Understanding Acculturation Strategies Through Intergroup Social Interaction: A Case Study of Thai Workers in Japan
Abstract
Most studies of Thai workers in Japan are oriented towards low-skilled groups of workers. Unlike low-skilled workers, highly skilled migrant workers experience intense social interaction with Japanese colleagues, resulting in dynamics and degrees of intergroup relationships and acculturation process. This article therefore identifies acculturation strategies dominant among highly skilled Thai workers in Japanese working societies through the lens of intergroup contacts. It also explores the intergroup social interactions between Thai and Japanese people in workplaces and uncovers the effects of intergroup contact on the acculturation process. Narratives from interviews with 12 highly skilled Thai workers led to three findings. First, integration is predominantly identified as the most advantageous acculturation strategy. Second, positive intergroup social contact prevails on the condition that Thai workers strictly follow the norms and values in the workplaces, particularly behaviors which demonstrate a sense of selflessness. Finally, positive social contact between highly skilled Thai workers and Japanese people facilitates the integration process of highly skilled Thai workers. Based on the findings, some implications are discussed.
Downloads
References
Aacharya, R. P., & Shah, A. (2020). Ethical dimensions of stigma and discrimination in Nepal during COVID-19 pandemic. Ethics, Medicine and Public Health, 14, 100536. http:// 10.1016/j.jemep.2020.100536
Allport, G. W., Clark, K., & Pettigrew, T. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Basic Books; Special edition.
Al-Mahrooqi, R., & Denman, C. (2018). English language proficiency and communicative competence in Oman: Implications for employability and sustainable development. English Education in Oman: Current Scenarios and Future Trajectories, 181-193. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0265-7_11
Aoyama, K. (2009). Thai migrant sexworkers: From modernisation to globalisation. Springer.
Arends-Tóth, J., & Van de Vijver, F. J. (2006). Issues in the conceptualization and assessment of acculturation. In Acculturation and parent-child relationships (pp. 33-62). Routledge.
Bengtsson, M. (2016). How to plan and perform a qualitative study using content analysis. NursingPlus open, 2, 8-14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.npls.2016.01.001
Berry, J. W. (2019). Acculturation: A personal journey across cultures. Cambridge University Press.
Bisin, A., Patacchini, E., Verdier, T., & Zenou, Y. (2011). Ethnic identity and labour market outcomes of immigrants in Europe. Economic Policy, 26(65), 57-92. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0327.2010.00258.x
Bornstein, M. H. (2017). The specificity principle in acculturation science. Perspectives on psychological science, 12(1), 3-45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616655997
Canale, M. (1987). The measurement of communicative competence. Annual review of applied linguistics, 8, 67-84. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0267190500001033
Carter, M. J., & Fuller, C. (2015). Symbolic interactionism. Sociopedia. isa, 1(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1177/205684601561
Choy, B., Arunachalam, K., Gupta, S., Taylor, M., & Lee, A. (2021). Systematic review: Acculturation strategies and their impact on the mental health of migrant populations. Public Health in Practice, 2, 100069. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhip.2020.100069
Department of Employment of Thailand. (2020). “รายงานการวิจัยเพื่อการพัฒนาองค์กรและระบบจัดส่งแรงงานไทยไปต่างประเทศโดยรัฐ”. [Research Report for Development of Thai Workers Overseas Deployment Organization and System by Government], Department of Employment of Thailand , Accessed September 15, 2022 from https://www.doe.go.th/prd/assets/upload/files/overseas_th/9127093006c0836da0bedc5a161cc59a.pdf
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2021). ‘Men are butterflies, women are hindlimbs of an elephant’: Thai women’s gendered being in transnational spaces. Gender, Place & Culture, 28(5), 680-701. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2020.1752628
Froese, F. J. (2010). Acculturation experiences in Korea and Japan. Culture & Psychology, 16(3), 333-348. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067x10371138
Fulton, A. E., Pullen-Sansfaçon, A., Brown, M., Éthier, S., & Graham, J. R. (2016). Migrant social workers, foreign credential recognition and securing employment in Canada: A qualitative analysis of pre-employment experiences. Canadian Social Work Review, 33(1), 65-86.
