Hope you can join us...



GALE at JALT National Conference 2011
37th Annual International Conference on Language Teaching and Learning and Educational Materials Exposition from November 18th-21st at the National Olympics Memorial Center, Yoyogi, Tokyo, Japan. The theme of this year's conference is Teaching, Learning, Growing.

GALE PANEL DISCUSSION:

Colouring the Ivory Tower: Desperately Seeking Diversity and Equality in Japanese Academia


(Sat. November 19th, 12:40 PM - 2:10 PM, Room 415)


PANEL ABSTRACT:
This panel seeks to address issues pertinent to equality and diversity in modern Japan, and at Japanese universities in particular. The papers themselves represent a broad but related spectrum of areas, including sexism within the English teaching profession in Japan, racialized and gendered recruitment practices at Japanese universities as well as an examination of the fallacies and fables used to excuse and propagate harassment in academia. In a modern era, where Japan strives towards ideals of equality and diversity, there is increased pressure on Japan to put its "internal house" in order. These papers reflect areas in higher education that need urgent critical attention in integrating and respecting the true diverse nature of its residents. It is hoped that through these presentations and the pursuant discussion we can create a theoretical and practical framework promoting diversity and equality within the academe.


Panelist: Salem K. Hicks, Ritsumeikan University
Invisible Gender: Foreign Women Academics in Japan

Abstract:

Although the TESOL profession is a largely "female" dominated occupation, in Japanese universities it is dominated by men. The difficulty foreign women face in acquiring even part-time tertiary faculty positions is substantial. In Japan, the Native-speaker ideal continues to be "white" male, and the exceptions to this norm face numerous barriers. This research used semi-structured interviews of foreign women, teaching in higher educational institutions, to describe their experiences as professionals in the Japan-based TESOL community. These interviews illuminated how foreign women negotiate some of the unique ideological and structural obstacles to equality within the male-dominated foreign sub-culture, as well as the broader Japanese culture. The obstacles identified in this double-layer of cultural negotiation are important in understanding how gender impacts on the unique landscape of the foreign TESOL community. Several ideologies and structures operating within the dual layers of culture were identified in the data: the male as breadwinner model of citizenship; representation of male as normative; informal homophilic networks linked to nepotism in hiring; social and professional isolation and exclusion; permissive attitudes towards power and sexual harassment; and the reckoning of mainstream feminist ideals within a conservative sub-culture.

Panelist: Blake E. Hayes, Ritsumeikan University
Racialized and Gendered Hiring Practices: Egalitarian Ideologies and Appropriate Affirmative Action

Abstract:

Globalization and modernizing forces are influential in Japan's trajectory regarding gender and race egalitarianism, but they are also met with resistance when they conflict with national values. Methods for engineering social change regarding equality such as economic, organizational, political, and cultural policies can be thwarted by cultural ideologies that override change toward egalitarianism, particularly regarding employment. Additionally, institutional constraints combined with a traditionally gender segregated labour market results in the juxtaposition of apparently contradictory ideologies: the separate spheres for women and men, private and public respectively, are in conflict with modernizing ideologies of increased equality for women in employment. This is intersected with a racialized ELT labour market, and affirmative action approaches including compensatory models, diversity models, discrimination-blocking, and integrative models are generally stymied by recalcitrant traditionalists. Using unstructured interviews, this research examined structural and ideological benefits and constraints that emerge in hiring processes in Japanese universities focusing on the intersection of race and gender and highlighting the tension between traditionalist cultural narratives and Japan's trajectory of change to egalitarian ideals.

Panelist: Fiona Creaser, Osaka University
The truth behind the harassment myth

Abstract:

This paper examines the truth behind the harassment myth, by harassment myth I mean the fallacies and fables used to excuse and propagate harassment in academia in general and in Japan more specifically. Anecdotal evidence clearly indicates that harassment is alive and kicking on campuses throughout Japan, and people who are suffering from harassment often suffer in silence in spite of high profile harassment awareness campaigns. This paper will trace the trajectory of harassment awareness from the coining of the phrase sexual harassment in the 1970s by Lin Farley to the expansion and definition of other forms of harassment such as academic harassment, power harassment and the most recently coined moral harassment. The history of harassment policy in Japan will be discussed and the effectiveness of awareness policies analysed. Pertinent questions such as: why is harassment so prevalent on Japanese campuses; why is it still so difficult for victims of harassment to come forward and make a complaint; and finally why is there still so much ignorance about the effects harassment can have on a persons life and career, will be explored. Finally, some methods of breaking the myth apart and stopping the crippling isolation harassment causes will be discussed.

Best of JALT 2010 Kyoto Chapter Winner

Folake Abass: Exposing Gender Stereotypes
Kyoto JALT/GALE mini conference July 2010



Best of JALT 2010 GALE SIG Winner

Gwyn Helverson: Performing the Gendered Body in Visual Art: My Grandmothers: Yanagi Miwa Challenges Japanese Society's Concept of Aging
IGALA 6 Conference September 2010.



Archived Events

Gender Awareness in Language Education Conference

Exploring Gender and its Implications

May 28th, 2011

Kyoto University

We are delighted to announce that GALE will be holding a one day conference on May 28th at Kyoto University. This conference is an opportunity to share  research as well as exchange ideas on different aspects of gender and language education.

Program Overview Saturday May 28th

9:00 Registration
9:25 to 9:40 Opening address
9:45 to 12:15 Morning presentations
12:15 to 13:30 Lunch break
13:30 to 17:20 Afternoon presentations
17:20 to 17:30 Closing remarks
18:00 to 20:00 GALE dinner


Conference Fees
Gale Members 2,000yen
Jalt Members 2,500yen
Non-Members 3,000yen

Access Maps to Conference

Conference Program

Hotels in Kyoto

Message from the GALE Coordinator
- Folake Abass

Welcome to the GALE Conference 2011
Exploring Gender and its Implications

It has been a long haul from November 2010 when I first came up with the idea of another GALE Conference. During the JALT conference in Nagoya last November, we had many members asking when the next GALE event was going to be especially after our successful collaboration with IGALA at the IGALA6 conference in Tokyo last September. It was a great event with a strong GALE presence.

With such an overwhelming interest in another GALE event, the only thing for it was to organize one. And organize one we did! There were a few bumps in the road along the way but the end justifies the means and so here we are.

I would like to extend a very big thank you to Nancy Lee for making it possible for us to hold the conference at Kyoto University. There were lots of negotiations on our behalf for which we are most grateful.

I would also like to express my gratitude to all the GALE exec for their support in making this conference come to fruition. It wouldn`t have happened without you. As I said at the beginning when I quoted an African proverb,
If you want to go quickly go alone, if you want to go far, go together.
We have certainly come far together and it has brought us to where we are today. Thank you all!

Finally, I really do hope you all enjoy the conference and have a great day.