This paper explores how fieldworkers in the humanities and social sciences, particularly in sociocultural anthropology, can contribute to teaching “intercultural exchange” in primary education. It considers methods for using fieldwork experience and data to not only explain different cultures but also foster children’s self-guided understanding of them through interactive communication, including via the online mode. This paper focuses on one attempt at online “intercultural exchange” between primary schools in Tokyo, Japan, and Nairobi, Kenya, in December 2023, with the involvement of TUFiSCo as a co-organizer. The process of the creation of lessons by fieldworkers in Japan, together with the primary school teachers and the children’s parents, suggests not only that there are issues regarding the teaching and educational environment for cross-cultural understanding at the fifth grade level but also that, simultaneously, based on the commonality of the children themselves being “primary school students” with different cultural backgrounds, it is possible to create a natural form of interaction leading to “cross-cultural understanding.” In this pilot project, Japanese and overseas elementary schools were connected online as a first step toward cross-cultural exchange. The exchange of personalized picture letters highlights the importance of communication between individuals using proper nouns and personal names, which is a core principle of anthropological fieldwork. Here, the role of the anthropologist as a fieldworker was also to encourage the primary school teachers, set up exchange events that ensured that each child had a real voice, and convey the fundamentals of fieldwork as a messenger between the two sides.
Wakana Shiino (2025) studied this question.