Georgas, J., & Papastylianou, D. (2021). Acculturation and ethnic identity: The remigration of ethnic Greeks to Greece. In Key issues in cross-cultural psychology (pp. 114-127). Garland Science.
Giele, J. Z., & Elder, G. H. (Eds.). (1998). Methods of life course research: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Sage.
Gilmour, S., Mai, P. L., Nguyen, P., Dhungel, B., Tomizawa, M., & Nguyen, H. (2020). Progress towards health for all: time to end discrimination and marginalization. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(5), 1696. 1696. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17051696
Grosfoguel, R. (1997). Colonial Caribbean Migrations to France, The Netherlands, Great Britain and the United States. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 20(3), 594-612. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.1997.9993977
Guler, J., & Berman, S. L. (2019). Acculturation, identity distress, and internalizing symptoms among resettled adolescent refugees. Journal of Adolescence, 76, 129-138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2019.07.016
Hammack, P. L., & Toolis, E. E. (2016). Putting the Social into Personal Identity: The Master Narrative as Root Metaphor for Psychological and Developmental ScienceCommentary on McLean and Syed. Human Development, 58(6), 350-364. https://doi.org/10.1159/000446054
Hawthorne, L. (1997). The question of discrimination: skilled migrants’ access to Australian employment. International migration, 35(3), 395-420.
Holbrow, H. J., & Nagayoshi, K. (2016). Economic integration of skilled migrants in Japan: The role of employment practices. International Migration Review, 1-29. https://doi.org/10.1111/imre.12295
Iida, Y. (2013). Rethinking identity in modern Japan: Nationalism as aesthetics. Routledge.
ILO (2023). ILO Brief – International Labour Organization. Accessed April 21, 2023, from https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/---sro-bangkok/documents/publication/wcms_760374.pdf.
International Organization for Migration (n.d.). World Migration Report 2022. World migration report. Accessed May 12, 2023, from https://worldmigrationreport.iom.int/wmr-2022-interactive/.
Kalapong, J. (2023). Blessing the living spaces of migrants: religious practices of Thai workers in Japan and their meanings. South East Asia Research, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/0967828x.2023.2174041
Kamolkhantibowon, A. (2018). How does the Japanese workplace culture motivate and discourage Thai employees in Japan?. [Doctoral Thesis, Mahidol University]. https://archive.cm.mahidol.ac.th/handle/123456789/2713
Keles, S., Friborg, O., Idsøe, T., Sirin, S., & Oppedal, B. (2016). Depression among unaccompanied minor refugees: the relative contribution of general and acculturation-specific daily hassles. Ethnicity & health, 21(3), 300-317. https://doi.org/10.1080/13557858.2015.1065310
Kim, B. (2011). Blatant Discrimination Disappears, But…: The Politics of Everyday Exclusion in Contemporary Japan. Asian Perspective, 35(2), 287-308. https://doi.org/10.1353/apr.2011.0008
Kitiarsa, P. (2008). Thai migrants in Singapore: State, intimacy and desire. Gender, Place & Culture, 15(6), 595-610. https://doi.org/10.1080/09663690802518495
Krause, N., & Goldenhar, L. M. (1992). Acculturation and psychological distress in three groups of elderly Hispanics. Journal of Gerontology, 47(6), S279-S288. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronj/47.6.S279
Lechner, F. J. (1998). The institutional order: Economy, kinship, religion, polity, law, and education in evolutionary and comparative perspective. Contemporary Sociology, 27(2), 212.
Lieblich, A., Tuval-Mashiach, R., & Zilber, T. (1998). Narrative research: Reading, analysis, and interpretation (Vol. 47). Sage. https://doi.org/10.2307/2654826
Machimura, T. (2015). Local settlement patterns of foreign workers in greater Tokyo: Growing diversity and its consequences. In Japan and global migration (pp. 178-197). Routledge.
