In 2006, the Japanese government introduced a new special needs education system. One of the reasons for this reform was to promote the inclusion of children with a disability into mainstream...Show moreIn 2006, the Japanese government introduced a new special needs education system. One of the reasons for this reform was to promote the inclusion of children with a disability into mainstream schools (MEXT 2006b). However, since the implementation of this new system, instead of attending mainstream education, the number of children in Japan that are receiving special needs support or go to special schools has increased significantly. In the period from 2005 to 2016 the number of children receiving special needs education rose from 199,227 to 327,201, while at the same time the total number of school-going children declined. One of the main reasons for this significant growth is the increased recognition of developmental disorders (hattatsu shōgai発達障害). Developmental disorders are defined by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (hereafter MEXT), and include autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disorders and/or other similar disorders of the brain function that usually develop at a young age (Mithout 2016, 171; MEXT n.d.c). Seeing as this recognition of developmental disorders by the MEXT is quite recent, not much research has been done on how these students perceive education and what challenges they face at school. With my research I will contribute to the literature about disability in Japan, especially highlighting the experiences of the students. This thesis will answer the questions: “How do students with developmental disorders in the current Japanese education system experience the available school options? And what insight do their experiences give us in the different models of disability?”. In order to answer these questions, this thesis will first explore different understandings and models of disability (medical and social) that show us different ways in which one can interpret disability. These models will form the basis of the thesis, and will show how policy-making and the education system in Japan are characterized by these models. In order to get a better understanding of how students with developmental disorders experience school, fieldwork was conducted at various schools in the Kansai region to observe the environment and the curriculum. Furthermore, six in-depht interviews were conducted with students with developmental disorders who graduated from special needs education.Show less
This thesis explores the conflicted experience of reading boy's love manga, based on intimate interviews with a handful of non-japanese readers. How are issues such as consent, representation and...Show moreThis thesis explores the conflicted experience of reading boy's love manga, based on intimate interviews with a handful of non-japanese readers. How are issues such as consent, representation and stereotypes perceived, and how does that perception influence reading choices? Boy's love is examined not only as an experience in itself, but also in connection with broader questions with regards to female sexuality and pornography.Show less
Since roughly around the start of the current millenium, there has been a growing trend of doctors and pharmacists in Japan speaking up about what they perceive to be unreasonable attitudes and...Show moreSince roughly around the start of the current millenium, there has been a growing trend of doctors and pharmacists in Japan speaking up about what they perceive to be unreasonable attitudes and behaviours exhibited by patients and the media towards medical experts who work in clinical situations. One example of a clinical discourse in Japan that has been particularly concerned with this issue is one dubbed 'iryo hokai'. The main thrust of the argument made by medical caregivers who speak within this discourse is that current-day patients' unachievably high expectations of doctors' ability to successfully cure disease is leading to an increase in malpractice lawsuits, and that this will encourage doctors to abandon their work out of fear for being sued, eventually causing modern medicine to collapse due to understaffing. This paper aims to perform a discourse analysis on the concrete expressions of such professional frustration, specifically using articles published in commercial magazines aimed at a professional readership to examine doctors' lived experience with patients that they deem 'troublesome'. As a background for discussion it also presents a short history of the relevant issues as they have developed over roughly the past two decades. The analysis itself is informed by existing social theory on the configurations and functions of power in modern society, especially as it pertains to professionalized biomedicine and its role in creating and administrating populations.Show less
Because of a rapid-ageing society, Japan is facing a shrinking society in which the relative amount of elderly citizens will increase substantially. Elderly citizens are at larger risk of...Show moreBecause of a rapid-ageing society, Japan is facing a shrinking society in which the relative amount of elderly citizens will increase substantially. Elderly citizens are at larger risk of eventually moving to an elderly care facility or passing away. When their houses become uninhabited or unmanaged, they are designated as an empty house, or akiya. In this thesis, I will investigate the question of how this rapid rise in empty houses can be explained from the perspective of the social dimension of homeownership.Show less
