Social Networking of International Students in Japanese Communities of Practice

Social Networking of International Students

in Japanese Communities of Practice:

Multiple-Case Study of Students from U.S. Institutions of Higher Education

Thesis

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the

Graduate School of the Ohio State University

Miki Arakaki

Graduate Program in East Asian Languages and Literatures

The Ohio State University

2018

Thesis Committee

Dr. Mari Noda, Advisor

Dr. Xiaobin Jian

Copyrighted by

Miki Arakaki

2018

Abstract

It is believed that study abroad provides opportunities for international students to learn the target language(s) and culture(s) by interacting with local residents and expanding social networks. However, in spite of scholarly recognition of the importance of interaction with local residents, previous studies tend to focus on social networks mainly in an academic context rather than how international students interact with off-campus local residents. This gap is addressed through a qualitative multiple-case study of students who study abroad in Japan, coming from U.S. institutions of higher education as exchange students. The case studies of four students examine if they succeed in constructing social networks in local communities of practice that consist of off- campus local residents through program-oriented four-week to seven-week Community

Engagement activities. Detailed analysis of students’ journal entries and interviews with local residents indicates that while the social networks between students and members of the local communities of practice are loose and only partially developed, the communities of practice accept students as newcomers who have a positive impact on their mission. The emerging social networks suggest that there is potential for building stronger social networks and for the students to become significant members of the community.

Dedication

Dedicated to Mother and Father

iii

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I would like to show my respect and appreciation to my academic advisor

Dr. Mari Noda. It has been my privilege to have Dr. Noda as an advisor for two years, and I appreciate her insightful advice and the hours that she devoted to me.

I am also grateful for Dr. Xiaobin Jian for providing me with insightful advice. In particular, the notion of the Third Space was eye-opening, and it gave me a new perspective to analyze the data in this study.

Also, I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Sanae Eda who encouraged me to pursue a Master’s degree at the Ohio State University, and afforded me the opportunity to conduct this research.

In addition, special thanks go to the four students for participating in this research. They were all very cooperative despite their busy schedules. Thank you very much for sharing your experience with me.

Lastly, I am thankful for my friends who supported me and gave me advice to complete this thesis. Without their warm support, coffee and chocolates that they gave me, I could not have finished this project. I especially would like to show my appreciating to my roommates, Lindsey

Stirek, Angela Saulsbery and the animals in the house for supporting me emotionally. Also, a special thanks to Yeri McClain and Joshua Trinidad who helped me with proofreading my English.

Vita

2016–Present Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University, Department of East

Asian Languages and Literatures

2015–2016 Middlebury C.V. Starr, School in Japan, Tokyo, Japan, Staff member

2013–2015 Middlebury College, Department of Japanese Studies, Teaching Assistant

Summer, 2015 Middlebury School of Japanese, Teaching Assistant

Summer, 2014 Middlebury School of Japanese, Bilingual Assistant

March, 2013 B.A., International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan.

2011–2012 University of Massachusetts, Amherst (Exchange Program)

