<icas> Speaker: Jon Mock, Visiting Professor, Temple University Japan Campus Title: The Impact of Internationalization on Japanese Higher Education: Is Japanese Education Really Changing? (Rotterdam, Sense Publishers 2016)

1. The Impact of
Internationalization on
Japanese Higher
Education: Is Japanese
Education Really Changing?
John Mock, Hiraki
Kawamura and Naeko
Naganuma (eds)

2. Foreword – Roger Goodman, Oxford University
Preface John Mock Temple University Japan
The Impact of Internationalization on Japanese Higher
Education: Is Japanese Education Really Changing? John Mock
Part 1: Intercultural
International Education as Intercultural Communication: Using
the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) as a Framework of
Reference Hiroaki Kawamura
University of Findlay
Global and Local Perspectives on Discourses and Practices of
University Internationalization Debra J. Occhi Miyazaki
International College
Microsociology of Internationalization of the Akita Community:
“International” Universities and Impact of Study Abroad on
Students Naeko Naganuma Akita International University
English Proficiency and Internationalization among Japanese
University Students Rebecca Erwin Fukuzawa Hosei University

3. Part 2: Administrative/Political
Dimensions of Internationalization: Some Japanese
Case Studies J. S. Eades Ritsumeikan Asia‐Pacific
University
The Difficulty of Developing and Nurturing the
“International” in an International Japanese Higher
Education Institution Malcolm Cooper
Ritsumeikan Asia‐Pacific University
Is “Dynamism without Risk” Possible in the Japanese
University Sector?: A Critique of the 2009 OECD
Report on Higher Education in Japan Robert W.
Aspinall Shiga University

4. Part 3: Perspective from Below
Living Apart Together: The Limited Interaction
between International and Local Students in
Higher Education in Japan (and Abroad)
Shumpei Watanabe Institute of Energy and
Economics
Muddling through Internationalization in the
University of Tsukuba: A Case Study Grace
Gonzalez Basurto Doshisha University
Betwixt and Between JA: Japan, Jamaica,
Agriculture, Education and the Will to
Employment Paul S. Hansen Hokkaido
University

5. Part 4: Context
International Education: The Beginnings Thomas
Hardy Keio University
Smart City—Stupid Countryside: Social and
Political Implications of the Urban/Rural Split in
Japanese Education John Mock Temple
University Japan
“International” Higher Education in Japan:
Expanding Intracultural Knowledge or
(Re)defining Intercultural Boundaries? Gregory
S. Poole Doshisha University
Part 5: Overview
Internationalization as a Contradictory Sign in
the Global Era
Wesley Shumar Drexel University

6. Forward Roger Goodman Oxford
University
….Japan lags behind its OECD competitors
on all of these measures. While over 40%
of teaching staff in Oxford and Cambridge
and over 30% in Harvard come from other
countries, in Japan the proportion is
currently just over 4%. While the OECD
average for international students enrolled
on undergraduate and graduate programs
is almost 8%, in Japan it is currently under
3%. Perhaps most significantly for opinion
formers in Japan, only two Japanese
institutions (Tokyo and Kyoto) and three
(Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka) are currently
ranked in the top hundred universities in
the Times Higher and the Shanghai Jiao
Tong World University Rankings
respectively. (vii)

7. The reoccurrence of these debates
suggest that there are some
inherently conservative forces in
Japanese society, which makes
internationalization problematic. In
many ways, Japan’s curse in this
context is that it is just large enough
to have a higher education system
(which is terms of total expenditure,
public and private, is second in size
only to that of the United States) to
allow it to be self‐contained. (viii)

8. The key questions explored in this volume are
not only why Japan needs to internationalize
but also many of the reasons why this has
proven to be so difficult. Most importantly,
though, it explores what has been the actual
effect of internationalization programs on the
students and academics who have been
incorporated by them. What is clear is that
terms like “internationalization” and
“globalization” carry multiple meanings and
are interpreted in varying ways by individual
actors, sometimes in very different ways from
those anticipated by the architects of the
programs themselves. In exploring these
interpretations, the papers that follow add
greatly to our understanding of Japanese
society and particularly Japanese higher
education in the contemporary period.

