Taking Advantage of a Multicultural Campus: Impact of At-Home Intercultural Initiatives on Japanese Students’ Skills and Future Goals

Background

The internationalization of higher education, while not a recent concept, has drawn much attention from educational stakeholders since the 1980s. Administrators, faculty, staff, and scholars alike have contributed to national and international debates, leading to a variety of increasingly complex definitions, rationales, and implementation strategies (Knight & de Wit, 1995). In 2004, Knight redefined internationalization in a broader context as “the process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of post-secondary education” (p. 11). Knight’s definition has allowed for the development of a range of rationales, approaches, and strategies individually tailored to national and institutional needs.

Internationalization-at-home, defined by Crowther et al. (2000, p. 6) as “any internationally related activity with the exception of outbound students and staff mobility,” has emerged in the last 20 years as a central dimension of the internationalization process. Initiatives under this umbrella include foreign language study, international and intercultural campus events, and language partners, among numerous others (Knight, 2012). Intimately connected to internationalization-at-home is the concept of a multicultural campus, which has broadened in scope beyond domestic minorities to also include international diversity (Lee & Janda, 2006). With a relatively overall low number of domestic students with international experience (Knight, 2012), the multicultural campus emerges as a key opportunity for intercultural contact between domestic and international students, faculty, and staff worldwide.

In Japan, the government has played a key role in encouraging, promoting, and funding the internationalization of higher education institutions, particularly through internationalization-at-home strategies. The internationalization of education, in the form of programs which are able to attract talented international researchers to Japanese higher education institutions, is perceived as a major solution to the current challenges faced by the country, such as its aging population, declining birthrate, and economic slump (Amano, 2014).

In 2009, the Japanese government introduced the Global 30 Project, and selected 13 universities which aimed to internationalize top higher education institutions by reforming their academic systems, attracting higher numbers of international students, promoting academic cooperation with overseas institutions, and creating undergraduate degrees taught in English (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology [MEXT], 2011). This was followed in 2014 by the Top Global University Project, with an original target budget of 7.7 billion yen (MEXT, 2014), which maintained similar aims and strategies, but focused on a total of 37 universities divided into two types—Type A, with the potential to compete with other high-ranking international higher education institutions; and Type B, pioneering institutional role models of internationalization in Japan (MEXT, 2017).

In addition, the Japanese government is seeking to attract 300,000 international students by 2020 in a further effort to internationalize educational institutions (Kuwamura, 2009). As of May 2017, the number of international students in Japan reached a peak high of 267,042, of which 188,384 belonged to higher education institutions, representing an overall 11.6% increase compared with the previous year (Japan Student Services Organization [JASSO], 2017), and leading to increasingly international, multicultural campuses.

With the implementation and development of the above-mentioned initiatives, a strong emphasis has also been placed on the fostering of Japanese global jinzai, commonly translated as “global human resources,” that is, globally competent human resources, defined by The Council on Promotion of Human Resource for Globalization Development (2011, p. 3) as those who “possess rich linguistic and communication skills and intercultural experiences, and thrive internationally,” with a particular emphasis on linguistic skills, flexibility, understanding of other cultures, and a sense of Japaneseness, so as to advance Japan in a global context. The concept of global jinzai, occasionally also translated as top talent, or global citizenship, was expanded further by Burgess (2014, p. 8) who drew on the Japan Business Association definition as “Japanese or foreign talent who are able to take on the burden of globalising Japanese companies’ business activities and take an active part in global business.” Even though definitions of global jinzai remain fairly vague, the emphasis placed by the Japanese government on international students and internationalized campuses as the means to foster global jinzai is evident.

Nevertheless, Japan faces various obstacles in its quest for internationalization, specifically as regards internationalization-at-home strategies. First, an inappropriate administrative and educational structure able to successfully accommodate high numbers of international students (Agawa, 2011). Second, resistance in implementing internationalization strategies and programs at the faculty and staff levels (Horie, 2002). Third, a misplaced emphasis on rankings which, in reality, function predominantly as a gateway to receiving further domestic funding (Yonezawa, 2010). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a misguided emphasis on the perception of numbers of international students as agents of internationalization, as opposed to meaningful interactions cultivating an appreciation for cultural diversity, intercultural understanding, and global citizenship (Brewer & Leask, 2012; Knight, 2011).