Madziva, R., McGrath, S., & Thondhlana, J. (2014). The hidden face of discrimination in the global labour market: The case of Zimbabwean highly skilled migrants in the UK.
Meek, C. B. (2004). The dark side of Japanese management in the 1990s: Karoshi and ijime in the Japanese workplace. Journal of managerial psychology, 19(3), 312-331. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940410527775.
Morita, L. (2015). Some manifestations of Japanese exclusionism. Sage Open, 5(3), 2158244015600036.
Mousa, S. (2020). Building social cohesion between Christians and Muslims through soccer in post-ISIS Iraq. Science, 369(6505), 866-870.
Ndengeyingoma, A., Montigny, F. D., & Miron, J. M. (2014). Development of personal identity among refugee adolescents: Facilitating elements and obstacles. Journal of child health care, 18(4), 369-377. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367493513496670
Neuliep, J. W., Chaudoir, M., & McCroskey, J. C. (2001). A cross‐cultural comparison of ethnocentrism among Japanese and United States college students. Communication Research Reports, 18(2), 137-146. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824090109384791
Nguyen, A. M. D., & Benet-Martínez, V. (2013). Biculturalism and adjustment: A meta-analysis. Journal of cross-cultural psychology, 44(1), 122-159. https://doi.org/10.1177/002202211143509
OECD (2020). Japan. Essay. In International Migration Outlook 2020. OECD Publishing.
Oishi, N. (2021). Skilled or unskilled?: The reconfiguration of migration policies in Japan. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(10), 2252-2269.https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1731984
Otsuka, H., & Anamizu, S. (2019). Japanese university students’ difficulty in living and its association with suicidal ideation. Asian journal of psychiatry, 43, 50-52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2019.05.004
Padilla, A. M. (1980). Acculturation, theory, models, and some new findings (1st Ed.). Routledge.
Pak, K. T. (2003). Foreigners are local citizens too. In M. Douglass & G.S. Roberts (Eds.), Japan and Global Migration: Foreign Workers and the Advent of a Multicultural Society Japan and global migration: Foreign workers and the advent of a multicultural society (pp. 244-274). Routledge.
Park, H. (2019). A model of identity development: Life-course narratives of North Korean youth resettling in South Korea. Journal of adolescence, 76, 162-172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2019.08.014
Park, C., Nam, S., Redeker, N. S., Shebl, F. M., Dixon, J., Jung, T. H., & Whittemore, R. (2022). The effects of acculturation and environment on lifestyle behaviors in Korean immigrants: the mediating role of acculturative stress and body image discrepancy. Ethnicity & Health, 27(1), 157-173. https://doi.org/10.1080/13557858.2019.1658182
Pettigrew, T. F. (1998). Intergroup contact theory. Annual review of psychology, 49(1), 65-85.
Rajendra, T. M. (2017). Migrants and citizens: Justice and responsibility in the ethics of immigration. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.
Redfield, A. C. (1936). The distribution of physiological and chemical peculiarities in the" natural" groups of organisms. The American Naturalist, 70(727), 110-122.
Roccas, S., & Schwartz, S. H. (1993). Effects of intergroup similarity on intergroup relations. European journal of social psychology, 23(6), 581-595. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420230604
Roccas, S., Horenczyk, G., & Schwartz, S. H. (2000). Acculturation discrepancies and well‐being: The moderating role of conformity. European Journal of Social Psychology, 30(3), 323-334. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-0992(200005/06)30:3<323::AID-EJSP992>3.0.CO;2-5
Ruenkaew, P. (2002). Female Thai Migrants in Japan. Journal of Gender studies, 5(22), 47-69.
Sam, D. L., & Berry, J. W. (2010). Acculturation: When individuals and groups of different cultural backgrounds meet. Perspectives on psychological science, 5(4), 472-481. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691610373075
Scacco, A., & Warren, S. S. (2018). Can social contact reduce prejudice and discrimination? Evidence from a field experiment in Nigeria. American Political Science Review, 112(3), 654-677.
