50 years of US-Japan study abroad: Knowledge and connectivity transcending national and regional borders

• In Event: Asian comparative international studies

Proposal

This paper (re)positions the internationalization of higher education through study abroad as a global good for the cultivation of transnational connected individuals through the lens of knowledge diplomacy. Study abroad programs are widely recognized for cultivating students’ intercultural skills and language abilities, which are of critical importance in our interconnected, globalizing world (Daly and Barker 2005). Study abroad experiences undertaken during the undergraduate years of study have been focused on for their potential personal outcomes and the fostering of graduates who can navigate new opportunities and challenges as citizens of an increasingly globalized and interdependent world (Murphy et al. 2014). As a result, there has been a growing number of empirical studies on the long-term impacts of study abroad programs and their potential as a public good providing students with the invaluable skills needed for a globalizing world (e.g., SAGE Project (Paige, et al. 2010), Global JINZAI 5000 Project (Yokota 2016), CHEERS Project and SCORATES 2000 Evaluation Survey (Teichler 2002; Teichler & Janson 2007; Teichler & Jahr 2001)). This sentiment of learning to understand and live together is also reflected in SDG 4 Target 7 that aims to mainstream the inclusion of the “promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development” in educational contexts throughout the world.

Within the wider umbrella of international relations and diplomacy, there is a move towards retracing informal social-cultural interactions between nations and their people (Depkat 2004). Metzgar (2016) suggests that academic mobility exposes participants to the host country’s culture, politics, and society during a formative life stage that develops a “cadre of willing interpreters and receivers for the future” (p. 266).While student mobility has been argued by some as a tool of cultural diplomacy and soft power (Atkinson 2010; Nye 2004), Snow (2009) insists that student mobility is a private, personal activity that should not be associated with the formal diplomacy efforts of a nation. Knight (2018) has proposed “knowledge diplomacy” as an alternative to soft power and recognizes and values international higher education role in international relations. Wu and Zha (2018) note that in knowledge diplomacy, all participants, including students, reflect on how higher education internationalization may help not only their home country but also the international community.

The study presented in this paper focuses on the main actor of study abroad, the participants themselves. Two overarching research questions guide the study: (1) What are the long-term impacts of study abroad on subsequent personal, professional, and academic development, as perceived by the participants themselves?; and (2) How are these subsequent behaviors and attitudes connected to the host country, home/host region, and world? The study examines the long-term impacts of study abroad in order to understand how the study abroad experience connects individuals to the host country, host region, and the world throughout their life to allow for a better evaluation of its full impact (Sutton & Rubin 2010).

The study presented in the paper is a retrospective tracer study on US study abroad in Japan from the 1960s to the 2010s and examines how knowledge acquired during the study abroad experience is used and built upon in subsequent life trajectories. A sequential explanatory mixed methods study (Creswell 2009) was utilized to examine the long-term impacts on subsequent personal, professional and academic development of former participants of a selected US study abroad program in Japan. Phase one provided a baseline data-set through a single, cross-sectional quantitative online survey administered to about 530 individuals out of the estimated possible 1,392 former participants. A total of 259 respondents completed the survey resulting in a 48.7% response rate. Phase two consists of 25 qualitative in-depth interviews selected purposively from survey volunteers conducted in the US and Japan from March to July 2013. Interviews lasted between 45 to 90 minutes. The verbatim transcriptions were analyzed with a Grounded Theory approach. In addition, negative case analysis was undertaken to understand non-positive impacts of study abroad.

The key findings of the study are as follows:
1. The act of studying abroad has life-long influences on participants. Ties with the host country, host region, and world manifest in the participants’ subsequent career, academic, and personal development.
2. The host country has the potential to act as a gateway to the host region. The historical and ongoing geo-political climate of the host region arises in the study abroad experiences and results in an awareness of Asia.
3. The core of the host country as a stepping stone to the world is how the experience of living and adjusting to a new language and culture raises the participants’ comparative awareness of the world while nurturing self-discovery and development of personal values and attitudes.
4. Skills and values acquired during study abroad in Japan provided a base to navigate future intercultural experiences within their home country, host country, host region, and the world.
5. Historical markers influenced not only the study abroad experience but also the manifestation and trajectory of participants’ study abroad outcomes.
6. The study abroad experience can have the unintended consequence of pushing individuals away from the host country in subsequent life experiences.

By tracing the lived experiences of 50 years of US study abroad students in Japan, the study’s systematic approach suggests that the act of studying abroad goes beyond a two-dimensional process of increasing knowledge and connectivity with the host country and world to being a three-dimensional process that also acts as a gateway to the host region. By shifting away from the power paradigm of cultural diplomacy, the emergence of knowledge diplomacy and the study’s empirical findings suggest a framework for inquiry into study abroad’s role in transnational interconnectedness through knowledge. Furthermore, it provides a lens through which we can understand and examine the connection of the knowledge created through the internationalization of higher education and how informal, micro-level personal outcomes may be connected to the macro-level of a global social good of learning to promote understanding and peace among nations and their people.

Author

• Sarah Renee Asada, Kyoritsu Women's University