Consequently, contrary to governmental efforts, Japanese universities continue to drop in worldwide rankings, especially as regards the international outlook of universities (Rafferty, 2016), which in turn measure international student and staff ratio as well as international collaboration (Quacquarelli Symonds [QS], 2018b; Times Higher Education, 2018b). In fact, the top Japanese universities score on average more than 55 points less than most British universities and 30 points less than most American universities with regard to international outlook, thus seemingly failing to become as internationally competitive and as attractive to international students as their Asian counterparts, whose scores are generally either on par with or significantly closer to those of Western universities (QS, 2018a; Times Higher Education, 2018a).

This article discusses the impact on domestic students of six at-home initiatives developed to promote intercultural interaction and ultimately foster global jinzai at a highly diverse Japanese campus. Although multiculturalism on campus still varies greatly depending on the university, both in Japan and worldwide, and the case presently focused on is unique in Japan due to the unusual large ratio of international students, an analysis of a highly multicultural campus may nonetheless provide insight into the untapped potential of international diversity as well as into possible struggles faced by universities looking to internationalize and diversify the student and faculty bodies, as is the case of Japan.

The first section of the article will identify the research goals and questions, and describe the scope of at-home initiatives considered in this study. Second, the conceptual framework and methodology in which to consider the data described in the findings section will be outlined. The findings section will contextualize the results in the wider internationalization debate, and it will be followed by a discussion section, in which suggestions will be made regarding the optimization of a multicultural campus. Finally, limitations of this study and suggestions for future research will be discussed.

Research Goals

Internationalization strategies and outcomes have often been analyzed from either a policy perspective (de Wit, 2011; Knight, 2011) or from the perspective of incoming international students and their integration into the host society or institution (Morita, 2012a, 2012b; T. Tanaka et al., 1994). There have also been a range of studies focusing on study abroad programs and their effects on language acquisition and intercultural competence (Asaoka & Yano, 2009; K. Tanaka & Ellis, 2003), as well as on identity (Young et al., 2014). However, very little research has been conducted on the impact of multicultural campuses and of incoming international students from the perspective of domestic students (Campbell, 2012; Jon, 2013; Soria & Troisi, 2014).

Yet, research on internationalization-at-home worldwide, and in the Japanese context in particular, has gradually become more relevant as the number of incoming international students in Japan increases (JASSO, 2017) and the number of Japanese students going abroad for long-term studies decreases (Bradford, 2015) mainly due to financial constraints and perceived negative career repercussions (Yonezawa, 2014). Multicultural campuses present a viable worldwide alternative to studying abroad, by providing domestic students with the opportunity to develop their language skills and intercultural competence at a lower financial and professional cost.

Taking into consideration the emphasis placed on fostering globally competent human resources, specifically through the development of linguistic skills and the understanding of other cultures, the present study aims to answer four questions to determine how domestic students take advantage of a multicultural campus. First, to what extent do Japanese students participate in at-home initiatives which promote interaction with international students? Second, do Japanese students make use of those initiatives to interact with international students? Third, to what extent do Japanese students believe their skills to have improved as a result of participation in each initiative? Finally, how does a multicultural campus prepare students in relation to their future goals? The researcher hopes that the analysis and discussion of data pertaining to these questions will allow for reflection on the impact of at-home initiatives developed at highly diverse campuses, further contributing to the internationalization debate.

Scope of Campus Initiatives

This study was conducted in 2016 at a highly diverse, Type B private university in Japan, situated in a medium-sized Japanese city, with nearly 6,000 students majoring in management and regional studies. From its foundation, the university was intended to function as a multicultural campus, with half of the student body being composed of domestic students and the other half of international students. As of May 1, 2016, 49.5% of these were international and represented 85 countries and regions from around the world. This level of diversity, having been fostered from the onset, is unparalleled in Japan, even when compared with the top three Japanese universities according to the Times Higher Education (2018a) world university rankings—Tokyo University (10%), Kyoto University (8%), and Osaka University (10%).

The mission of the university, as defined in official policy documents, is to foster global citizens who are able to understand and accept cultural differences, by developing the students’ ability to tolerate and incorporate different values and perspectives, and to cooperate to overcome conflict. This particular institution thus places itself at the center of the internationalization debate in Japan, by emphasizing the development of globally competent human resources in general, as well at the center of a global debate pertaining to internationalization-at-home, by fostering interaction between domestic and international students at a highly diverse campus.