9. Preface John Mock TUJ
Original research design, eventual
research design
Quantitative and qualitative
outcomes
Ritsumeikan Asia‐Pacific University
Miyazaki International College
Kansai International University
Akita International University
University of Tsukuba

10. Introduction John Mock TUJ
Is Japanese higher education really
changing?
The short and oversimplified answer
would probably be something like a
qualified, yes. Japanese education is
changing but very slowly, somewhat
erratically, and not necessarily at all in
the directions that might be optimal. In
fact, one could easily argue that while
Japan is one of the top two or three
economies in the world, it punches far
below its weight in terms of tertiary
education.

11. Structure of the Book –
In Part I (Intercultural), Kawamura,
Occhi, Naganuma and Fukuzawa all
are specifically interested in the
acquisition of intercultural skills.

12. In Part II (Administrative/Political),
Eades, Cooper and Aspinall examine
the administrative and political
landscape in which Japanese
universities exist. In particular they
examine the administrative and
bureaucratic structures in a highly
centralized political system where
universities fall under the more or
less direct control of the national
Ministry of Education (technically,
Ministry of Education, Culture
Sports, Science & Technology, often
abbreviated as MEXT).

13. In Part III (Perspective from Below),
Watanabe, Gonzalez and Hansen each
look at the same university from the
varying perspectives of an
undergraduate (moving to graduate
student), a Ph.D. candidate and a junior
contract faculty. Not incidentally, five of
the contributors of this volume were
involved, in various ways, with the
University of Tsukuba (albeit two
different units). Thus it tends to be
something of a focal point because of
our unconnected involvement, not
because we think it is a bad example of
Japanese universities. In fact, the
overwhelming opinion of the five of us
is quite positive. However, we think that
its strength is not internationalization.

14. In Part IV (Context), contributors
examine the larger contexts in which
tertiary education exists in Japan. Issues
addressed include the way that, in the
Japanese educational system,
internationalization may, indeed, be a
re‐invention and reinforcement of
cultural boundaries; the impact of
earlier levels of education, specifically
language education, and the production
of text materials, on concepts of
internationalization; and the larger
social impact of internationalization on
Japanese society arguing that,
essentially, it deepens the gap between
metropolitan and non‐metropolitan
Japan.

15. In Part V (Overview), Wes Shumar,
in his concluding essay looks at
internationalization as a series of
contradictions in the global era,
specifying areas where the
preceding essays have specifically
enumerated various aspects of an
overall problem.

16. Part 1: Intercultural
International Education as
Intercultural Communication: Using
the Intercultural Development
Inventory (IDI) as a Framework of
Reference Hiroaki Kawamura
University of Findlay

17. Kawamura presents the Intercultural
Development Inventory materials (IDI)
and contrasts the Japanese
international university experience with
high school students in non‐
metropolitan Ohio in the United States.
Kawamura proposes thinking about the
development of intercultural
communication skills as the foundation
of international education in Japan. He
argues that this approach will reduce
the gap between outward international
education (国際化) and domestic
intercultural issues
(内なる国際化).

18. For the current project, he used IDI
as one of the tools to measure
international universities’ impact on
their students. He tentatively
concludes that educational
activities at international
universities seem to have some
positive impact on students’
intercultural communication skills
development.

19. Global and Local Perspectives on
Discourses and Practices of University
Internationalization
Debra J. Occhi Miyazaki International
College
Occhi critically examines the situation in
Miyazaki International College (MIC),
and links it to the conundrum emerging
between the goals set by tertiary
education (that in this case fosters
internationalization) on the one hand,
and societal expectations for these
young adults that necessitates
increasing engagement in the world of
off‐campus (domestic) adult society on
the other.

20. She also provides a context for
Japan’s tertiary education
internationalization policies,
comparing it to Europe’s Bologna
Process and New Zealand’s
complementarity model.
Naganuma describes how the two
international universities

21. English Proficiency and
Internationalization among Japanese
University Students
Rebecca Erwin Fukuzawa Hosei
University
Fukuzawa links language skills,
specifically ESL, with intercultural
sophistication, examining the effect of
English proficiency levels on the
internationalization of university
students as measured by their interest
in studying or traveling abroad….
However, the effect of English level on
the desire to travel abroad, but
surprisingly not actual study abroad,
was strong.

22. ….This is perhaps the reason that
the average range of language
levels had no effect on desire to
study abroad: the level of English
required for effective engagement
with a global society is beyond the
reach of most students. Thus, only a
small minority with extremely high‐
level language skills were actually
engaged with the world outside
Japan.

23. Microsociology of Internationalization
of the Akita Community: “International”
Universities and Impact of Study
Abroad on Students
Naeko Naganuma Akita International
University
Naganuma describes how the two
international universities, MSU‐A
(Minnesota State University‐Akita) and
AIU (Akita International University, 国際
教養大学) have influenced the
community of Akita and focuses on the
experience at AIU.

