Fostering the Intercultural Dimensions of Internationalisation in Higher Education: Metaphors and Challenges in the Japanese Context

Abstract

The sustainability of many Japanese institutions of higher education is dependent on the injection of large numbers of foreigners. This requires addressing the intercultural dimensions of internationalisation. In this article, the authors contrast the literature on internationalisation in Japan ( kokusaika) with the Anglo-European discourse on internationalisation and highlight the limited attention given to intercultural dimensions in the Japanese context. The authors examine how the constrained professional situation of foreign English teachers seems to inhibit the generation of opportunities for promoting reciprocal intercultural understanding. The authors discuss how these teachers’ use of metaphorical constructs, such as uchi/soto and omote/ura, to frame their experience in the Japanese higher education context provide conceptually powerful tools with which to consider internationalisation in the Japanese higher education context. The authors conclude by arguing that metaphors that stress notions of difference and otherness are problematic as they create challenges for addressing the intercultural aspects of internationalisation in the Japanese context.

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