Schwartz, S. J., Unger, J. B., Zamboanga, B. L., & Szapocznik, J. (2010). Rethinking the concept of acculturation: implications for theory and research. American Psychologist, 65(4), 237. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019330
Sellek, Y. (1996, August). Female foreign migrant workers in Japan: Working for the yen. In Japan Forum (Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 159-175). Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.1080/09555809608721567
Shisana, O., & Celentano, D. D. (1985). Depressive symptomatology among Namibian adolescent refugees. Social Science & Medicine, 21(11), 1251-1257. https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(85)90274-6
Smith, R. J. (1961). The Japanese rural community: norms, sanctions, and ostracism. American Anthropologist, 63(3), 522-533.
Smutkupt, S., & Pattana Kitiarsa (1999) คนชายขอบ: ชีวิตและชุมชนของคนงานไทยในญี่ปุ่น [Surviving in the Marginal World: Life and Community of Thai Migrant Workers in Japan].” In Anthropology and Globalization: Thai Experience (1999): 13–63.
Spolsky, B. (1989). Communicative competence, language proficiency, and beyond. Applied Linguistics, 10(2), 138-156. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/10.2.138
Stephan, W. G., & Stephan, C. W. (2013). An integrated threat theory of prejudice. In Reducing prejudice and discrimination (pp. 23-45). Psychology Press.
Takamatsu, R. (2021). Culture and extrinsic moral motives: comparisons of Japan residents and Japanese sojourners in individualistic and loose countries. Culture and Brain, 9(2), 112-127.
Tan, K. S. (2018). Traversing the Golden Mile: An ethnographic outline of Singapore’s Thai Enclave. Journal of Urban Ethnography, 3.
Tian, Y. (2019). Workers by any other name: comparing co-ethnics and ‘interns’ as labour migrants to Japan. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45(9), 1496-1514. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2018.1466696
Tsuda, T. G. (2022). Racism without racial difference? Co-ethnic racism and national hierarchies among Nikkeijin ethnic return migrants in Japan. In Asian Migration and New Racism (pp. 11-31). Routledge.
UNHCR (n.d). UNHCR Global Report 2005 - Glossary. Accessed May 12, 2023, from https://www.unhcr.org/media/unhcr-global-report-2005-glossary.
Vedder, P., Sam, D. L., & Liebkind, K. (2007). The acculturation and adaptation of Turkish adolescents in North-Western Europe. Applied Development Science, 11(3), 126-136. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888690701454617
Wagner, U., Van Dick, R., Pettigrew, T. F., & Christ, O. (2003). Ethnic prejudice in East and West Germany: The explanatory power of intergroup contact. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 6(1), 22-36.
Ward, C., & Rana-Deuba, A. (1999). Acculturation and adaptation revisited. Journal of cross-cultural psychology, 30(4), 422-442. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430203006001010
World Bank (2015). Japan's New Immigration Policy May Be a Development Game Changer for South Asia. 2015. World Bank Blogs. Accessed April 21, 2023, from https://blogs.worldbank.org/peoplemove/japan-s-new-immigration-policy-may-be-development-game-changer-south-asia.
Yamamura, E. (2009). Frequency of contact with foreigners in a homogenous society: perceived consequences of foreigner increases in Japan. Eiji Yamamura (Item ID: 14646), Munich Personal RePEc Archive, Universitätsbibliothek, Munich, Germany.
Yamanaka, K. (2003). I will go home, but when?. In M. Douglass & G.S. Roberts (Eds.), Japan and Global Migration: Foreign Workers and the Advent of a Multicultural Society Japan and global migration: Foreign workers and the advent of a multicultural society (pp. 123-152). Routledge.
Yamawaki, K. (2015). Foreign workers in Japan: A historical perspective. In Japan and Global Migration (pp. 36-50). Routledge.
Young, M. (1996). Acculturation, identity and well-being: the adjustment of Somalian refugees. Sante mentale au Quebec, 21(1), 271-290.
Zhang, H. (2021). From Thailand to Hong Kong: Reinventing womanhood in the journeys of migrant women. South East Asia Research, 29(2), 231-247. https://doi.org/10.1080/0967828x.2021.1934723
