The experiences of native English speaking academics who work and live in Japan

Abstract

This thesis provides an account of a qualitative doctoral study that explored native English speaking academics’ experiences living and working in Japan, in relation to the internationalisation policy in Japanese higher education (HE). Existing literature represents native English speakers in Japan in two ways: as people who embody the power of the ‘Inner Circle’ and of Anglo-English; and as vulnerable outsiders in Japanese society. In this study, I drew on the notions of discourse, identity and agency to explore the ways in which native English speaking academics are positioned in the internationalisation policy in Japanese HE, and how they positioned themselves in relation to their lives and work.

Data were collected through interviews with 25 native English speaking academics working for Japanese universities, and an analysis of official (government and institutional) documents related to a large-scale government-led internationalisation initiative: the Top Global University Project. The Top Global University Project involves a wide range of educational and governance reforms aimed at promoting the internationalisation of selected Japanese universities. The policy documents I analysed included the project guidelines, proposals of participating universities, and the Third proposal, a policy document which guided the establishment of the Top Global University Project. My interviewees were employed by universities involved in the Top Global University Project, with one exception. I analysed the policy and interview data using both thematic and discourse analysis.

Study findings revealed that in Japanese universities and internationalisation policy documents, dominant discourses privilege English language skills, ‘nativeness’, and in some cases, ‘whiteness’. Although, in most cases, Top Global University Project documents did not explicitly associate ‘internationalness’ with Anglo-English, the documents stressed the role of the English language in relation to internationalisation. Participants’ interview accounts revealed how such discourses shaped their employment options and everyday lives in ways that both benefited and disadvantaged them. For example, some participants noted that although they had come to Japan without teaching or other relevant higher degree qualifications, they had gained employment opportunities which would not have been available in their home countries, including access to university careers. However, they also described being positioned primarily as ‘native English speakers’, regardless of their wider academic expertise. Some participants were subject to precarious employment conditions, and some also described a sense of having been employed to fulfil internationalisation requirements, rather than meaningful work roles. All participants endeavoured to contest homogenising discourses in Japanese HE to different degrees, by differentiating themselves from other, less skilled, native English speakers; identifying themselves as professionals (for example, competent English teachers, proficient Japanese speakers, or researchers with disciplinary expertise); and critiquing the simplistic assumptions inherent in dominant discourses.

This study adds to critical scholarship that contests the neutrality of internationalisation processes and practices in HE. Specifically, it complicates simplistic notions of privilege and vulnerability in relation to Anglo-English and native English speakers in Japan, while highlighting the need to examine how taken-for-granted internationalisation discourses shape institutional practices and people’s everyday lives.