The problem of the elderly in post-3.11 Japan is not solvable at any single level. One cannot reduce all phenomena to results of a single factor, be it governmental practice, change in social...Show moreThe problem of the elderly in post-3.11 Japan is not solvable at any single level. One cannot reduce all phenomena to results of a single factor, be it governmental practice, change in social capital, or arbitrary wills of a group of people. After all, the levels that are investigated in this paper only represent some perspectives of inquiry. It is the variety and specificity of older people’s situations that a proper research on them has to respect. Correspondingly, the foremost implication of this research is the importance of being patient to and leaving space for, the multiplicity of the voices of the elderly.Show less
At the time of writing almost five years have passed since Japan's triple disaster on March 11th 2011, when an earthquake triggered a tsunami which in turn triggered a nuclear crisis. With the...Show moreAt the time of writing almost five years have passed since Japan's triple disaster on March 11th 2011, when an earthquake triggered a tsunami which in turn triggered a nuclear crisis. With the initial shock having passed, how are people looking back at it? How have the tragic events that transpired settled into history, into national consciousness, into victims’ personal memories? Although on the grander national and global scales 3.11 is all but forgotten and being digested in the background, for most of the victims this disaster is still affecting daily life in numerous ways. The question this thesis focuses on is: What exactly has been disrupted through this disaster on a social level; how do communities and individuals that have been abruptly uprooted by a nuclear disaster cope; how do they reconstruct their collective and individual memories and identities; and how do they reframe nuclear energy, something that initially brought them prosperity but eventually led to them losing their homes indefinitely. This thesis analyzes the case of a specific uprooted nuclear host community, using documentary films as source material. The following discussion shows that a firmly rooted and once proud community has all but fallen apart, and their entire shared narrative, central to their collective identity, is shattered. Individual cases prove that there are many different ways in which memory is bound to either a place, people, or objects. Where the highest importance is placed is an individual issue that depends on the person and the context, and how flexible they deem their own identity. As a result some evacuees move on and some remain with the core community, hoping to return to their hometown someday, even though it seems unlikely to be possible within their lifetime. Further links between individuals and collective memory are discussed.Show less
The 'kizuna' discourse in Japan is about bonding as people. After the 3.11 disaster this bonding became more important. The women in the disaster areas were faced with the pressure this discourse...Show moreThe 'kizuna' discourse in Japan is about bonding as people. After the 3.11 disaster this bonding became more important. The women in the disaster areas were faced with the pressure this discourse placed on the gender role women have. With all the stress they themselves already went through, it was still their responsibility to care for everyone. There was hardly any particular attention for the needs of women in disaster areas. This thesis discusses first the theory on disaster and how such an event affects women in particular. Next a history of women and the role they take in society is discussed, followed by the situation of women after the disaster and during recovery.Show less
Being multi-ethnic seems to be something of a contradiction. How can someone be Japanese, yet not be Japanese at the same time? The fact that multi-ethnics have access to two or more cultures,...Show moreBeing multi-ethnic seems to be something of a contradiction. How can someone be Japanese, yet not be Japanese at the same time? The fact that multi-ethnics have access to two or more cultures, languages, and consequently two or more sets of values can influence how they identify themselves according to the situation, resulting in multiple possible identities. This study will explore multi-ethnic identities from the perspective of multi-ethnic Japanese individuals themselves. The focus lies on tracking down and exploring multi-ethnic adolescents’ experiences of being Othered in Japan and look at the key elements that need to be examined when analyzing multi-ethnic identity. How do multi-ethnics manage feeling a constant mismatch between how they identify themselves and how others identify them? How do they then find a means to feel ‘normal’, like they belong? These are the main questions that I will focus on answering in this thesis.Show less
Difficulties women experience in career development have been widely discussed and are a worldwide issue. This becomes evident when looking at, for instance, the number of women in management...Show moreDifficulties women experience in career development have been widely discussed and are a worldwide issue. This becomes evident when looking at, for instance, the number of women in management positions. Companies’ top functions are still mainly dominated by men and research has shown that Japan, among others, is a country which is still very much behind in placing women in top positions. This paper is aimed at the relation between the form of welfare state in these two countries and how these models work for combining care of children with a career. In which form of welfare state would women be most successful in combining a career with family care tasks?Show less
