Matthias Hennings

Over the past three decades, the internationalization of education has become a central component of Japan’s response to economic restructuring, demographic decline, and intensifying global competition. Since the late twentieth century, policymakers have increasingly promoted kokusaika as a strategy to enhance global competitiveness, cultivate internationally oriented human resources, and position Japan more effectively within a global knowledge economy. As the contributions of this volume illustrate, these efforts have translated into a wide range of initiatives, including the expansion of study abroad programs, the promotion of English-language education, the internationalization of university curricula, and the recruitment of international students and skilled migrants. However, the volume’s contributions also show that the expansion of internationalization indicators—such as student mobility numbers, English-medium programs, or international rankings—does not necessarily imply deeper institutional transformation. Following Okano’s (2018) distinction between policy rhetoric and institutional practice, internationalization in Japan often remains fragmented, selective, and unevenly embedded across educational sectors and organizations. While mobility and recruitment targets have expanded considerably, more fundamental questions concerning institutional openness, governance cultures, inclusion, and academic autonomy remain unresolved.

In the fields of Japanese studies, education, sociology, and migration studies, the internationalization of education and international student mobility (ISM) have become highly timely topics. Since the collapse of the economic bubble in the early 1990s, Japan has faced prolonged economic stagnation, demographic contraction, and rising social inequality. Once widely portrayed as a sōchūryū shakai—a “general middle-class society”—Japan is today more commonly described as a kakusa shakai, a “gap society” characterized by widening disparities, labor market insecurity, and increasingly uneven life chances (Chiavacci, 2008; Chiavacci & Hommerich, 2017).

This book provides a comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis of the internationalization of education in Japan, examining how national efforts to cultivate

Due to a shrinking number of employable graduates, companies in industrialised nations have increasingly faced problems in hiring qualified young people. This situation is particularly pronounced in Japan, where companies are competing for the best talents. Based on a multi‐stakeholder perspective, this study examines changes in the Japanese recruitment system from the viewpoint of companies, university career centres and external organisations involved in recruitment. Using in‐depth interviews with these stakeholders, this study investigates how recruitment practices in Japan have changed, which guidelines for recruitment are currently followed by companies, and to what extent traditional recruitment practices still prevail. As the results show, recruiting activities in Japan have accelerated over the last years with companies trying to recruit university students early in their studies to secure qualified talents. This article also discusses the implications of these findings for Japan and other industrialised countries with similar demographic problems.

In Japan there is a significant mismatch between the skills new‐generation employees possess and the skills employers expect, with Japanese employers reporting a lower average satisfaction with graduate skills than that reported globally. By drawing on the concepts of ‘future work self’ and ‘proactive career behaviour’, this paper compares and contrasts the similarities and differences between Japanese and international students who will enter the workforce soon and explores why such a big gap in skills exists. As the results show, due to their unique social and cultural background and the influence of their contextual environments, fewer Japanese students develop the knowledge and skills important to their futures in comparison with international students, making them largely reliant on the concept of an organisational career rather than a proactively self‐managed one. Better graduate outcomes require more tailor‐made career counselling services to support students. Students should also familiarise themselves with employers’ expectations regarding desired skills.

The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Japan is the latest volume on Japan in the well-known Routledge handbook series on Asian studies. In contrast to Routledge’s earlier handbooks on Japan, which...

Changes in the economic environment and labour market in Japan in recent years have generated greater opportunities for mid-career transformation. This study investigates the reasons and factors influencing the transformation and career success, the competencies required and the challenges and possible improvements for mid-career transformation in a non-western country, namely Japan, which has different cultural traditions and social and organisational norms. The findings show that these issues are influenced by contextual environments as well as organizational and individual factors. The findings also establish an empirical basis for a framework based on ‘multi-factor interaction’ influencing successful mid-career transformation.

(2019). Being young in super-aging Japan. Formative events and cultural reactions. Asia Pacific Business Review. Ahead of Print.

Many Japanese universities have created short-term study abroad programs with the aim of offering a satisfying study abroad experience to international students. Based on a survey of 131 international students, this paper analyzes these students’ objectives and their relation to student satisfaction. As the results show, many students regard their experience of living in Japan as more important than their academic pursuits. Furthermore, for students with prior knowledge of Japanese, improving language skills tends to result in higher satisfaction, while for students who do not speak the local language, achieving cross-cultural skills is a major factor for having a satisfying experience.