A Zainichi Korean Education: Past, Present and Future of Chōsen Schools in Japan

Abstract

Chōsen schools stem from the first examples of Korean ethnic schools, established in Japan right after World War II by Korean immigrants – the so-called Zainichi Koreans – who had migrated to Japan while the Korean peninsula was part of its colonial empire, from 1910 to 1945. These schools are located within Japan yet, until 1990s, they only taught in the Korean language about North Korea and the deeds of its former revolutionary leader Kim Il Sung. The reason for this is because in the past, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, not few Zainichi Koreans, sympathetic to communist ideas due to their working-class background, wanted to repatriate to North Korea and leave Japan, where Koreans were discriminated and excluded from welfare benefits in light of their non-Japanese citizen status. Nowadays, with a different historical situation, Chōsen schools have greatly modified their curriculum and, though still teaching about North Korea, they have long abandoned the assumption that students will live in the socialist country, coming instead to envision for them a future within Japan. In this study, I will investigate these schools' historical evolution and the shift in their educational goals, eventually attempting to analyze their possible future trajectories. Research shows that, unlike other ethnic foreign schools within Japan, such as South Korean schools or Chinese schools, which were recently able to market their bilingual education and attract Japanese students as well, Chōsen schools so far have not managed to expand outside the traditional Zainichi Korean community, constituted by descendants of former Korean colonial subjects; a community which is shrinking and does not include recent South Korean immigrants. Despite not being directly connected to North Korea, I believe the future of Chōsen schools lies in the improvement of relations between Japan and North Korea, as well as in the amelioration of the status of the latter within the international community.

Keywords: Zainichi Koreans, Education, Japan, North Korea, Ethnic Schools.