Language and disability in Japan

Language relating to disability in the public arena has been a sensitive issue in Japan as elsewhere. Since the 1970s and 80s, major media organisations have replaced words considered derogatory with more acceptable equivalents; laws, statutes and other legal documents have likewise been revised. This article examines how the language used to portray people with disabilities has changed, how the changes came about and how they were received. The debate has largely been played out in four public spaces, which to some extent intersect and overlap: the media (both print and visual), the laws, literature and, increasingly now, the Internet. I argue that while the laws were rewritten primarily as the result of external international trends, such as the International Year of Disabled Persons, disability groups achieved media compliance mainly by exploiting the keen desire of Japanese media organisations to avoid public embarrassment resulting from vocal protests over infractions.

Language, respect and the power of protest: Linguistic stereotyping and people with disabilities in Japan

Discriminatory language became an important social issue in the west in the late twentieth century, when debates on political correctness and minority rights focused largely on the issue of respect in language. Japan is often criticized for having made only token attempts to address this issue. This paper investigates how one marginalized group—people with disabilities—has dealt with discriminatory and disrespectful language. The debate has been played out in four public spaces: the media, the law, literature, and the Internet. The paper discusses the kind of language, which has generated protest, the empowering strategies of direct action employed to combat its use, and the response of the media, the bureaucracy, and the literati. Government policy has not kept pace with social change in this area; where it exists at all, it is often contradictory and far from clear. I argue that while the laws were rewritten primarily as a result of external international trends, disability support groups achieved domestic media compliance by exploiting the keen desire of media organizations to avoid public embarrassment. In the absence of language policy formulated at the government level, the media effectively instituted a policy of self-censorship through strict guidelines on language use, thereby becoming its own best watchdog. Disability support groups have recently enlisted the Internet as an agent of further empowerment in the ongoing discussion of the issue.

Beyond the middle: A report about literacy and numeracy development of target group students in the middle years of schooling: Volume 1

The report was commissioned by the Department of Education, Science and Training to investigate the perceived efficacy of middle years programmes in all States and Territories in improving the quality of teaching, learning and student outcomes, especially in literacy and numeracy and for student members of particular target groups. These target groups included students from lower socio-economic communities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, students with a language background other than English, rural and remote students, and students struggling with the transition from middle/upper primary to the junior secondary years. The project involved large scale national and international literature reviews on Australian and international middle years approaches as well as an analysis of key literacy and numeracy teaching and learning strategies being used. In the report, there is emergent evidence of the relative efficacy of a combination of explicit state policy, dedicated funding and curriculum and professional development frameworks that are focused on the improvement of classroom pedagogy in the middle years. The programs that evidenced the greatest current and potential value for target group students tended to have developed in state policy environments that encouraged a structural rather than adjunct approach to middle years innovations. The authors conclude that in order to translate the gains made into sustainable improvement of educational results in literacy and numeracy for target groups, there is a need for a second generation of middle years theorising, research, development and practice.