Fields of Study

Major Field: East Asian Languages and Literatures

Specialization: Japanese Language Pedagogy

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii

Dedication ...... iii

Acknowledgments ...... iv

Vita ...... v

Table of Contents ...... vi

List of Tables ...... x

List of Figures ...... xi

Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1

Chapter 2: Review of Exiting Research ...... 4

2.1 Social network theory ...... 4

2.1.1 Definition and three types of social networks ...... 4

2.1.2 Social network with on-campus local people ...... 8

2.1.3 Social network with off-campus local people ...... 10

2.2 Communities of practice ...... 11

2.3 The Third Space ...... 14

2.4 Three factors that influence students’ interaction with local residents ...... 16

2.5 Research question ...... 18

Chapter 3: Research Methodology ...... 21

3.1 Research design ...... 21

3.2 Research site ...... 22

3.3 Participants ...... 25

3.3.1 Student participants ...... 25

3.3.2 Participants from local communities of practice ...... 27

3.4 Instruments ...... 28

3.4.1 Background information questionnaire ...... 29

3.4.2 Electronic journal entries from student participants ...... 29

3.4.3 Interviews with the local residents ...... 31

3.4.4 E-mail communication ...... 32

3.5 Data analysis procedures ...... 33

3.5.1 Journal entry analysis ...... 33

3.5.2 Interview analysis ...... 35

Chapter 4: Results ...... 37

4.1 The case of Helen ...... 38

4.1.1 Helen and the Community Engagement program site ...... 38

4.1.2 Network profile: Helen’s perspective ...... 39

4.1.3 Summary of Helen’s perspective ...... 46

4.1.4 Network profile: A community representative’s perspective ...... 47

vii

4.2 The case of Mia ...... 51

4.2.1 Mia and the Community Engagement program site ...... 51

4.2.2 Network profile: Mia’s perspective ...... 53

4.2.3 Summary of Mia’s perspective ...... 60

4.2.4 Network profile: A community representative’s perspective ...... 61

4.3 The case of Cassie ...... 64

4.3.1 Cassie and the Community Engagement program site ...... 64

4.3.2 Network profile: Cassie’s perspective ...... 65

4.3.3 Extended interaction (Satellite) ...... 71

4.3.4 Summary of Cassie’s perspective ...... 76

4.3.5 Network profile: A community representative’s perspective ...... 77

4.4 The case of Lilly ...... 81

4.4.1 Lilly and the Community Engagement program site ...... 81

4.4.2 Network profile: Lilly’s perspective ...... 82

4.4.3 Extended interaction (Satellite) ...... 87

4.4.4 Summary of Lilly’s perspective ...... 91

Chapter 5: Findings and Discussion ...... 93

5.1 Duration of time spent in the CoPs and members with whom students interacted in the

CoPs ...... 94

5.2 Network and a Third Space development within the CoPs: Analysis from the students’ perspectives ...... 97

5.3 Extended network beyond the CoPs ...... 100

viii

5.4 Network and Third Space development within the CoPs: Analysis from the CoP representatives’ perspectives ...... 104

5.5 Examining the research question ...... 109

Chapter 6 Conclusion ...... 112

6.1 Summary ...... 112

6.2 Pedagogical implications ...... 114

6.3 Shortcomings and future research implications ...... 117

References ...... 120

Appendix A: Student background information questionnaire ...... 127

Appendix B: Journal template ...... 128

List of Tables

Table 1: Student participants’ backgrounds ...... 26

Table 2: Frequency and duration of interaction between Helen and employees ...... 40

Table 3: Frequency and duration of interaction between Mia and members of the kobanashi volunteer group ...... 53

Table 4: Frequency and duration of interaction between Cassie and Ms. Ueno ...... 66

Table 5: Frequency and duration of interaction between Cassie and people in Ms. Ueno’s social network ...... 72

Table 6: Frequency and duration of interaction between Lilly and office members ...... 83

Table 7: Duration of interaction between Lilly and the meeting group members ...... 89

List of Figures

Figure 1: Coleman’s concentric representation of study abroad social networks ...... 6

Figure 2: A model of social network and Communities of Practice...... 14

Figure 3: Examples of tagging (From students’ journal entries) ...... 34

Figure 4: Examples of tagging (From interview scripts) ...... 35

Figure 5: Helen’s social network with company employees as of the first week (10/5) ...... 42

Figure 6: Helen’s social network throughout her Community Engagement activities (10/5-10/26)

...... 45

Figure 7: Helen’s social network with company employees as of the first week (10/5) ...... 46

Figure 8: Mia’s social network with members of the kobanashi group as of the first week (9/28)

...... 55

Figure 9: Mia’s social network throughout her Community Engagement activities (9/28-10/18) 59

Figure 10: Mia’s social network with members of the kobanashi group as of the first week (9/28)

...... 59

Figure 11: Cassie’s social network with local residents during her Community Engagement as of the first week (9/28) ...... 67

Figure 12: Cassie’s social network throughout her Community Engagement activities (9/28-11/9)

...... 74

Figure 13: Cassie’s social network with local residnets during her Community Engagement as of the first week (9/28) ...... 75

Figure 14: Lilly’s social network with staff members of the tourism association as of the first week

(9/29) ...... 85

Figure 15: Lilly’s social network throughout her Community Engagement activities (9/29-11/1)

...... 90

Figure 16: Lilly’s social network with staff members of the tourism association as of the first week

(9/29) ...... 90

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Chapter 1: Introduction

During academic year 2015-2016, 7,145 students studied abroad from the United States to

Japan for academic credit (Institute of International Education, 2017), representing a 207% increase from academic year 2002-2003, when only 3,457 studied abroad in Japan (Institute of

International Education, 2005). This large inclement contrasts with the moderate increase in the number of Japanese language learners in U.S. institutions of higher education reported by The

Japan Foundation (2005; 2017) and the Modern Language Association (Looney & Lusin, 2018).

