Between University Politics and Student Practices: A Sociological Analysis of Internationalization in Japan (Case Study of Akita International University)

Japanese higher education is experiencing a series of reforms united under the notion of ‘internationalization’. The conventional idea of university time being the “last vacation” in the lives of Japanese people gets reshaped: new education stimulates young people to spend more time on studying and other productive activities. The need to search for opportunities and learn to cope with adverse conditions constitute students’ educational resilience which comprises of proactive and reactive capacities. This research focuses on exploring how students experience and respond to the changing environment of higher education. In other words, this work aims at analyzing educational resilience and its components. Set as a case study, Akita International University is the focus of this research. Initially, a social network analysis and expert interviewing were conducted. The better part of the data comes from a combination of observation and 20 in-depth biographical interviews. The research showed that students increase the time spent on studying and other productive activities as a way to cope with the changing environment of Japanese higher education. Instead of taking a break and relaxing during university years, young people attending internationalized universities continue the intense race of making oneself as busy as possible. By allocating time in different manners, they aim to engage in activities with evident results. Domestic students in particular, aim to adopt Western ways of thinking and behaving which constitutes embodied cultural capital they pursue to increase. Such practices refer to the proactive capacity of educational resilience. Reactive capacity encompasses abilities students develop during the first semesters of attending internationalized universities, as well as, the first months of an exchange study program in a foreign country. Combined, increased proactive and reactive capacities help developing certain competences. The main competence my informants developed was that of surviving in Western society and the changing society of Japan. Young people studying in internationalized universities play the role of a vanguard advancing the reforms and policies undertaken in higher education.