Foreign faculty tokenism, English, and “internationalization” in a Japanese university

What is it about?

This project explores racial tokenism in the Japanese academy. It grows out of concerns regarding the low status of foreign university faculty in Japan along with a need to evaluate recent government initiatives aimed at fostering “internationalization” of Japanese higher education. Because of this, I conducted a three-year case study in which I considered the work lives of foreign faculty at one university through the lens of tokenism. Results indicate that, indeed, on the continuum from empowered, mainstream workers, on the one extreme, to token workers, on the other, the concept of racial token aptly described their situation. For example, they, unlike their Japanese peers, were limited to fixed-term contracts after which they were terminated and could not continue their employment. Despite such manifestations of low professional agency, they were also used as "propaganda" by the institution as evidence of internationalization in a ploy to increase institutional rankings.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

This study is important because there have been few similar studies considering the lived experience of foreign faculty in Japanese higher education in light of recent declarations of efforts to "internationalize" Japanese universities made by policy-making bodies in that country.