Weaving Innovation into Tradition: Factors Influencing Campus Internationalization at a Japanese University

Abstract

With rapid globalization, competition among universities around the world has been increasing. In the case of Japan, the government initiated the internationalization of higher education by offering grants to selected universities for internationalization. Those universities have been making extensive efforts to promote internationalization in unique ways. Among the many universities in Japan, Tohoku University is a compelling case as the only national university corporation that has received all the major government grants to promote internationalization in the past decade. The purpose of this qualitative single-case study was to identify the factors influencing internationalization processes at Tohoku University, a research-oriented world-class university in Japan. Data for the study was collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews, conducted with 40 individuals who are involved in internationalization initiatives in multiple ways at Tohoku University. The interviewees were chosen from four different stakeholder groups: senior administrators, faculty members, domestic students, and international students. In the interviews, the researcher asked five main questions based on the research questions, including the definition of, rationales for, and the process of internationalization to examine the institutional and individual factors influencing internationalization at Tohoku University. In this study, the researcher used Bourdieu’s forms of capital, which include cultural, economic, and social capital, to organize and analyze the concepts that emerged in the interviews. The results are presented in detail to provide an extensive impression of stakeholders’ perspectives, and key topics are extracted and categorized for each stakeholder group. Furthermore, to answer the research questions, comparisons of the key topics of each stakeholder group are provided for each research question. Ten findings were generated from the interviews, based on the application of Bourdieu’s theoretical concepts. The results indicate that stakeholders’ definitions of internationalization vary, largely based on their past international experiences; both international and domestic stakeholders’ perspectives on rationales and the process of internationalization can be viewed in the framework of Bourdieu’s theory. Furthermore, using Bourdieu’s theory allowed the researcher to identify and describe institutional and individual factors promoting internationalization at Tohoku University. Finally, based on these findings, the researcher presents six suggestions for the policy and practice for the university, three recommendations for the Japanese government, and implications for future research, to further promote internationalization at the university.