The Japan Foundation survey in 2015 finds that U.S. institutions of higher education had 67,335 students, compared to 42,018 in 2003, a 160% increase. According to the MLA survey from the fall of 2016, 68,810 students were enrolled in Japanese in U.S. institutions of higher education, a

132% increase from 52,238 in the fall of 2002. A greater proportion of students who study Japanese at U.S. institutions of higher education are now participating in study abroad in Japan.

Students who are learning a foreign language have a variety of motivations for studying abroad, but it is common that they go abroad aiming to improve their language proficiency by immersing themselves in the target language(s), and to develop firsthand knowledge of the target culture(s) by living in the county and interacting with local people there (Campbell, 2016; Dewey et al., 2014; Spenader, 2011). Though international students hope to mingle with local people in the host country, studies suggest that international students have fewer opportunities to interact

with local native speakers than they expect (Campbell, 2016; Hernández, 2010; Tanaka, 2007). In addition, there are not sufficient research studies that focus on the reality of interactions and personal connections between international students and local residents because it is only recently that researchers have started focusing on the aspect of connections between international students and local residents (Zappa-Hollman & Duff, 2015).

To better understand this topic, the present study examines interactions between international students from the U.S. and local residents in the context of Community Engagement activities in a particular study abroad program in Japan during the first trimester of their one-year study abroad program. This study sheds light on the aspect of social networking between students and local residents in communities where members have common interests or goals within the group.

By revealing the reality of interactions between international students from the U.S and local residents in Japan, this project aims to suggest pedagogical implications for future students who come to Japan wishing to interact with local residents to deepen their understanding of

Japanese language(s) and culture(s). Given the significant increase in the number of students of

Japanese studying abroad in Japan in recent years despite the only moderate increase in the number of students studying Japanese, we can predict this trend to continue, which means more students would need assistance with their attempts to mingle with local residents. In addition to potential international students, the current project also offers pedagogical implications to study abroad programs because support by study abroad programs also play an important role in supporting students’ experiences.

This thesis consists of six chapters. Following this introductory chapter, Chapter 2 provides a review of existing research that introduces theoretical frameworks that the current research is based upon: Social Network Theory, Communities of Practice, and the Third Space. It also presents previous studies that are relevant to the three theoretical frameworks in order to illuminate what has been discussed to the present. Chapter 2 also presents the research question and four sub questions that are examined in the present study. Chapter 3 outlines research methodology that includes research design, research site, participants, data collection method, and data analysis procedures. Chapter 4 presents results of the four cases from multiple data sources that include perspectives of students who are studying in Japan and local residents of the target communities where the students participated. Chapter 5 discusses the research questions based on findings from the results. The final chapter summarizes the findings and offers pedagogical implications. It also considers shortcomings of this study along with future research implications.

Chapter 2: Review of Exiting Research

This chapter provides an overview of three theoretical frameworks related to this thesis and posits the research question. The three theoretical frameworks considered are Social Network,

Communities of Practice, and the Third Space. Each framework is discussed with definitions and existing studies within these frameworks. Based on these frameworks, it is possible to examine factors that influence students’ interactions with local community members.

2.1 Social network theory

2.1.1 Definition and three types of social networks

The notion of a social network was first introduced by a social anthropologist, Barnes

(1954) for referring to social relations of people in his study on residents in a parish of a Norwegian island. Barnes explains how people are related in the small parish by using the term network.

Barnes (1954) states:

Each person is, as it were, in touch with a number of other people, some of whom are directly in touch with each other and some of whom are not. Similarly each person has a number of friends, and these friends have their own friends; some of any one person’s friends know each other, others do not. I find it convenient to talk of a social field of this kind as a network. (p. 43)

Barnes’s use of the term network also emphasizes the complex and multi-dimensional characteristics of how people are connected to each other. His study lead researchers to pay more 4

attention to the notion of network not only in the field of anthropology but also in other fields of study. For example, Milroy (1987) adopts this concept in the field of sociolinguistics as social network by defining it as “the informal social relationships constructed by an individual” (Milroy,

1987, p. 178). Milroy’s use of the term “social network” is significant in the field of sociolinguistics because it highlights a language user as someone in a group of people in a network, which affects the language use of that person. However, Milroy’s definition of social network is slightly problematic, as what it means by “informal” is not explicated clearly. Dewey, Bown and

Eggett (2012) further develop the notion to mean “a structure comprised of individuals who are connected with others by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, or common interests” (p. 114). Dewey et al. specify what Milroy calls “informal social relationships” as “connected with others by one or more specific types of interdependency such as friendship, kinship, or common interests.” Keeping Milroy’s definition of social network in mind, the current research follows the definition by Dewey et al. (2012).

