The Asia Education Leader Course (AELC) Summer 2025 Pre-Study Series was concluded with a lecture by Dr. Lauren Nakasato of Tohoku University. The lecture, titled “Manifestations of Global Citizenship in Japanese Higher Education Internationalization Policy,” was attended by over 30 student participants from four AELC partner institutions.

The research presented introduced three approaches to the movement of policy and ideas across borders (world culture theory, post-colonial perspectives, localist perspectives), a core topic of debate within the field of international and comparative education. The approaches were used to consider the results of an analysis that examined how the concept of global citizenship is manifested in Japanese higher education internationalization policies at the national and university level. The research concluded that world culture theory was better at explaining national-level policy while university-level policy was better explained by localism.

In the discussion, participants were asked to choose a country in Asia and draft three goals and a title for a national-level internationalization policy for that country. Ideas were eclectic, including double degree initiatives, enhancing the three roles of the university (research, education, social contribution), and the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine through international research collaborations.

The AELC Secretariat would like to thank Dr. Nakasato and all participants for an active and productive session. The next meeting will be in-person at Korea University!