A wide range of on-campus initiatives promoting intercultural interaction have been developed or encouraged by higher education institutions worldwide. These include, among others, language exchange programs, buddy systems, shared dormitories with both domestic and international students, cooperative workshops, cooperative volunteering programs, and mixed study groups. This research project focused on six major opportunities of intercultural interaction made available at the campus of this university, which were categorized by the researcher into two groups—formal (three initiatives) and informal (three initiatives), as shown in Table 1.

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Table 1.

Scope of At-Home Initiatives Which Promote Intercultural Interaction.

Initiative	Type	Facilitators	Frequency	Goal
1. Language exchange classes	Formal; Mandatory	Language instructors	3 to 4 times per semester	Improve students’ English and Japanese (spoken) language skills
2. SALC Language exchange program	Formal; Optional	Faculty at the SALC	Several times a month (depending on students’ arrangements)	Support conversation practice between domestic and international students outside the classroom
3. Regular lectures and seminars	Formal; Mandatory	Faculty	Daily	Provide an opportunity for domestic and international students to study together
4. Culture weeks	Informal; Optional	Students	Weekly	Foster understanding of diverse cultures through weekly gastronomical, musical, and cultural shows
5. Circle activities (extracurricular clubs)	Informal; Optional	Students	Daily	Develop students’ cultural, athletic, and social skills
6. Shared residence in dormitories	Informal; Optional	Residence Assistants (students), Students	Daily	Promote informal interaction between students

Note. SALC = Self-Access Learning Center.

Formal initiatives were defined for research purposes as those managed or supervised by university faculty or staff. In this research study, these included language exchange classes, the Self-Access Learning Center (SALC) language exchange program, and regular lectures and seminars attended by both Japanese and international students.

At the selected university, language exchange classes take place between classes of English as a foreign language (taken predominantly by Japanese students) and classes of Japanese as a foreign language (taken by international students). These exchange classes are organized by the Center for Language Education faculty who show interest in doing so, are integrated in the language course curriculum, and are carried out during regular lesson time. The activities generally focus on daily conversation, discussion, and presentation skills. The SALC Exchange Program, unlike the language exchange classes, is not incorporated into the curriculum, but it is organized and supervised by faculty at the SALC, who support language learning outside the classroom, and who work to pair up and organize language exchange events between Japanese and international students who have registered for the program. Finally, regular lectures and seminars are promoted by the university as a crucial component of its multicultural campus by allowing Japanese and international students to experience studying alongside other students of a multitude of cultural backgrounds.

Informal opportunities, however, were defined by the researcher as those managed or supervised by the students themselves. In this study, these consisted of culture weeks, circle (club) activities, and shared residence in the school dormitories.

Culture weeks are events held throughout the academic year at the university, which focus on a different culture of a given country or region represented by students at the university every week. These weekly events, which include gastronomical, musical and cultural shows, are managed exclusively by the students, and any student irrespective of their own nationality can register to help to manage and participate in a culture week, thus promoting interculturality. Circle activities, as they are generally known in Japanese higher education institutions, are sports and cultural extracurricular clubs and activities carried out daily in most cases. Students usually choose one circle to belong to throughout their 4 years at the university. Finally, the school dormitories, though officially managed by the university, are fairly independent in the sense that there is no structured or coordinated interaction between Japanese and international students and that the daily management is supervised by a student resident assistant.

These six initiatives were selected for their diversity in context (formal/informal), in facilitators (faculty/students), and in goals, thus providing a broad overview of the intercultural interaction opportunities available on campus to both domestic and international students.

Conceptual Framework

The assessment of internationalization in higher education institutions has been extensively discussed, and it is commonly agreed that its purpose should be the enhancement of institutional programs and outcomes. In addition, the discussion surrounding assessment has focused considerably on intercultural competence as an essential trait of the globally competent graduate fostered by internationalized higher education institutions. A wide range of assessment models of intercultural competence have been proposed emphasizing diverse aspects of the intercultural experience such as developmental and adjustment stages, communicative competence, integration strategies, and internal and external outcomes (Spitzberg & Changnon, 2009). However, few of these models are tailored to higher education institutions and their internationalization process, and even fewer take into consideration Eastern approaches to internationalization or the concept of a globally competent graduate.