Even before Milroy came up with the idea of social networks, Bochner et al. (1977, 1985) suggested three types of networks regarding international students that are social in nature: co- national network, multinational network, and host national network. Co-national network refers to a network of people who share the same cultural background, such as students who came from the same country. Multinational network refers to a network with other international students from all over the world. Another network, a host national network, is made up of connections with local people in the host country. Each network has its distinctive functions. For example, a co-national network has the function of sharing cultural values among the members, while a multinational

network gives opportunities for recreation and provides support, as members share the same identity as foreigner in the host country (Montgomery, 2010). The host national network tends to have the function of facilitating professional goals of international students (Bochner, Hutnik, &

Furnham, 1985; Cui, 2013; Yamakawa, 2012).

Informed by the three types of social networks presented by Bochner et al. (1977, 1985),

Coleman (2015) develops the idea of social circles. According to Coleman, there are three circles within international students’ social networks: co-nationals, other outsiders, and locals.

International students first construct their social networks with co-nationals, and then add other outsiders who are non-locals to their co-national social network circles. Finally, international students add locals into their circles.

Figure 1 is a model that represents social circles. The arrow that starts from the circle of

Co-nationals to the circle of Locals indicates the process of network expansion with people who belong to each category.

Figure 1: Coleman’s concentric representation of study abroad social networks

(Coleman, 2015) 6

Among the three circles, the network with the locals is the most important network for sojourners to adjust to the host county successfully (Coleman, 2015). Although Coleman focuses on a European study abroad context, it suggests that networking with locals in the host country are a key influence on the success of adjustment to the host culture for international students.

The use of social network theory in the context of study abroad has become popular recently as researchers have realized that a social network is one of the important factors for second language development and socialization in the host culture (Zappa-Holliman & Duff, 2015). For instance, Isabelli-García (2006) studied the relationship between the number of social networks,1 learning motivation, and language proficiency of U.S. university students who speak English as

L1 and study abroad in Argentina to improve their proficiency in Spanish as a second language.

Analyzing these three factors, Isabelli-García concluded that communication with local native speakers in students’ social networks facilitated students’ language proficiency development.

Additionally, Dewey et al. (2012) conducted research on social networks constructed by people in the U.S. who learned Japanese as a second language and experienced study abroad in Japan during their undergraduate studies. They used the Study Abroad Social Interaction Questionnaire

(SASIQ)2 to measure participants’ social networks. Their study suggests that having more social networks with native speakers contributed to more target language use by the language learners.

1 Although Isabelli-García uses the term “social network” based on the definition of Milroy (1987), her focus is on friendships of the students which mentioned by Dewey et al. (2012). 2 Study Abroad Social Interaction Questionnaire (SASIQ) was developed by Dewey (2012). It contains 13 questions to measure students’ social networks in context of study abroad. 7

These studies show that social networks, mainly focusing on friendships, play an important role for international students who aim to develop their language skills.

Previous research shows that international students more or less tend to interact with locals in study abroad context although there are individual differences in terms of how and with which locals they interact (Bochner et al., 1977, 1985; Dewey et al., 2012; Isabelli-García, 2006; McFaul,

2016; Yamakawa, 2012). There are two main types of “locals” for international students: 1. On- campus local people and 2. Off-campus local people. On-campus local people include host university employees and professors, but the majority are local students. On the other hand, off- campus local people can be any locals who are not affiliated with the host university.

2.1.2 Social network with on-campus local people

International students have a chance to interact with local students in the classroom, club activities, or university dormitories. Some people might assume that a classroom is a great place to mingle with local students and make friends. While programs often suggest that international students take an academic course with local students to encourage communication between them

(Campbell, 2016), the research by McFaul (2016) shows that the classroom is not necessarily the best environment to expand social networks with local students. Based on results from a survey questionnaire and interviews with 16 international students in a university in the U.S., their study shows that international students tend to become friends with co-nationals more than host-national students in a classroom setting. Also, interaction between international students and local students can be limited due to a class format. Similarly, in the study by Stewart (2010), students report that

they did not have as many chances to speak with local students as they expected because most of the class time was spent on listening to lectures given by professors, which made it difficult to interact with local students.

