In Japanese higher education internationalization policy has oriented towards cultural hegemonicoriented neoliberal approaches delivered through the medium of English language education. A contemporary period of internationalization policy planning in Japanese higher education was investigated to understand the sociohistorical and sociocultural relationships between these policy planning approaches and English education. Critical English language education approaches to support the enactment of internationalization policy planning initiatives were investigated to understand how students challenge these structures. This chapter will underline the importance of critical approaches to English liberal language education that contribute to progressive and socially just enactment of internationalization for Japanese higher education.

Introduction

In evaluating the opportunities for a particular educational system to internationalize, it is important to understand how both national and international factors influence policymaking for creation, implementation, and enactment. In this dual context, neoliberalist and internationalist paradigms have been the primary drivers in the spread of globalization through education. To be sure, complex neoliberal policy orientations of global education are entangled with the more cosmopolitan aspirational tenets of the internationalization of higher education. Both real (material) and imagined (discursive) global perspectives are rationalized in higher educational institutions to justify different conceptional perspectives on internationalization. Japanese higher education is no different in this multivocality approach to the spread of international education ideas and ideals. Taylor discusses these imagined perspectives as part of a wider reflection of the images, myths, parables, stories, legends, and other narratives that are part of a “social imaginary.” I would like to develop these social imaginary perspectives in the form of what could be termed a critical posture (healthy scepticism) to what seem on the surface to be common-sense responses to educational problems. One such example is the Japanese government’s contention that the reason Japanese students do not want to go overseas to study is because of their lack of an outward posture to the world.

In this chapter, I will expand upon these challenges and opportunities to discuss the matter that, while Japan has struggled to offer any meaningful insights into where internationalization as a response to globalization fits within higher education in Japan, Japan does have some of the educational resources and architecture that are required in order to chart a different direction.