Braskamp (2009) proposed a more holistic approach to assessing the internationalization of a campus, emphasizing cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal development through curricular, co-curricular, and community initiatives. Although such a framework can be more easily adapted to an Eastern context, many of the components listed suggest assessment in terms of presence or absence of indicators, thus failing to elaborate on how institutions may move away from assessment of quantitative outputs.

Moreover, even though all the models mentioned above provide great insight into numerous dimensions of internationalization or intercultural competence, it has been pointed out that a conceptual framework of assessment should not be implemented on its own, but rather aligned with the circumstances, mission, and goals of the assessed institution (Deardorff & van Gaalen, 2012). This is particularly relevant when considering internationalization not as a goal in itself, but as a means to achieve institutional goals (Deardorff & van Gaalen, 2012).

Deardorff and van Gaalen’s (2012) Logic Model of assessment of internationalization at higher education institutions, based on broader, action-oriented categories, thus emerges as a more flexible and impartial framework of assessment, which can be tailored to Eastern institutions and their specific goals. According to the Logic Model, a four-step process assessment consisting of inputs/resources, activities/components, outputs, and outcomes of internationalization, allows for institutions to measure the long-term impact of internationalization based on their own individual strategies and goals, thus avoiding being bound to preset lists of “successful indicators” of internationalization, which may or may not apply to the institution being assessed.

The inputs, that is, the resources needed for the implementation of components of internationalization, and the components themselves, that is to say the scope of activities considered in this study, were described comprehensively in the previous section. An analysis of the outputs, that is, direct results of the activities, and of the outcomes, specifically in terms of student outcomes, will be considered in the findings and discussion sections. The researcher hopes that an analysis of the data through the Logic Model framework, even if limited in scope, provides insight into the impact and struggles of a multicultural campus and implemented at-home initiatives on domestic students, thus providing worldwide universities with a foundation in which to consider how the potential offered by internationalization-at-home strategies and multicultural campuses worldwide may be optimized.

Methodology and Research Group Characteristics

To better understand the impact of an exceptionally multicultural university campus on domestic students and its potential for universities worldwide focusing on internationalization-at-home strategies, an anonymous survey was administered online in 2016 to 355 Japanese students of English as a foreign language at a Top Global Type B university, focusing on two aspects of the student on-campus experience. First, the extent to which they take advantage of the intercultural opportunities available to develop foreign language skills and intercultural competence. Second, and in view of the increasingly prevalent global jinzai rhetoric in Japanese higher education, the extent to which a multicultural university aligns its objectives with those of its students and prepares them for situations which require the use of foreign languages and intercultural competence skills after graduation.

Among the students surveyed, 96% identified themselves as Japanese and 4% as mixed-race, that is, Japanese and one other nationality. Half of the students were male, 48% female, and 2% preferred not to identify their gender. The majority of the students surveyed were enrolled in compulsory English classes, which range from Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) A1 to B1 level (92%) and are usually taken by first- and second-year students, whereas 8% were taking elective classes, which generally range from CEFR B1 to C1 level and are taken by students who have successfully completed all of the compulsory courses. The average response rate per item was 93%.

Given the strong emphasis placed by the university on its unique multicultural campus, two factors were further considered. First, the multicultural campus was very clearly one of the main reasons why the majority of the students surveyed chose to enroll in the university. When asked for the top three reasons they opted for this university in particular, 73.5% of respondents identified the opportunity to interact with international students, 25.4% the language classes available, and 24.2% the opportunity to be taught by international faculty. Thus, it seems clear that for a large number of students the multicultural campus factored greatly in their choice of university and, consequently, students were most likely predisposed to make use of its initiatives.