24. She draws connections between the
IDI, and overseas experience (a full
year is required) and some evidence
of increased student intercultural
sophistication. Quantitatively, there
is no significant difference among
the groups with different lengths of
study abroad experiences; however,
she suggests reasons why some
differences in the IDI results are
found in each group.

25. Part 2: Administrative/Political
Dimensions of Internationalization:
Some Japanese Case Studies J. S. Eades
Ritsumeikan APU
Eades’ paper starts from recent trends
in Japanese higher education: the
expanding number of institutions, the
falling birthrate, and government
efforts to raise the international profile
of Japanese universities and increase
the number of foreign students
studying in Japan.

26. He examines the areas of
administration, teaching and research
in each of the four different Japanese
institutions where he has taught and
focuses on the main axes of
internationalization in each:
international engagement, networking,
marketing and foreign language
capacity in the case of administration;
diversity and qualifications of teaching
staff, curriculum development, student
mobility, cultural and linguistic
awareness and evaluation systems in
the case of teaching; and facilities,
publishing, funding, and profile in the
case of research.

27. He argues that the
accommodations to the
international market taking place in
the more innovative universities are
having an impact on more
prestigious if conservative
institutions, and this could well
have a knock‐on‐effect on the lower
ranking institutions in each sector.

28. Cooper Ritsumeikan APU
Looking at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific
University (APU) where he was both
a senior administrator and a
member of the teaching faculty,
Cooper notes that there is a
significant divide between
international faculty and Japanese
administrators, with mutual
incomprehension on both sides
complicating the tasks of teaching
and research. Similarly, graduate
students did not initially get the
respect they thought they were
entitled to, and undergraduates
often expressed dissatisfaction with
the level of regimentation they
wwere subject to. Even in 2015 no

29. Similarly, graduate students did not
initially get the respect they
thought they were entitled to, and
undergraduates often expressed
dissatisfaction with the level of
regimentation they wwere subject
to. Even in 2015 no student union
representation is allowed at APU.

30. Is “Dynamism without Risk”
Possible in the Japanese University
Sector?: A Critique of the 2009
OECD Report on Higher Education in
Japan
Robert W. Aspinall Shiga University
Aspinall uses the “risk society”
paradigm of German sociologist
Ulrich Beck to help frame the
problems and challenges
experienced by the Japanese
tertiary sector in light of both
domestic and global trends and
transformations.

31. In 2009, the OECD (Organization for
Economic Co‐Operation and
Development) published a report
on Japanese tertiary education
which discussed the efforts being
made by the Japanese Ministry of
Education (MEXT) to reform
universities in the face of increasing
competition from abroad and
demographic and financial
problems at home.

32. Aspinall argues that the language of the
“risk society” paradigm is well suited to
analyzing the stage of development
Japanese national and public
universities are now in. It not only helps
throw light on the practical problems of
transition to a new market‐based
model of higher education provision. It
can also help in understanding the
cultural and even psychological
problems faced by employees of
institutions that were once shielded as
much as possible from the risks and
uncertainties of the outside world and
that only now are being exposed to the
winds of market competition.

33. Part 3: Perspective from Below
Living Apart Together: The Limited
Interaction between International and
Local Students in Higher Education in
Japan (and Abroad) Shumpei Watanabe
Institute of Energy and Economics
Drawing on his experiences as an
undergraduate and a graduate student,
Watanabe points out some of the
weaknesses of “internationalization”,
and presents a very different
perspective from the faculty. Operating
from his personal experiences,
Watanabe suggests that
internationalization is possible but it
has to be sought.

34. Muddling through
Internationalization in the
University of Tsukuba: A Case Study
Grace Gonzalez Basurto Doshisha
University
Gonzalez Basurto examines
graduate student life at the
University of Tsukuba, essentially
demonstrating that there is very
limited “internationalization” even
at, what is for Japan, a very large
and very “international” university.

35. By focusing on the multivocality of
expectations, motivations, and
challenges embedded in the
university’s daily
internationalization, the chapter
casts light on stakeholders’
readiness and responsiveness vis‐à‐
vis the top‐down enactment of the
Global 30 program, an initiative by
MEXT to try to “internationalize”
Japanese universities.

