The 'New' Foreigners and the Social Reconstruction of Difference: The Cultural Diversification of Japanese Education

In our internationalizing world, even countries that have had a reputation of being so-called "homogeneous" are facing cultural diversification within. Though Japan is a country often described as homogeneous or, at least, homogeneously minded, with the inflows of new types of foreigners, it is presently experiencing what has been dubbed the process of "internal internationalization." Such new forms of diversity trigger the formation of new social alignments, and challenge existing categories of the Different. This paper takes the Japanese example as a case in point to re-examine the social nature of the construction of difference.