The changes in Japanese higher education were anticipated as far back as the 1990s, when studies began of changes in the UK higher education systems. By 1999 the "Arima Plan," which turned universities into autonomous corporations was announced and the growth of new international universities began.

“Deftly avoiding both the zealous idealism of the policymaker and the cynical realism of the practitioner, the contributions to this volume offer empirically grounded, culturally nuanced analyses of university internationalisation in practice. Recommended reading for anyone interested in Japanese higher education today, and a fine example of how to blend engaging ‘insider’ stories with rigorous scholarly analysis.” – Jeremy Breaden, PhD (Melbourne), Lecturer in Japanese Studies, School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Monash University “An excellent timely publication! This book brings together critical insights and multi-dimensional understandings of internationalization, and international and intercultural practices in Japanese higher education. It will be an important sourcebook, a must-read for all interested in Japanese higher education and internationalization. It will certainly raise the bar of competencies and knowledge of the field.” – Terri Kim, PhD (London), Reader in Comparative Higher Education, Leader of the Higher Education Research Group, University of East London

In this dismantling of the myth of Japanese "quality education", McVeigh investigates the consequences of what happens when statistical and corporatist forces monopolize the purpose of schooling and the boundary between education and employment is blurred.

English-Medium Instruction in Japanese Higher Education provides a touchstone for higher education practitioners, researchers and policy makers. It enables readers to more clearly understand why policies concerning English-medium instruction (EMI) are in place in Japan, how EMI is being implemented, what challenges are being addressed and what the impacts of EMI may be. The volume situates EMI within Japan’s current policy context and examines the experiences of its stakeholders. The chapters are written by scholars and practitioners who have direct involvement with EMI in Japanese higher education. They look at EMI from perspectives that include policy planning, program design, marketing and classroom practice.

How do we understand and explain who has access to higher education? How do we make sense of persisting and new forms of inequality? How can global, national and institutional policymakers and practitioners make higher education more inclusive? Access to Higher Education: Theoretical perspectives and contemporary challenges seeks to update thinking on these questions, combining new voices and emerging perspectives with established writers in the field. This pioneering text highlights the contribution of social theory to issues of access to education, with chapters introducing and drawing on the works of key interdisciplinary thinkers including Pierre Bourdieu, Margaret Archer, Amartya Sen and Herbert Simon. It then moves to examines how theoretical perspectives can be applied to the contemporary challenges of forging more equal access, with examples drawn from a wide range of contexts, including the UK, the US, Australia, South Africa and Japan. Global in scope, this book documents the shared nature of the access challenge in a period when higher education is growing rapidly, but inequalities continue to be stark. It concludes by proposing a new direction for research and a reassertion of the role of the researcher as a social activist for disconnected and disadvantaged groups, equipped with the thinking tools needed to move the agenda forward. Access to Higher Education is a rigorous text for the global research community, with relevance to policymakers, practitioners and postgraduate students interested in social justice and social policy. It provides those with an academic interest in access and a commitment to enhancing policy with theoretical and practical ideas for moving the access agenda forward in their institutional, regional or national contexts.

Although scholars in various academic fields have a keen interest in the social institutions that reproduce the university system, generally their gaze has been averted from a close analysis of the professors themselves.

An almost universal driving force for contemporary change in universities is the shifting view of higher education as more of a private than a public good. Towards the Private Funding of Higher Education presents a contemporary global picture of this move towards the privatisation of higher education, and examines how these shifts in ideology and funding priorities have significant policy implications. The resulting developments, such as the imposition and escalation of student tuition fees and the emergence of online providers of higher education, emerge out of a combination of economic, political and ideological pressures, further enhanced by technological changes. By using multiple international and regional examples to analyse the various pressures for privatisation, this book examines the different forms privatisation has taken, whilst offering an analytical interpretation of why the privatisation drive emerged, why it has been resisted in some instances and what forms it is likely to assume in the future. Towards the Private Funding of Higher Education illustrates and challenges the emergence of a new relationship between the university, government and society. It is an essential read for higher education professors, university managers and higher education policy makers across the world.

For several decades internationalisation has been a cornerstone of both Japanese government higher education policy and approaches to reform at an institutional level, but Japan has still not managed to lose its reputation as a somewhat reclusive member of the global academic community. Consensus on the potential of internationalisation to reinvigorate Japanese higher education is matched by the depth of recognition that universities have, to date, failed to internationalise successfully. This book offers a new approach to Japan’s internationalisation conundrum by proceeding from the ‘inside out’. It presents an extended case study one university organisation that has been changed through its adoption of a radical program of internationalisation. Through this case study Jeremy Breaden identifies patterns by which internationalisation is situated in administrative discourse and individual action, and determines how these patterns in turn shape organisational practice. The result is a multi-dimensional narrative of organisational change that advances our understanding of both the dynamics of university reform and the concept of internationalisation, one of the most durable yet contentious themes in the study of contemporary Japanese society. With detailed analysis and an in-depth case study, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Japanese studies, sociology and anthropology. It will also prove valuable to professionals and policy makers working in higher education, both in Japan and around the world.

The purpose of this book is to illuminate the changing nature of contemporary Japan by decoding a range of political, economic and social boundaries, with a focus on the period following the inauguration of Prime Minister Koizumi Junichirō’s administration (2001—6). A rapid turnover of prime ministers followed Koizumi—Abe Shinzō (2006--7), Fukuda Yasuo (2007--8) and Asō Tarō (2008—)—but the transformation set in motion through his promotion of a more proactive role for Japan internationally, and the implementation of ‘structural reforms’ domestically, set the direction for future administrations. The central argument of the book is that, in order to achieve the twin goals of greater international proactivity and domestic reform, the government and other actors supporting the new direction for Japan pushed forward by the Koizumi administration needed to take action in order to destabilize and reformulate a range of extant boundaries. This task was achieved by deploying material as well as normative resources, including the production of new discourses about the way these resources should be deployed.

There has been an explosion of interest in teaching excellence in higher education. Once labelled the ‘poor relation’ of the research/teaching divide, teaching is now firmly on the policy agenda; pressure on institutions to improve the quality of teaching has never been greater and significant funding seeks to promote teaching excellence in higher education institutions. This book constitutes the first serious scrutiny of how and why it should be achieved. International perspectives from educational researchers, award winning teachers, practitioners and educational developers consider key topics, including: policy initiatives research-led teaching teaching excellence and scholarship the significance of academic disciplines research into teaching excellence rewarding through promotion inclusive learning and ICT. Teaching Excellence in Higher Education provides a guide for all those supporting, promoting and trying to achieve teaching excellence in higher education and sets the scene for teaching excellence as a field for serious investigation and critical enquiry.