ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the extent to which the Japanese educational system can be said to tolerate or promote multiculturalism in relation to its language educational policies and programs for language minority children in the era of increasing globalization. Aforementioned arguments on the ideological underpinnings of existing educational policies and programs are presented in the first section of the chapter. In the second section connects the dominant language ideologies on the macro level of educational policies with their manifestation in the micro level of social practices. The chapter also examine the accommodation, negotiation, and conflict between dominant ideologies and counter-ideologies manifested at three different levels: 1) the level of conception and funding, 2) the local institutional level, and 3) the classroom discourse level. Finally, it concludes that language ideologies supporting JSL instruction, while paying lip service to multiculturalism, are aimed at assimilation under the assumption that foreign nationals should settle down and stay in Japan.