Second, and in line with the high interest in the opportunity to interact with international students, among the respondents at the time of the survey, only 13.8% had not spent any time abroad prior to or since enrollment in the university. Time abroad comprised not only of study abroad or exchange programs, but also holiday travel, work experience, and so on. Even though the majority of the respondents spent less than 1 month abroad in total prior to enrollment, a significant number of students (9%) had spent between 4 months and 1 year abroad, and 8% had spent more than 1 year abroad. The average length of time spent abroad decreased considerably after enrollment. A significant number of respondents spent either less than 1 month (39.2%) or between 1 and 3 months abroad (18.3%). These numbers are not unexpected seeing as most of the respondents were either first- or second-year students and, consequently, less likely to have participated in longer term study or work abroad initiatives coordinated by the university. Regardless, a total of 61% of respondents spent some time abroad after enrollment. Although at this point no direct causal relationship was established between the amount of time spent abroad and student involvement on campus initiatives, the experience or lack of experience abroad factor seemed to affect student perspectives of intercultural interaction on campus to some extent.

Findings

To better understand domestic student engagement with a multicultural campus and its impact on the development of foreign language and intercultural competence, the students were asked to answer questions concerning two aspects of their experience: first, participation rates in on-campus initiatives and levels of intercultural interaction; second, the impact of the multicultural campus and its initiatives on language skills and intercultural competence. Students were also asked to evaluate how the multicultural campus prepares them for postgraduation situations requiring foreign languages.

Participation Rates and Intercultural Interaction

According to Deardorff and van Gaalen’s (2012) Logic Model, participation rates fall under the “Outputs of Internationalisation” dimension, thus providing insight into the direct results of the initiatives developed. Overall, student participation rates were the highest in the two formal, mandatory initiatives, that is, language exchange classes (86.9%) and regular classes and seminars attended by both Japanese and international students (85.5%). The number of participants decreased significantly in nonmandatory and informal initiatives, such as residence in shared university dormitories (60.1%), participation in culture weeks (56.6%), and participation in the SALC language exchange program (53.1%). These results are consistent with Campbell’s (2012) research, which highlighted that students are less likely to register for intercultural programs if those are not mandatory, even if directly relevant to their coursework. The exception to this trend was the high degree of participation in circle activities (73.9%), which can be explained by the fact that despite not being mandatory or formally managed, these are culturally embedded in the Japanese educational system and are therefore generally perceived by most students as near compulsory (Figure 1).

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Figure 1.

Participation rates per on-campus initiative.

In addition, even though the number of participants in mandatory on-campus initiatives and circle activities was fairly uniform among all students, irrespective of the time they spent abroad, the number of students with no experience abroad who participated in nonmandatory activities was considerably lower. In fact, only 46.7% stated they lived in shared university dormitories, 41.5% that they participated in the SALC language exchange program, and 37.2% that they participated in culture weeks, thus suggesting that time spent abroad contributes to higher levels of engagement in intercultural at-home initiatives. Research on host students, both in Japan and worldwide, has consistently indicated that barriers to participation and interaction often emerge from language and cultural barriers, as well as low social skills and motivation, and anxiety arising from the need to deal with unfamiliar situations (Jon, 2013; Leask, 2009; Morita, 2012b; Whitsed & Volet, 2011), all of which students who have not spent any time abroad have little or no experience with.

Student interaction in both formal and informal initiatives was generally mixed, with higher numbers of students interacting exclusively with international students in the two language exchange programs. Residence in university dormitories, and participation in culture weeks as well as in regular lectures and seminars, however, showed the highest percentages of mixed interaction—87.5%, 72.1%, and 69.7% of its total number of participants, respectively (Figure 2).

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Figure 2.

Student interaction per initiative (based on the total number of participating students).

Nevertheless, a significant number of students still admitted to communicating exclusively with other Japanese students in all the initiatives surveyed, including in both language exchange initiatives, that is, the language exchange classes (9.3%) and the SALC language exchange program (7.6%), despite the fact that intercultural interaction is at the core of these initiatives. These findings further support previous research stating that contact between domestic and international students does not necessarily lead to meaningful interaction (Jon, 2013; Leask, 2009; Whitsed & Volet, 2011).

In addition, even though a majority of the respondents stated that they use predominantly English with non-Japanese teachers (89.1%) and students (73.9%), the number decreased drastically as regards interaction with non-Japanese staff (50.7%). A significant number of respondents also stated that they use mostly Japanese to communicate in English language classes (18.9%) and in lectures and seminars with international students conducted in English (21.6%), implying a gap between institutional goals of foreign language acquisition and their implementation.

