Fushūgaku (不就学) is when the children of foreigners, usually Japanese Brazilians, are of the age to start attending school, but do not go.
- There are many cases where they cannot understand Japanese. In other cases they may be able to understand both Japanese and their own native language, but their level of conversation is insufficient to participate in class lessons.
- They stay at home all day. There are cases where they play outside in the middle of night. There are other cases where they have not gone to school for many years, and others where they have become hikikomori.
- Others have parents who both work to support the family, and the children end up being left at home alone. In these families, they spent time together late at night (after their parents stop working). On their parents' day off, they go out late at night together (shopping, etc.) They pass their time at autonomous Japanese language classrooms that were build for the children of foreigners. These parents are usually blue collar workers.
The parents of fushugaku children want their children to go to school where they would use their native language. However, such schools cost between 30,000 and 50,000 yen per month, so parents cannot afford to send their children. Moreover, Japanese schools and the schools from their homeland have very different curricula, and when the families return to their native countries, they will have wasted their time. Still, as for the children's education, they demand that their children be treated the same as Japanese children.