Stories such as Madama Butterfly and Memoirs of a Geisha have garnered much attention and have been received with much enthusiasm by the general audience. These stories tend to deal with Asian...Show moreStories such as Madama Butterfly and Memoirs of a Geisha have garnered much attention and have been received with much enthusiasm by the general audience. These stories tend to deal with Asian women as highly sexualised, fetishised and infantilised, mirroring larger processes of power found most evidently in the theory of Orientalism. They integrate both traditional clichés and love stories within the pattern of ‘the West’ portraying ‘the East’, based on the assumption formulated by Karl Marx as: “They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented” (Said 1978, xxv). This paper will focus on how the same process of phrasing and representing can be found in English language news media and how we can understand this through processes of discourse, knowledge and power of which Orientalism provides an important example. The case study which will be used to demonstrate this point will consist of English language news reportage about the presumed massive involvement of Japanese women in an extramarital dating website, Ashley Madison, which has been launched in Japan in 2013. I will try to show how we can identify certain principles and mechanisms of the concept of Orientalism and thereby offer insight into the discursive construct that inform images of women in general, Asian women and also relationships between Japan and other countries. This offers some insight into how unequal power relations, which have their roots in past centuries, continue to thrive today through media representations. The main question answered in this thesis is: “How does reportage on Japanese women in major English language news media reflect the continuing processes of power and knowledge found in Orientalism?”.Show less
This thesis is focused on the foreign reception of visual kei performers. Through an analysis of the concept of masculinity and the online fan community this thesis attempts to grasp the different...Show moreThis thesis is focused on the foreign reception of visual kei performers. Through an analysis of the concept of masculinity and the online fan community this thesis attempts to grasp the different discourses on masculinity that exist within Japan and beyond.Show less
These days, all industrialized countries in the world have some kind of law implemented targeting women's rights on the job market. Yet the wage gap as well as 4other hurdles remain despite these...Show moreThese days, all industrialized countries in the world have some kind of law implemented targeting women's rights on the job market. Yet the wage gap as well as 4other hurdles remain despite these laws. The question is therefore what factors play a role in the fact that Japanese women who are among the best educated in the world, who not only have the Labor Standard Law, but an Equal Employment Opportunity Law as well, must contend with a substantial wage gap and such high unemployment rates? This thesis will consist of two parts aside from the introductory and the closing chapters. The first part will be chapter two, containing a literature review in which the research of several western scholars as well as native Japanese scholars concerning their assessment of the EEOL in Japan will be discussed and evaluated. In addition this part will also discuss the different roles companies and government play with regard to keeping the oppression of women in the labor market as it is, or furthering equal opportunity. In the second part of this thesis, chapter 3, the difficulties that working women, annd specifically working mothers, face in their day to day life will be examined on the basis of interviews conducted by scholars with these working women and mothers.Show less
This thesis considers the role of social capital in the post-disaster recovery of fishermen and farmers in a coastal and rural region. Primarily focusing on two towns in Miyagi prefecture which...Show moreThis thesis considers the role of social capital in the post-disaster recovery of fishermen and farmers in a coastal and rural region. Primarily focusing on two towns in Miyagi prefecture which were affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and the resulting tsunami in 2011, this thesis considers how the possession of cultural and social capital can hinder or enable recovery and company growth. Through the use of three case studies involving local fishermen and farmers who were affected by the disaster, this thesis argues that social capital plays an important role in enabling the recovery and growth of affected individuals and companies. In addition, not only the possession, but also the characteristics of said social capital determines to what extent and for what purposes social capital can be used to achieve recovery.Show less
This thesis discusses rehabilitation for the mentally ill in Japan. Though not completely new to Japan, rehabilitation as a method is only slowly progressing despite several researches that have...Show moreThis thesis discusses rehabilitation for the mentally ill in Japan. Though not completely new to Japan, rehabilitation as a method is only slowly progressing despite several researches that have shown positive results come from rehabilitation. A light is shown on the current situation from the viewpoint of the government, the patients and the family in order to clarify the reason for this slow progress of rehabilitation in Japan.Show less
