Ambivalent ‘Selves’ in Transition: a case study of Japanese women studying in Australian universities

Abstract

In an age of globalisation and internationalisation, how women learn to conceptualise their cultural identities, gender perceptions, and their representations in the wider world is significant. A study of four Japanese women in postgraduate courses in three Australian universities, part of a larger study, is presented here to portray the women's lived experiences and interpret how higher education overseas affected their career aspirations and constructs of Japanese femininity. Firstly, the analytic framework within a discussion of globalisation of higher education, and discourses of identity and self, is set; secondly, the present status of Japanese women in contemporary Japan is analysed. Finally, excerpts of the women's narratives which indicate ambivalent ‘selves’ in transition are used as a way into a discussion of the concepts of ‘femininity’ and ‘Japaneseness’.

Notes

‘Cultural Review Interviews’ preceded my larger PhD study which involved a total of 17 women. Black (1998) and McCracken (1988) assert that ‘Cultural Review Interviews’ is a useful process for clarifying research questions, and the proposed selection of participants and interview sites, before the development and analysis of a larger longitudinal study.

According to UNESCO (1996), approximately 1.5 million international students were enrolled in higher education outside their countries of origin in 1996. In 1977, 12,874 Japanese students crossed the national borders to study and the number of those students in 1997 increased to 64,284, and was forecast at 109,308 for 2000.

Australia's policy towards international students, like that of Britain, was influenced by once strong ties within the Commonwealth. In Australia and the UK, a higher education policy that was strongly related to post‐colonialism has given way to one of global competition.

The participants' real names are not used in this paper. A code name was chosen by each woman herself. One woman chose ‘Jennifer’, an English name, that she identified with.

An idea that a ‘Christmas cake’ is presumably stale and unwanted after the 25th applies to unmarried women over the ‘marriageable age’.