Learning to Participate: A Case Study of Three Female Japanese Graduate Students in U.S. Universities

Abstract

In this longitudinal, qualitative, multiple-case study, I investigated the following questions: What is it like for a Japanese student who has little experience in countries where English is spoken as an L1 to seek a graduate degree at a U.S. institution of higher education? What linguistic, cultural, and institutional obstacles do they face? How do they overcome them? How does the experience change them? By documenting and analyzing the lived experience of three Japanese women seeking advanced degrees in U.S. universities over a period of at least two years, I shed light on the academic and social factors that played a role in their ultimate success or failure. Drawing on the theories of communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) and legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991), supplemented by activity theory (Engeström, 1999) I focus on the participants’ journeys from the periphery of their new academic communities toward fuller participation within them, with an eye for the way power relationships affect their progress. Using narrative inquiry as a research strategy, I tell my participants’ stories, describing and interpreting their experiences, as they (and I) understood them. The data comprise bi-annual interviews conducted on the participants’ respective campuses, my own observation journals from those visits, additional interviews in Japan, monthly Skype interviews, participants’ journals, course materials, department handbooks and policy statements, and other institutional materials. Findings are grouped into two broad categories: forms of participation and patterns of interaction. The main obstacles to participation included difficulty engaging with instructors and classmates in class, ineffective advising, dysfunction at the departmental level, and trouble managing reading and writing requirements. Patterns of interaction reveal how the participants overcame those obstacles, including forming and leveraging strong socio-academic networks to fill gaps in their own knowledge and to draw emotional support, finding alternative sources of insider support in the absence of effective advising, and developing strategies to cope with literacy demands. The findings suggest that inequities of power in the classroom and in the department can hinder academic socialization and make success less likely. However, these inequities can at times be overcome by agency and creativity.