Importing Diversity: Inside Japan's JET Program

by David L. McConnell

  Three days later, Sato-sensei called Chad to inform him that he had been allowed to keep Yamaguni. When I asked Tanabe-san what had happened to change his mind, he replied: "That was a really difficult case. We called the principal of Yamaguni, and it turned out that Chad was very well liked by teachers and students there. We also didn't want another ALT to leave the prefecture since we had had such bad luck up to that point. But Sato-sensei felt strongly that we had set a policy and ought to abide by it. He didn't think we should cave in to ALTs' demands. We went back and forth a long time, but ultimately Mr. Tagai and I persuaded Sato-sensei to give in." Tanabe-san also noted that even though Chad had ignored the usual protocol by leapfrogging Sato-sensei and issuing an ultimatum, he had acted with some restraint. Moreover, both Tagai and Tanabe-san liked Chad as a person and thought he was doing a good job in his school visits.

  Chad's case offers several important lessons for understanding the response of Japanese bureaucracies to conflict. Especially interesting was how Tagai handled his encounter with Chad, ensuring that Sato-sensei would not lose face. In reality, there was no other "superior" involved in the decision, but it was crucial for him to support Sato-sensei at that moment. In addition, in dealing with Chad as in dealing with Lisa, the principal decision makers at the board of education differed markedly on how to reconcile conflicting factors. While all three of the administrators involved felt Chad was out of place in making his demands, that agreement by no means led to a natural consensus on what action to take. Finally, the case illustrates yet again the susceptibility of Japanese officials to foreign pressure and the persistent concern with how "international conflict" might harm the prefecture's image.

  More Problems

  Over the next few months, there was no letup in problems. First, an Irish ALT, Pete, was arrested for drunkenly kicking a police car on the main thoroughfare of the prefecture's capital city, and it was up to Sato-sensei and Tanaka-san to vouch for his character, apologize to school personnel, and ultimately bail him out after a two-day stint in jail. Tanabe-san explained that Pete had antagonistic feelings toward police in general as a result of growing up in Northern Ireland.

  Some months later, Wendy appeared at the board of education with her letter of resignation. She had been placed at Subame High School-the oldest, most traditional, and most academic high school in the prefectureand from the start it had been a bad match. She did not get along with most of her teachers, and there was very little room in the curriculum for conversational English. With little training in Japanese language and culture and little patience for difference, she had quickly soured on Japanese education and society. Recently, she had become pregnant and her husband had found a job elsewhere, so she had decided to call it quits. But she had two financial demands. First, according to the contract, if she quit in midmonth she would have to pay back some of that month's salary, which she had already received. This infuriated her, and Sato-sensei generously offered a compromise, realizing the futility of trying to recover money already disbursed. Second, Wendy insisted that the prefecture pay her airfare home even though her contract stated clearly that she would forfeit it if she left early. She argued that she knew of cases in other prefectures in which the rules had been bent. On this point, however, Sato-sensei held his ground.

  Shortly after Wendy's departure, Brent, an ALT who had been based in the prefectural education center for two years, was notified by the board of education that he was to travel by bus once a week to teach in Wendy's place. He replied that he was not interested in doing that, as it was not part of his job description. In no mood to bargain, the head of the compulsory education section told him that he was not asking for an opinion but telling Brent to do it. Reluctantly, Brent agreed. The next morning, however, his boss at the education center secretly went to the bus station and hid nearby, reading a newspaper, to see whether Brent actually showed up. When he did not arrive, his boss called the board of education; after the confrontation that ensued, Brent quit. Then, having sent home thousands of dollars in savings, he told Sato-sensei and Tanabe-san he did not have enough money to cover his financial obligations (outstanding bills for rent, phone, utilities, etc.) before leaving. These two cases only confirmed for Tanabe-san and Sato-sensei what they had already surmised: some ALTs could be downright cheap. A Japanese person, they said, even if he only made a third of the ALTs' salary, would never consider lodging such complaints and demands. After recounting the stories later, Tanabe-san fumed, "Sometimes I think money is all the ALTs worry about! "Zs

  BUREAUCRATIC INFORMALITY AND RESPONSES TO CONFLICT

  Moments of crisis often expose taken-for-granted assumptions embedded in structures of power, and the prefecture's handling of the incidents described is quite revealing. Most notably, Sato-sensei and Tanabe-san would go to extremes to prevent ALTs from leaving prematurely. Their sensitivity to outsiders' perceptions and desire to shield signs of conflict from the public eye were typical of prefectural responses more generally.

  Yet their readiness to appease by no means suggests that they saw the ALTs' demands as justified. Both Sato-sensei and Tanabe-san tended to blame their misfortunes on the selection of "bad" (shitsu ga yokunai) foreigners by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Tanabe-san, for instance, in formed me shortly after my arrival that there were basically three kinds of ALTs: those who came to teach, those who came to vacation and sightsee, and those who came to further their business careers. The latter two types, he explained, generally approached their work in schools with a less-thanserious demeanor and therefore were unacceptable to the board of education. Noting that the quality of ALTs seemed to be declining with each year of the program, he added: "The main thing we try to avoid is ALTs leaving early. So far we haven't been very successful at that, but our colleagues understand that it's because of problems with the foreign assistants, not us. If someone left because of conditions at his school, that would really be an embarrassment for us." This separation of (structural) conditions of employment and personal responses of ALTs into mutually exclusive categories has little explanatory value, for it ignores the complex interaction between the two that occurs in international exchanges; it does, however, usefully shift fault away from the prefectural school system.

