徳島県内在住外国人に対する支援の現状と課題 : 生活実態個別聴き取り調査をもとに

近年の在住外国人増加に伴い，徳島県では彼らを住民として認める視点が重視され，県及び各市町村レベルの国際交流協会やNPO・NGO 等の団体による日本語習得支援，生活支援，防災に関する知識普及等，多様な活動が推進されてきた。本稿は，異なる経歴を持つ徳島県在住の8 人の外国出身の居住者に対して2016 年に実施した個別の聴き取り調査（2019 年に一部アップデート）をもとに，現状における外国人支援の問題点と課題を明らかにすることを目的とするものである。調査の結果，①外国人が必要とする支援内容は多岐にわたるが，現状の日本人による外国人支援の内容は，彼らの実情に沿うものではないため，彼らは独自の限られたネットワークのみで諸問題を解決しようとする傾向にあること，②特に社会的に弱い立場にある人々は複合的に悩みを抱える傾向にあり，立場が弱いほど行政サービスに対し不信感を増幅させる傾向にあること，③調査対象者の年齢が上がるにつれて，当人のみでなく，家族の生活を含めた多様な観点からの諸問題が浮上していること，④対応する諸機関の日本人に，彼らのニーズを正確に理解し，適切に対応する能力が十分でないこと等の問題点が判明した。今後の課題として，従来の各種団体による支援内容をより在住外国人のニーズを踏まえた内容に改めるとともに，日本人自身が多文化共生に関する意識を向上させ，彼らの実情を正確に理解し，心理面にも配慮しながら的確に対応していく必要性があることが指摘できる。

With the growing increase in foreigners in Tokushima Prefecture in Japan, they have recently drawn attention and begun to be treated as “residents”, whereby leading to a variety of supporting activities such as the provision of Japanese language education, livelihood support, and diffusing knowledge of disaster prevention, which are organised by prefectural and local international associations, non-profit organisations, non-governmental organisations, individual volunteers, and so forth. This paper intends to elucidate the current limitations and future challenges in supporting foreign residents in Tokushima, based on individual interviews with eight foreign residents of different backgrounds that were mainly conducted in 2016 and partly followed up in 2019. The results indicate the following. Firstly, although the needs of foreign residents involve diverse topics, the provision of current services provided by Japanese organisations have not fulfilled their various requirements, resulting in the phenomenon in which foreigners tend to solve their own problems by making use of their own networks. Secondly, since socially vulnerable groups of foreign residents, such as those who are from single-parent families or the elderly, tend to be full of woes and multiple types of uncertainty, the more they are in a tenuous position, the more they reinforce a sense of distrust towards public services. Thirdly, with the advancing years, issues surrounding foreign residents have started to be amplified, involving problems of their family members, in addition to their own. Fourthly, there is a tendency for Japanese workers dealing with issues of foreign residents in public services to be incapable of appropriately picking up on the meaning of questioning by foreign residents. Bearing these in mind, it is suggested that the content of current supporting activities provided by public services, as well as those provided by various voluntary bodies at different levels within Tokushima Prefecture, be altered with deliberate consideration so that it is able to more properly meet the needs of foreign residents. Furthermore, it is indicative that Japanese residents should be more cultivated by improving their awareness of multiculturalism in order to grasp the reality of foreign residents in present Japanese society more correctly while paying scrupulous attention to their mental pressures.