Institute for Research in the Humanities

Junko Mori

Position title: UW–Madison resident fellow (2024-2025)

Pronouns: She/her

Address:
Professor, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, UW–Madison

This is a headshot of a woman with mid-length black hair. Her arms are folded across her chest.

Cultural Diplomacy, Linguistic Capital, and Raciolinguistic Dynamics: The History of K-12 Japanese Language Education in Wisconsin

This book project investigates the history of K-12 Japanese language and culture education in Wisconsin by focusing on the development, implementation, and legacy of the Japanese Language and Culture Assistant Program administered by the state’s Department of Public Instruction from 1989 to 1993. With reference to the three central notions of cultural diplomacy, linguistic capital, and raciolinguistic dynamics, the project explores how the essential purpose and benefits of Japanese language and culture education in this upper Midwestern state were envisioned differently by program developers, district administrators, local teachers, Japanese interns, and students with different racial, ethnic, national, and linguistic backgrounds.

Junko Mori is Professor of Japanese language and linguistics in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures and a member of the interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Second Language Acquisition (SLA). She is a recipient of the ACTFL/MLJ Paul Pimsleur Award for Research in Foreign Language Education and a past president of the American Association of Teachers of Japanese. Her research interests have evolved over the years. Her earlier focus was on multimodal, moment-by-moment microanalysis of meaning-making processes observed in video-recorded social interactions involving first- and second-language speakers of Japanese. In recent years, the scope of her research has expanded to address the issue of diversity and inclusion in the language classroom, multilingual workplaces, and the professional community of language educators. Her current project takes yet another turn. It is a blend of contemporary history, ethnography, and autobiography that examines the development of the late 1980s to early 1990s when a state-led initiative recruited many Japanese college graduates, including her, to promote Japanese language and culture education in public schools throughout Wisconsin.