both in Japan, and in a wider context.