A Study of Transnational Education Strategies and Construction of "Cosmopolitan Japaneseness"

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The aim of this study is to explore how globalization, which is characterized by increasing international movement and transnationalism, influence families' education strategies, identifications, competencies in their everyday lives. Based on a fieldwork of Japanese families in Los Angeles, the study finds that the mothers strive to raise a' cosmopolitan Japanese' child through engaging in intensive mothering, which involves concerted efforts to create transnational social fields. Under such child-rearing strategies, these children construct multi-layered identities which go beyond a Japanese boundary, and in that process acquire global competences such as 'flexibility' and 'sociability'. From these findings, the study highlights both the possibilities and problems regarding 'global competencies' and 'cosmopolitan Japanese' children.