Hoping to achieve the current Japanese administration's goals of decentralisation and privatisation, the Japanese government has granted substantial latitude to local governments and individual schools as part of its recent reform of foreign language education. In introducing English at elementary schools (EES), micro-language policies have been actively enacted at the local level along with slow but somewhat tactical top-down policies. The driving force behind the implementation of English in Japanese elementary schools is not simply a desire to prepare students for a global economy but also a result of multiple social and political factors. The most fundamental challenges that EES in Japan currently faces relate to issues of equity and growing diversity. (Contains 7 notes.)