  One way to improve the quality of their participants was to game the selection process to their advantage. After the second year of the program, Sato-sensei and Tanabe-san decided that since they had had considerable trouble with Americans and Australians, they would request only British and Canadian participants the following year. When that made no difference, they then requested only men, on the grounds that women had a harder time adjusting to Japanese society. This second request was not granted by CLAIR, yet the sentiment behind it-the belief that women were more likely to suffer from adjustment problems-was one I encountered frequently among educational administrators. Data only slightly support this notion; as of 1991, women accounted for 57 percent of all JET participants and 65 percent of those who resigned prematurely.z9

  Hiring a Human Shield

  At the same time that they were trying to tweak the selection process to their advantage, Sato-sensei and Tanabe-san were taking several other decisive steps to ward off future problems and to reduce the chances of more face-to-face conflict in a foreign language. The most dramatic of these measures was the decision to hire a veteran ALT to work as liaison in the prefectural board of education itself. In the summer of 1989 Kevin, a cleancut, likable American with a master's degree in English literature, was reassigned from the commercial high school to full-time duty in the board of education. Sato-sensei had become acquainted with Kevin in a very unorthodox manner: Kevin's Japanese girlfriend had become pregnant, and the two had hastily decided to get married. In spite of the awkwardness of their encounter, Sato-sensei was impressed with Kevin's sense of responsibility and his sensitivity to Japanese cultural nuances. He also had two other traits that were indispensable for the job: he enjoyed after-hours drinking, and he had a very eff
ective and charismatic classroom presence.

  Bringing Kevin into the prefectural office had several benefits. First, he could act as a human shield. Not only was Kevin expected to help mediate crises, but he was also asked to work proactively, calling all ALTs soon after the school year began to learn how they were adjusting and to offer advice when possible. Eventually, he was dispatched to every single base school hosting an ALT to consult with each about team teaching and how to improve relations with the school.30 In addition, Kevin provided important administrative help. Only months earlier Tanabe-san had requested that the prefectural office establish a new position to help coordinate the ALT project, but the budget office had denied his request. Assigning an ALT to work in the prefectural board of education was an alternative strategy for gaining assistance at minimal extra cost to the prefecture.

  A final benefit to hiring Kevin was the role he could play in deflecting AJET's demands. Sato-sensei was adamantly against AJET, and he felt that CLAIR had gone overboard in acceding to the group's wishes. For example, when CLAIR asked prefectural boards of education to classify the meetings of AJET prefectural representatives as an "official business trip" (shucchoatsukai), thus allowing them to miss their school classes without taking vacation time or losing pay, Sato-sensei complained, "We really ought not to allow them to do that." He continued:

  Sometimes at [Tokyo] orientation when I hear AJET people criticize the textbooks, I feel like telling them, "If you don't like them, go home!" Today at the Ministry of Education meetings for ETCs, Mr. Wada said that ideally they would just follow the ministry's plan for orientation, but that we have to let AJET play a role or they won't cooperate with us. In some ways I think they're just like the teachers' union because the AJET representatives spend so much time working on their own projects that they don't spend time trying to improve relations with Japanese teachers at their school. So we don't want our prefectural ALTs to get involved with AJET.

  So eager was Sato-sensei not to have to deal separately with AJET's prefectural representative that when Kevin went to the renewers' conference in the spring, he urged him to run for the position of prefectural representative. But Kevin lost, and the following year saw much tension between the board of education and AJET's prefectural representative, who felt that Sato-sensei's tendency to consult with Kevin about ALT policy left him out of the loop. "It would be so much easier," lamented Sato-sensei, "if the board of education could choose the AJET representative."

  Apparently, Sato-sensei and Tanabe-san were not alone in recognizing that some buffer was needed in the board of education. In 1991 CLAIR formally instituted a position of "prefectural liaison" in response to the decline in AJET membership and to the growing realization that AJET prefectural representatives did not always share the views of the majority of ALTs in their prefecture. By 1995 roughly 70 percent of prefectures and designated cities employed a veteran ALT in the board of education for at least a day or two a week.;' While ALTs in this position had limited influence over decisions made by the board of education, their mere presence in these offices forced prefectural administrators to come to grips with diversity on a daily basis.

  When Trust Breaks Down: The Role of Employment Contracts

  Yet another strategy devised by Sato-sensei and Tanabe-san for dealing with their numerous problems was to create an increasingly detailed and airtight employment contract. Each year, they would revise the contracts, adding new articles or rewording old ones, in light of the previous year's events. By 199o the contract had become a small booklet that elaborated in excruciating detail every conceivable expectation and contingency. Its twenty-eight "articles" covered resignation, dismissal, reduction of salary, traveling expenses, holidays, paid leave, special holidays, special holidays for female ALTs, absence, prosecution leave, prohibition from outside work, procedure for taking sick leave, supervisors' orders, diligence, conduct restrictions, confidentiality, restrictions against involvement in profitmaking enterprises, religious activities and related matters, restrictions on operating motor vehicles, disciplinary action, and more.

