Keiko Shikita

The past two decades have witnessed a dramatic increase in cross-border marriage in Southeast and East Asia largely as a result of increased population mobility as people move for work, study, lifestyle or even marital reasons. Japan is no exception with a substantial increase in the number of cross-border or ‘international marriages’ taking place since 1990. The pattern of international marriage is highly gendered, with Japanese men very much more likely than Japanese women to marry a foreign spouse. It also reflects post-colonial and on-going power relations in the region, with women from China, the Philippines and Korea, in that order of magnitude, making up the majority of foreign brides marrying Japanese men. These cross-border marriages are leading to an increasing number of mixed heritage families living and ‘doing education’ in Japan.<br> Taking a case study approach, this paper explores in depth the educational strategies of three highly educated Chinese women vis-à-vis their children; all married to Japanese men and living in Japan. It seeks to understand the expectations, desires, and lived experiences of these women in the sociocultural domain of childrearing and education. A key conceptual framework is that of agency in the face of sociocultural constraint. Two sets of interrelated questions will be addressed. What do these women hope for their children in terms of formal education and transmission of cultural heritage and how do they set about realizing their aims? In what way does the immediate familial sociocultural environment set limits upon this? By focusing on highly educated Chinese women, a group of women motivated by strong cultural and socioeconomic forces to maximise the possibilities of their children’s education, we are able to see clearly this interaction of agency and constraint.