Engaging international students as partners: re-imagining internationalization of the university curriculum

• In Event: An International Student Perspective: Criticality, Self-reflction & Experiences of International Students and Educators

Proposal

International students studying outside of their home country are an invaluable part of their host countries’ institutions of higher education. However, they often lack agency and a voice due to their status as “short-term” immigrants and other linguistic and cultural barriers. This research study examines the struggle for international student acceptance and a deeper recognition of their role in bringing international issues and intercultural understanding to university campuses. Students are increasingly being recognized as integral partners in the internationalization process of higher education curriculum, and international students can play an important role in those endeavors as well as domestic students (Green & Baxter, 2022).

The number of international students returning to Japan is rising steadily to pre-COVID levels. The rationales for bringing larger numbers of international students to Japan are several: they provide additional revenue to an educational system that will see a steep decline in Japanese students in the near future. International students comprise approximately 4 percent of the university student population. However, Japanese language schools, university-wide English degree programs and others have provided substantial additional opportunities for students to study in Japan in recent years. Economic incentives have also contributed to the increasing number of international students choosing to seek employment in Japan post-graduation.

There are also many educational benefits from the presence of international students on university campuses. They have the potential to provide domestic students with invaluable opportunities for international and intercultural exchange. This educational benefit is particularly of importance as Japanese students have not been going overseas to study in large numbers, nor do they tend to continue their education at the graduate level as often as students from other developed countries.

In spite of these developments in Japanese international higher education, international and domestic students have had relatively few opportunities to interact, dialogue, and learn from one another, even though previous studies have shown that these are the kinds of encounters that Japanese students seem to desire and could potentially benefit from (Lassegard, 2013). Indeed, most Japanese universities have not yet engaged in internationalization of the broader curriculum on a comprehensive level, even those that have been designated as “Top Global Universities”, and have been endowed with funding for international purposes by the national government.

This research uses a case study and mixed methods approach to investigate the ways in which international students in Japan have been utilized as partners for the internationalization of the university curriculum, the inherent challenges in this process, and the potential impact of international students’ presence on the university environment and for the broader international education of domestic students.

Author

• James P Lassegard, Hosei University