Despite the inconsistencies discussed above, more than half of the students stated they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the amount of intercultural interaction on campus. This finding contradicts previous studies in which both Japanese and international students at a Japanese university were found to be dissatisfied with the amount of intercultural interaction on campus (Morita, 2012a, 2012b). However, differences may be due to a greater number of opportunities in a highly diverse campus (Campbell, 2012; Leask, 2009), which are available to a much lesser degree in universities with lower percentages of international students. Nonetheless, 27% of domestic students stated they were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied despite the highly diverse campus and the opportunities available to students. In fact, although 61.4% of the students agreed that there were enough opportunities on campus to meet and interact with people from other cultures, only 43.5% admitted to making use of those opportunities. This figure decreased significantly to 31.3% in students who had not spent any time abroad at the time of the survey. These figures strongly confirm a gap between institutional rhetoric on diversity and implementation, seeing as many Japanese students are failing to take advantage of the intercultural interaction opportunities made available by the university.

For comparison purposes, students were also asked to identify intercultural interaction opportunities off-campus. Only 35.9% of respondents said that they had enough opportunities to meet and interact with people from other cultures off-campus, and a lower 28.8% stated they made use of those opportunities. These figures suggest that, despite still being somewhat underutilized, the multicultural campus strongly contributes to intercultural interaction and, if re-assessed and optimized, might provide students with the opportunity to come into contact with a greater variety of cultures, enhancing their linguistic skills as well as the ability to tolerate and incorporate different values and perspectives, as promoted in the institution’s mission statement.

Skill Development

Although the gap among opportunities available on campus, participation rates, and intercultural interaction satisfaction is informing, the effects of internationalization strategies must also be considered in terms of outcomes. Previous research has determined that contact between domestic and international students does not necessarily result in meaningful interaction (Brewer & Leask, 2012; Deardorff & van Gaalen, 2012; Knight, 2011), and that an analysis of outcomes, beyond inputs, is fundamental to determine the impact of initiatives on students’ knowledge and skills (Deardorff & van Gaalen, 2012). For this reason, in a separate set of questions, students were asked about the impact of the multicultural campus on their foreign language skills and intercultural competence as well as the impact of each initiative on their foreign language skills.

In line with positive effects identified by students in previous research (Campbell, 2012), the large majority of students agreed that the multicultural campus developed their foreign language skills (73%), their knowledge and understanding of cultural differences (77.3%), and their intercultural communication skills (75.7%), consistent with the university’s mission and goals. Still, an average 9% disagreed with these statements, and between 14% and 18% neither agreed nor disagreed.

In terms of the impact of each initiative on foreign language skills, residing in shared university dormitories had the largest area of influence among its participants, with 75% of students stating they had improved their language skills as a result of this initiative. This was followed by the language exchange classes (62.3% of participants), and regular lectures and seminars with both Japanese and international students (50.4%). The SALC language exchange program had the smallest range of influence, with only 35.9% of participant students saying it had helped to improve their foreign language skills (Figure 3).

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Figure 3.

Total number of students whose foreign language skills improved as a result of each on-campus initiative.

The formal/informal aspect of initiatives in itself does not seem to directly factor in the impact of initiatives on students’ foreign language skills. However, a combination of high frequency contact and limited opportunities to exclusively use their mother tongue, such as in the case of language exchange classes, residence in dormitories, and language exchange classes, seems to promote the development of linguistic skills.

Participants of each initiative were also asked to rate the extent to which their foreign language skills improved on a 4-point Likert-type scale from “no improvement” to “great improvement.” Informal initiatives, namely, circle activities and culture weeks had the highest percentages of no improvement—27.7% and 24.1%, respectively. These are consistent with the higher levels of Japanese-only interaction described in the previous section, further drawing a distinction between participation rates and meaningful interaction. However, the two initiatives with the highest percentage of significant or great improvement were residence in shared university dormitories (53.5%) and the SALC language exchange program (40.8%), closely followed by regular lectures and seminars and language exchange classes, supporting the importance of formal, structured initiatives and regular contact frequency (Campbell, 2012) (Figure 4).

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Figure 4.

Language improvement per initiative (based on the total number of initiative participants).

University Initiatives and Postgraduation Student Goals

In a final set of questions, students were asked to identify how often and in which ways they planned to use English after graduation, and how both the language classes and the university campus experience prepared them for those situations. This is of particular relevance as policy documents related to internationalization at both institutional and governmental levels often refer to the necessity of preparing globally competent graduates for the global workforce, seldom taking into consideration individual student aspirations.

