日本語教師とボランティアのカルチャー・ステレオタイプに関する調査研究 : 質問紙とインタビュー調査の分析結果から

While many psychologists have engaged in the research on Intercultural Education or Japanese as a Second Language, little examination regarding the cultural stereotypes of those teachers have been done in Japan. Investigating teachers' cultural stereotypes and attitudes towards cultural stereotypes are extremely significant, because these images and understandings are likely to influence the way their students construct their own images and knowledge of the cultures. In this study, questionnaires are provided to teachers and teaching volunteers in Japan to understand the nature of their culture stereotypes and their attitudes toward cultural stereotypes. Then the author conducted in ethnographic interviews of the teachers and volunteers who show a high degree of both awareness and self-control of culture stereotypes. In this paper, the author intends to discuss mainly the results of ethnographic interviews which depict the backgrounds and life history of those teachers and teaching volunteers. Out of 79 subjects, 7 teachers who showed great amount of awareness as well as self-control regarding culture stereotypes were interviewed from 2003 to 2004. All those interviewees were either the teachers or the teaching volunteers of JSL, their ages range from 30 to 55, and they have taught more than 3 years. Furthermore they lived more than a year in the foreign countries, or had enriched experiences of foreign exchange in Japan. Through interviews, it was found that none of the subjects were brought up by authoritative fathers, and 5 out of 7 subjects were either bullied by their school mates when they were in school. or belonged to a social minority in other countries to a great extent. In addition, two subjects indicated the importance of key persons who had influenced the subjects' attitudes towards culture stereotypes. One subject said that her experiences in teaching Japanese to foreign students played a significant role in her view of foreigners. Another subject indicated that her specialization in cultura