36. Betwixt and Between JA: Japan,
Jamaica, Agriculture, Education and the
Will to Employment Paul S. Hansen
Hokkaido University
Hansen notes the lack of penetration of
any sort of serious international or
intercultural component in the same
large national university. From the auto‐
ethnographic perspective of a limited
term contracted junior faculty member,
Hansen examines the practices and
politics of a Japanese national
university coming to terms with
cosmopolitan neo‐liberalism by force
and by choice.

37. He focuses on the conservative and
nationalist deployment of terms like
“gurobaru” (‘global’), strategically
utilized by established university
bodies while underscoring that this
neoliberal discourse can be
subverted by low ranking non‐
permanent staff; effectively
rebranding this contrived
worldliness to fit their own research
projects or employment aims.

38. Part 4: Context
International Education: The
Beginnings Thomas Hardy Keio
University
Hardy explores the ways one team
of writers comes up with their own
working definition of the concept of
internationalization while
constructing an English textbook for
Japanese junior high school
students.

39. He closes with the observation that
internationalization can include
efforts that might appear to foster
its counter – more intense and
limited sense of Japanese national
identity.

40. Smart City—Stupid Countryside: Social
and Political Implications of the
Urban/Rural Split in Japanese Education
John Mock TUJ
Mock emphasizes how the process of
urbanization leads to concentrations of
resources in the metropolitan centers,
the depopulation of the rest of Japan
(most extreme in rural areas), and the
aging of the entire country.
Urbanization is both influenced by
economic and demographic forces as
well as governmental policies that
severely “tilt” resources toward the
metropolitan centers while penalizing
regional Japan.

41. Educational resources, particularly
tertiary educational resources,
arealready concentrated heavily in
the metropolitan centers.
Internationalization, in its various
aspects, mostly controlled by the
highly centralized Ministry of
Education, simply adds further “tilt”
to the Japanese urban/rural divide.

42. “International” Higher Education in
Japan: Expanding Intracultural
Knowledge or (Re)defining Intercultural
Boundaries? Gregory S. Poole
Doshisha University
Poole raisesthree points. First, he places
the need for “international” approaches
to Japanese higher education within a
twenty‐first century conceptualization
of Japan as an immigrant society, not
merely as a reaction to capitalist
discourses of “global competitiveness.”
Second, although acknowledging how
the OECD report on tertiary education
in Japan that Aspinall discusses in Part
II, notes numerous issues with
governmental policy

43. Poole discusses at some length
issues of institutional and individual
practice as they relate to the
internationalization of
administration practices at
Japanese universities. Finally, he
suggests the need to
reconceptualize
“internationalization” to avoid what
he refers to as the phenomenon of
“de‐internationalization”, or further
retrenchment and re‐invention of
cultural boundaries.

44. Part 5: Overview
Internationalization as a
Contradictory Sign in the Global Era
Wesley Shumar Drexel University
Wes Shumar, in his concluding essay
looks at internationalization as a
series of contradictions in the global
era, specifying areas where the
preceding essays have specifically
enumerated various aspects of an
overall problem. The specific
context is the globalization of the
world economic system and the
shift of universities to try to cope.

45. This involves dealing with a variety
of adaptations, including the
creation of a cosmopolitan elite, to
deal with a rapidly changing
environment. One of the key
tensions noted is the conflict
between the critical nature of
universities dealing with regional
economic development and,
especially in the United States,
universities becoming increasingly
dependent on their own revenue
generation, often unsuccessfully.

46. He notes that while Japan has a
substantial economic role in the
global economy, its tertiary
education systems have been far
less effective.

47. Conclusions

48. 1. While Japan is a major economic
power and has the second largest
tertiary education system in the
world, the effectiveness and
competitiveness of Japanese
tertiary education is problematic

49. 2. While there have been
substantial efforts to
“internationalize” Japanese tertiary
education (for a variety of reasons
including economic
competitiveness), these do not
seem to be terribly successful, even
in “international” universities

50. 3. The forces blocking positive
changes in tertiary education
appear to be extremely deeply
rooted in Japanese society and
culture, including MEXT, and it will
take extraordinary measures to
effect serious change

51. 4. In addition to being somewhat
ineffective in producing desired
changes, internationalization
appears to be exacerbating an split
between the metropolitan centers
and less populated areas of Japan

52. 5. At least at present, there does
not appear to be any effective way
to “unblock” progress in making
Japanese tertiary education more
effective.
(as an anthropologist, I am also
tempted to point out parallels with
the problems associated with the
economic non‐viability of Japanese
agriculture)

53. Thank you