Among the respondents, only 7% stated they did not intend to use English at all in the future or that they would rarely use it, a predictable figure in view of the significant number of students who selected the institution for its multiculturalism. The number of students who did not intend to use English in the future increased to 18%, however, among students who had not spent any time abroad.

In terms of the circumstances in which students expected to use English, most students identified holiday travel (73%), work in Japan (70%), and work abroad (68%) as the top three situations in which they expected to use English after graduation (see Figure 5). Although these figures are fairly high, they also reveal a large percentage of students who do not expect to need English for work or travel after graduation, contradicting to some extent the ubiquitous institutional rhetoric on globalization and globally competent graduates.

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Figure 5.

Expected use of English after graduation.

Most students also seemed to feel that both the language classes and the campus immersion experience played an active and substantial role in preparing them for both traveling and working in Japan. By contrast, the percentage of students who believed they were being prepared for working abroad through language classes (56%) and the multicultural campus immersion experience (62%) was substantially lower than the number of students who actually planned to do so, despite the emphasis placed by the university’s mission statement on the need for intercultural understanding. There also seemed to be a disproportional emphasis placed by the university on preparing students for studying abroad, making international friends and staying in touch with those friends, compared with the students’ future goals. However, it should be taken into consideration that although not as useful after graduation, these skills are crucial to students in a multicultural campus during the period of their studies.

It should also be noted that, in general, students who had never been abroad were significantly less likely to perceive beneficial effects arising from language classes or campus initiatives in preparing them for the entire range of the above-mentioned postgraduation situations, further suggesting a link between study abroad experience and awareness of the opportunities for intercultural interaction available to domestic students in a multicultural campus.

Discussion

This section will discuss recommendations to address the shortcomings of the multicultural campus which emerged from the findings discussed in the previous section. The results presented in the previous section suggest that there are clear benefits to a multicultural campus and that students are more likely to make use of opportunities for intercultural interaction on-campus than off-campus. This is especially true of students who have had some experience abroad. Nevertheless, awareness must be raised among stakeholders, including students, as to the differences between participation and meaningful interaction if we hope to move the internationalization debate beyond superficial quantitative outputs, toward in-depth considerations of student outcomes.

In addition, governments and institutions must begin to look beyond rankings as well as indiscriminate goals of global citizenship and global human resources, and instead take into consideration current and future student goals, to provide students with relevant educational opportunities, targeted to the specific environments they will be in and the skills they will require. Such an approach is more likely to increase students’ preparedness and competitiveness in the future, locally or globally, ultimately serving the purpose of higher education.

To maximize the impact of the multicultural campus on students’ experiences and skills, universities must aim not only for higher participation rates but also for better-quality meaningful interaction. In the following subsections, potential causes of low participation rates and lack of meaningful interaction, as well as measures to address those issues will be briefly discussed.

Limitations and Further Research

This research study aimed to gather data regarding the extent to which domestic students in a highly diverse Japanese university campus make use of the intercultural interaction opportunities available to shed light on the potential of multicultural campuses around the world as well as to provide a platform to discuss possible difficulties faced by both established and new universities looking to internationalize by diversifying their student and faculty bodies, either in Japan or worldwide.

However, it presents several limitations. First, this study focused on a single case study of a university which aimed to foster a highly multicultural campus from its foundation. An analysis of institutions that have successfully attracted a large percentage of international students through recent years may provide further insight into the impact of internationalization-at-home strategies. Second, the scope of initiatives was limited, and data were collected solely through a self-report instrument, further limiting a more comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the impact of the multicultural campus. Third, as most of the students surveyed were either first- or second-year students, a longitudinal study may be able to draw on long-term patterns and practices to assess and determine the long-term impact of internationalization strategies. Finally, in terms of program assessment, it would be highly beneficial for future studies to analyze the factors influencing participation and intercultural interaction levels in detail for each initiative, so as to set the ground for program re-evaluation and optimization. In addition, in-depth analysis of the specific components of language learning and intercultural competence as fostered by each initiative may help stakeholders to gain insight regarding the ways internationalization-at-home can contribute to the development of globally competent graduates, not only in Japan but also in higher education institutions around the world.