The Japanese education system and its challenges for foreign students

This chapter illustrates how the school dimension embodies a focal lens to observe and study immigrant second generations. Undoubtedly, formal education plays a crucial role in shaping youth socialisation. Especially for foreign children, school represents the first arena of encounter with the social context of destination, outside the safe familial comfort. Attending school in the country of destination is an opportunity for immigrants’ children to study the language, to learn how to behave in a public situation, and to boost skills in order to compete one day in the labour market. However, school can also become the stage where social inequalities are reproduced and maintained, strengthening the dominant social group’s interests. These critical points need to be addressed, since international studies have calculated that foreign-origin pupils tend to perform worse than their native peers, with clear repercussions for their later occupational achievements and socio-economic positioning.