Bridging Internationalization Goals Through Future Selves: A Focus on Japan A focus on Japan
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Abstract
Japan’s higher education institutions (HEIs) are making efforts to become more internationalized, in order to foster global human resources (West, 2015). Despite government-driven initiatives to make HEIs more international through increased inbound and outbound study abroad participation, there continues to be a discrepancy between the contemporary goals of internationalization. Knight (2004; 2015a) stipulates the integration of an international dimension into the purpose, functions, and delivery of post-secondary education, while the government’s primary internationalization objective involves higher global rankings by sending more Japanese students abroad and orchestrating a greater foreign presence on Japanese campuses (Yonezawa, 2014). With the aim of contributing to a more effective brand of higher education internationalization that reconciles these conflicting interpretations, this research-based report will summarize a case study involving five Japanese graduate students taking an English-language elective course on intercultural communication. Through semi-structured email exchanges, an online questionnaire, and the International Preferences Indicator (IPI) tool, participants were asked to reflect on their international and professional experiences, and to examine their future selves to determine which intercultural competences and communication skills would be most important for their hypothetical future international roles (Ewington & Hill, 2012). While the five participants had different professional and academic ambitions, thematic analysis was employed to identify common themes regarding the intercultural competences that they desired, yet lacked. As a central observation, participants considered the communicative push competence of exposing intentions as critical to their future roles; however, according to the IPI, students dedicated little energy to enhancing this skill. In reflecting on the intervention, the five participants shared thoughts on how they have become better equipped to succeed in their future role, and how they might dedicate more energy to dimensions that are crucial for future success, including exposing intentions, resiliency, and being attuned. This study provides a rationale for integrating future selves and an instrument like the IPI into an internationalized curriculum, that could potentially foster intercultural communicative competences while bridging conflicting internationalization ideals.
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