Statistics show that the number of long-term and permanent foreign national residents increased from 2,049,123 in 2013 to 2,637,251 in 2018. Moreover, in the same five year period the number of tourists from abroad almost tripled from 10,363,904 to 28,560,119. Consequently, foreigners are assuming an important role in everyday life in Japan.

The main aim of this study is to analyze how foreigners are portrayed in Japanese textbooks aimed at the 1st grade of elementary school. Additional questions are also investigated ‒ 1) How are the non-Japanese and non-Japanese cultures presented? 2) Do the foreigners depicted in textbooks belong to specific cultures or are they labeled simply as “foreigners”? 3) Are there any differences in the portrayal of foreigners depending on the subject for which a given textbook is used?

To answer these questions a content analysis was conducted of both text and images, identifying sentences and images in which the non-Japanese or non-Japanese cultures were presented. For the research material twenty-two textbooks were chosen, as used in 2018/19 for six subjects. In addition,eighteen textbooks used in 2010-11, 2001-02, 1988-89, and 1991-92 were also analyzed.

The results show that depiction of foreigners in textbooks differs depending on textbook subject and can be categorized into four groups: 1) authors of books and stories presented in textbooks; 2) non-Japanese as part of Japanese society; 3) non-Japanese and Japanese as members of the human race, and 4) foreigners presented as moral role models.