02/18/2025
Conference: Oceania Comparative and International Education Society Title of my Presentation: A Reparative Ethnographic Approach to Human Rights Education in Japan Dates: November 26-29th, 2024.
Last November, I had the privilege of traveling to Melbourne, Australia, to attend the Oceania Comparative and International Education Society’s annual conference. This international conference focuses specifically on education issues in the Asia-Pacific region. As a researcher of human rights education in Japan, based at the University of Hawaiʻi, the conference provided the perfect opportunity to connect with scholars attuned to the unique challenges and perspectives facing educators in this diverse region.
The conference offered invaluable opportunities to align my research on human rights education with broader regional and international perspectives in the field of comparative and international education. Since my study emphasizes understanding the local contexts of globally popular educational programs, observing how other scholars positioned similar research offered critical insights into the global dimensions of this work. Some of the most prominent scholars in the field were in attendance, providing formal and informal settings to engage in discussions on the latest debates in comparative education. I also received constructive feedback from colleagues across the Oceania-Pacific region, whose studies were grounded in diverse educational contexts, including Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, the Maldives, and Japan, among others.
The conference opened doors for potential co-authorships and fostered connections that helped spotlight Japan’s human rights education within the broader Asia-Pacific region.
Attending this conference would not have been possible without the financial support of the Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship Foundation. I am deeply grateful for their assistance in offsetting the costs, enabling me to continue pursuing impactful research in this field.
