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

ABSTRACT

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. In this three-year case study, I investigated the work conditions of faculty hired as full-time instructors for an English as Medium of Instruction (EMI) programme created as part of the internationalization initiatives at one Japanese university. Results indicate that the work of these faculty entailed strong elements of tokenism: all non-Asians, they were highly visible minorities; they lacked professional agency; and the institution sought and derived “propaganda” benefits from their visibility. In addition, these faculty themselves perceived the situation as unfair. Although frustrated, they had access to no institutional mechanisms to alter their status. Ideological underpinnings sustained this situation via a nexus of beliefs surrounding English studies, English native speakers, internationalization, and race. These findings illustrate how policy statements touting internationalization were depleted of transformative moment at the ground level.

KEYWORDS:

• Tokenism
• ideology
• higher education
• EMI
• internationalization
• kokusaika

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. One of the departing faculty for that year.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Charles Allen Brown

Charles Allen Brown is an associate professor in the Department of Language and Humanities at Northern Marianas College. In his research, he focuses upon understanding the methods, individuals, and forms of knowledge that are valorized in ground-level practice in East Asian English education and how this reflects English education as a site of struggle among identities and relations of power.