Follow-up study of former foreign students in Japan : Case studies in Taiwa, Korea, China, and the United States

1999 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 09041076
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B).
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: 教育・社会系心理学
• Research Institution: Musashi Institute of Technology (1999); Keio University (1997-1998)
• Principal Investigator: IWAO Sumiko Musashi Institute of Technology, Department of Environmental and Information Studies, Professor, 環境情報学部, 教授 (20051360)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): HAGIWARA Shigeru Keio Universitu, Institute for Media and Communications Research, Professor, メディア・コミュニケーション研究所, 教授 (70134343)
• Project Period (FY): 1997 – 1999
• Keywords: former foreign students in Japan / follow-up survey / case study / China / Taiwan / Korea / the United States / cross-cultural adaptation

Research Abstract

The purpose of this study is to clarify the role the experience of study in Japan has played in the lives of former foreign students and related issues based on in-depth interviews in the individual countries of former students who studied at universities in various parts of Japan either in 1975 or 1985. The four target countries of the survey were China, Korea, and Taiwan, where the majority of foreign students in Japan originate, and the United States, with which the imbalance in the flow of people-to-people exchange of the "foreign study" category has been an issue of much discussion. From 1995 to 1996, we conducted a large-scale questionnaire survey of foreign students then residing in Japan and former foreign students who had returned to their home countries. That questionnaire included an item requesting cooperation in an interview study then envisioned as a follow-up. To those who indicated willingness to cooperate with the interview study we selected candidates and mailed reque sts for interviews. The interview surveys were held on-site in each country after making arrangements based on the replies to these requests. The number of former foreign students actually interviewed was 28 in Korea and 29 in Taiwan in 1997(academic year, April 1997-March 1998), 23 students in China in two visits during 1998, 13 students in the United States in 1999, for a total of 93 students. In addition, we held interviews separately with a number of foreign students who had remained in Japan for various reasons following the completion of their studies. The interviewed students have a wide variety of motives and purposes in coming to study in Japan and the nature of their experiences in Japan as well as their careers and ties to Japan after going back to their own countries are very diverse, but overall the study found that they give positive appraisals of their foreign-study experience in Japan. While it cannot be denied that these students may have agreed to be interviewed for the study because of their prior affirmative evaluation of their experience, their responses nevertheless included many critical comments about the closed nature of Japanese society and foreign student programs in Japan. In compiling the results of this three-year study, we chose 38 of the respondents from among former forein students to Japan from different countries. The report introduces their personal histories and views of Japan and includes a detailed examination of issues relating to foreign student programs in Japan.