Legacies and Current Manifestations of Globalized Christian Supremacy in and through Higher Education Internationalization

• In Event: (In)equity and opportunity during Covid-19

Proposal

Scholarly discourse on the phenomenon of higher education internationalization is increasingly recognizing how internationalization perpetuates Westernization, marketization, and (neo)colonialism globally (e.g., Shahjahan & Edwards, 2021; Stein, 2021). What has not yet received much attention in the field, but is closely related to the concerns about Western epistemic hegemony that other scholars raise, is the legacy of Christian supremacy in how we understand and pursue internationalization, and how Christian supremacy continues to spread globally today, in part through internationalization initiatives. Through applying critical frameworks from both religious studies and comparative education, this paper will explain how Christianity is embedded in much of what critical internationalization scholars describe as Westernization, marketization, and (neo)colonialism. It will argue that ignoring Christianity as a relevant factor in the modern phenomenon of higher education internationalization and/or positioning Western onto-epistemologies as secular (i.e., not Christian) allows Christian supremacy to continue spreading unquestioned. The paper will then ground this discussion in examples of Christian supremacy in Japanese higher education internationalization initiatives and discourses.

Critical frameworks from religious studies that this paper relies on include those from sociologists and philosophers of religion that explain how Christian-centric our collective popular understanding of religion is, and what it means to understand religion from a non-Christian/non-Western perspective (Durkheim, 1995; Masuzawa, 2005; Spickard, 2017). For instance, the distinction between a substantivist interpretation of religion (the Christian-centric interpretation that defines religion according to theistic belief and dogma) and a functionalist interpretation (a more inclusive framework that defines religion by how it shapes societal norms and values). Indigenous perspectives on religion (e.g., Deloria, 2003) and other scholarship on decolonialism (e.g., Mignolo, 2011; Quijano, 2000) are particularly important to this conversation for the way they highlight the various Christian elements of what is generally understood as a secular Western worldview (i.e., individualism, universalism, anthropocentrism, and linear time). From the field of comparative education, this paper engages the Whiteness as futurity framework (Shahjahan & Edwards, 2021) which articulates how the globalization of Whiteness, through higher education internationalization, controls the behaviors and aspirations of higher education institutions around the world. By bridging these fields/frameworks, the paper demonstrates how Christian supremacy—i.e., the idea that the Christian cultural worldview at the heart of Western secularism and science is superior to other onto-epistemologies—is, indeed, a global phenomenon that is gaining strength due, in part, to internationalization efforts.

In order to offer practical examples of what globalized Christian supremacy looks like “on the ground” in higher education internationalization, this paper draws on the author’s qualitative research on internationalization efforts in Japan’s higher education sector over the last few years. Through conversations with those in charge of carrying out internationalization initiatives in institutions across the country, and case studies of particular institutions—both those deemed “successful” at internationalizing and those that are not—the research reveals several examples of how Christian supremacy is internalized, resisted, and subverted in the Japanese context. These include: concerns about the academic calendar, emphases on Western science and liberal education programs, pursuit of partnerships with Christian-origin institutions in the West, increased marketization of the sector, and prioritizing mobility to/from White and English speaking countries (internalization); opposition to internationalization on the whole due to its Westernizing implications, and denying the internationalization label despite engaging in cross-boarder educational initiatives (resistance); and participation in internationalization schemes with the intent to pursue ends that are not consistent with global/Western/Christian discourse about what internationalization should do (subversion). For the last category (subversion) Buckner and Stein’s (2020) analyses of “what counts as internationalization” is helpful.

This analysis of Japanese higher education institutions’ engagement (or not) with internationalization efforts is particularly instructive for the discussion about the globalization of Christian supremacy through internationalization because Japan is not a Christian country; Christians represent less than 2% of the population. A primary argument this paper makes is that Christian supremacy is a systemic global phenomenon that does not rely on the presence of Christians or acceptance of organized Christianity. Instead, it manifests as onto-epistemic dominance of the Christian cultural worldview, masquerading as religiously neutral secularism. The prominence of Christian supremacy in an unambiguously non-Christian context demonstrates this point well.

Ultimately the goal of this paper, and the goal of presenting it at CIES, is to inspire further conversation within the field about how Christian supremacy functions in and through higher education internationalization; how the legacies of Christian supremacy embedded in colonization and perpetuated through the ongoing global missionary project find their way into the practice of higher education internationalization in both overt and obscured ways. Recent work in the field of comparative education has begun to discuss the Christian supremacy rooted in global educational movements at primary and secondary levels—e.g., Tröhler and Maricic (2021) who explain how ideas about standardization that began with the Scottish Protestant Reformation were then institutionalized by Christians at Teachers College and the Carnegie Foundation, and eventually led to the creation of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This paper seeks to build on that work to discuss how these same Christian movements have influenced and continue to influence higher education as well. At a very basic level, the goal is to encourage other scholars to explicitly name Christianity and Christian supremacy as a system that is deeply entangled with Whiteness, coloniality, and capitalism in discourse about these hegemonic forces on higher education internationalization—something that is not common practice in the field at present.

Author

• Sachi Edwards, Soka University