  The use of detailed employment contracts runs contrary to Japanese custom. Typically, contracts are short, symbolic documents used to signify the cementing of a long-term relationship of trust and mutual cooperation. Tacit understanding and an implied sense of trust are preferred to a formal, written delineation of job responsibilities, rules, and regulations. It is assumed that unforeseen problems will be worked out through mutual goodwill and cooperation, and the entire system takes for granted that individual and institutional goals are not by definition in conflict. In contrast, the legal formulations of employment in the JET participants' home countries grow out of a very different notion of justice, as Frank Upham has pointed out: "If society is built on individualism and competition and the only acknowledged common ground is enlightened self-interest, social life becomes a desperate contest and community nothing more than a temporary equilibrium among fundamentally unconnected and potentially antagonistic actors. Because mutual trust and personal relationships are contingent and make unreliable guides for resolving conflict, the rules of the contest and the mode of their application become all important."32 This legal-rational model emphasizes explicit, context-free standardization of rules and procedures and the importance of public contracts that delineate, item by item, specific rules and responsibilities.

  In most Japanese organizations, however, expressive exchange relationships of a general, long-term nature coexist with more instrumental and contractual ones. Within the formal bureaucratic structure, we find one-toone relationships between superiors and subordinates that are based on mutual trust, confidence, and loyalty and that involve a variety of expressive exchanges even outside the workplace. In effect, there are two social orders operating in Japanese bureaucracy. One is the formal level of universal principle, which in Japan is referred to as tatemae. The other is the informal level, or honne, influenced by the realities of particular situations and relationships.33

  During the MEF Program only a two-page contract was used, but Japanese officials quickly realized that adherence to this custom would prove disastrous as the numbers of participants who were unfamiliar with Japanese cultural expectations increased exponentially. For prefectural administrators, the crucial problem was how to control and manage ALTs given that informal mechanisms of social control did not seem to work. They could not count on the ALTs' having internalized Japanese norms of proper behavior, valuing the nonverbal conveyance of information, or striving to understand what was expected of them without being told.

  Rather than attempting to socialize ALTs to the expectations of Japanese work groups, Japanese administrators took the opposite approach and tried to meet the JET participants on their own terms. This tendency was encouraged at the national level. In 1987 CLAIR sent a model contract to all prefectures, with instructions that it could be modified in accordance with local expectations, and included in its orientation manual for local governments a strongly worded directive:

  If your explanations of the terms of the contract, rules of conduct, and other important matters are ambiguous, trouble will most likely result, especially with regard to working conditions and prohibited activities. The foreign assistants, having been raised in a contractual society, are used to listening to such explanations, even when they are very strict. It is necessary to refrain from ambiguous treatment and to give firm and persistent explanations, making sure at all times that the foreign assistants understand.14

  Caricatures such as these may partially explain why Japanese prefectural officials not only used an employment contract but embraced it with a fervor that seems puzzling in light of their own preference for informal modes of conflict resolution. Ironically, Sato-sensei's inclination to rely primarily on the contract to resolve disputes earned him a reputation among prefectural ALTs as cold and calculating. Both Lisa and Toby, for instance, interpreted his verbatim reading from the contract as exemplifying perfectly the lack of
a human touch that was the problem with Japan's internationalization. Even Kevin, who was viewed as more of an insider by Sato-sensei and Tanabe-san, sometimes objected to the extent to which appeal to the contract became Japanese officials' knee-jerk response: "It seems like whenever I bring up things involving ALT requests-like someone wants extra vacation time or if they can't be at a required meeting-it's like a wall goes up and they just say, 'No' and go straight to the contract." Adding to the suspicion of ALTs were several misunderstandings that resulted from discrepancies between the Japanese version of the contract and the English version that they received. To the ALTs such discrepancies seemed irresponsible at best and downright dishonest at worst.

  Cultures differ in their assumptions about motivation and human nature, as well as in their repertoires of techniques for interpersonal influence. Moreover, different historical experiences generate and perpetuate distinctive myths about how specific groups of people behave and how they ought to be managed.;' In this case, prefectural officials had little faith that the ALTs would respond to appeals directed at internalized norms. The ALTs tended to focus on particular issues and immediate circumstances, in part because they knew that their stay in japan was limited. In addition, Sato-sensei and Tanabe-san had to worry about precedents. The bureaucratic impulse is to standardize procedures in order to ensure smooth and efficient operation, and they did not like exceptions or disruptions. The failure of their preferred, symbolic means of control thus led Sato-sensei and Tanabe-san to embrace the contract with a fervor that at times seemed to border on desperation. But although they could certainly operate under this Weberian model in which rewards and punishments were explicitly spelled out, I sensed that they were never entirely comfortable with it. The clear-cut dualism of good and bad, right and wrong, that is characteristic of the "contractual model" did not fit well with their sense of morality.