National citizens in a sanitized vision of global economy in Japanese ELT textbooks

Abstract Existing research examines representations of power and ideology in ELT textbooks, focusing on themes of culture, identity, and more recently how they carry neoliberal values around the world. Using Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, this paper analyses Japanese ELT textbooks for elementary and junior high school students. The analysis reveals such neoliberal visions of society and individuals through individualized Westernized middle-class lifestyles and consumerism. Yet the contents are also to be understood as shaped by a current tension in Japanese education policy, which promotes more involvement in the global economy as well as retaining some former isolationist and nationalist notions. Analysis indicates how the Japanese education materials seek to discursively foster a sense of citizenship to engage with a sanitized and idealized version of the global economy dominated by neoliberal rationalities.