GLOBAL EDUCATION IN OVERSEAS JAPANESE SCHOOLS: A CASE STUDY OF SINGAPORE’S WASEDA SHIBUYA SENIOR HIGH

Abstract

This thesis seeks to complicate existing research on global education by highlighting how global education manifests differently in different social, cultural, and geographical contexts, focusing on the case study of an overseas Japanese high school in Singapore, Waseda Shibuya Senior High (WSSH). Through a triangulation of fieldwork methods at WSSH, this thesis explores the ideal globalised Japanese citizen that WSSH tries to nurture. I show how the school aims to maintain a primarily Japanese atmosphere in its everyday campus lifestyle and curriculum. WSSH also demonstrates its dedication to providing global education via its pedagogies and extra-curricular activities. In nurturing global citizens who are apt at embracing multiculturalism and diversity and who simultaneously retain a strong sense of their cultural identity as Japanese, I argue that the globalised Japanese citizen that WSSH aims to produce is one who embraces diversity while also retaining his or her identity, focusing on the importance of being able to communicate effectively even within multi-cultural communities.