On the other hand, students often succeed in expanding their social networks with local students through extra-curricular club activities (Dewey et al., 2012; Yamakawa, 2012). For instance, in a study by Yamakawa (2012) about international students’ social network construction, one of the participants stated that he developed friendships with local university students through club activities. By sharing time and space regularly with local students, the international student could build close friendships with them although his Japanese was at a novice level.

Living in a dormitory with local students also provides international students with opportunities to interact with them (Isabelli-García, 2006; McFaul, 2016; Yamakawa, 2012, 2016).

Yamakawa (2016) compares students who live in two types of dormitories, one for short-term international students only, and the other for both local and international students. Through questionnaires and interviews of both international students and local Resident Assistants, and by analyzing the dormitories from a spatial perspective, such as how a common space is designed, the study finds that living with local students is a good environment for international students to make connections not only with co-nationals or other international students, but also with locals.

However, Yamakawa (2016) also mentions the importance of additional effort to create interaction between international students and local students such as having a common space (e.g. kitchen,

lounge, study room) and providing recreational events occasionally, since living together does not necessarily create interaction between residents.

2.1.3 Social network with off-campus local people

Off-campus local people refers to local residents whom international students may interact with outside of an academic environment, such as host families, colleagues of internship/volunteer/part-time job site, church members (Campbell, 2016; Kinginger, 2008;

Tanaka, 2007; Yamakawa, 2012). Kinginger (2008) in her study of American students in France who participated in volunteer activities found that by being involved in regular meetings and social events once a week, a student succeeded in making friends with the peer volunteers during his study abroad period. Similarly, international students also recognize local people from their part- time job sites as members in their social network (Yamakawa, 2012). In addition, going to church is another opportunity through which international students can meet and interact with local people. For example, a participant in the study by Campbell (2016) states that she would not have been able to meet as many local people as she did if she had not been to church during her stay in

Japan.

Thus, there is a variety of possibilities for international students to construct social networks outside of the institutional context. However, it is not always easy to make contact with local people, as is discussed later in this chapter.

2.2 Communities of practice

The notion of a social network is linked to the idea of Communities of Practice, originally developed by Lave and Wenger (1991), and redefined by Wenger & Trayner in their website

(2015). It refers to “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly” (Wenger & Trayner, 2015, para. 27). According to Wenger, Trayner, and de Laat (2011), this “groups of people” aim to learn from each other in a particular domain to achieve a goal (p. 9).

Social network and communities of practice (hereafter CoPs) are not completely separate structures. Rather, they are “two aspects of social structures in which learning take place” (Wenger et al., 2011, p. 9). They develop together because “A community usually involves network relationships. And many networks exist because participants are all committed to some kind of joint enterprise or domain” (Wenger et al., 2011, p. 10).

In the CoPs, there are old-timers and newcomers. Old-timers are people who have been in the communities for a while and support newcomers to integrate them into the communities, and newcomers are those who intend to participate in the communities from outside. When newcomers come to a community, they start from legitimate peripheral participation, which is considered as an initial form of participation in the community (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Legitimate peripheral participation is an essential learning process for newcomers. By learning from old-timers and participating in the CoPs, the newcomers gradually become full participants of the community

(Montgomery, 2010; Umino & Benson, 2016).

In a study abroad context, international students are considered as newcomers in various local CoP’s, such as a group of people who are in the same seminar courses, student organizations, part-time work, or volunteer work, as long as they have a concern or passion for something in common and communicate regularly in order to learn how to improve their common interest. On the one hand, there are an infinite number of CoPs that international students might be able to be involved in; on the other hand, it requires time to become a member of a local CoP, especially for international students as individuals who are new to the country and culture. Since it can take time for some students, sometimes they might have to leave the host country before they become a full participant of a CoP.

Even one year may not be long enough for an international student to become a core member of a CoP as Umino & Benson (2016) suggest in their case study of an Indonesian graduate student in Japan. Through photo-elicitation and life-story interview, Umino & Benson (2016) examined how a student sojourner in Japan had become a central member of a CoP over four years.

During the first year, the student mainly participated in institutionally-organized events as opportunities to mingle with other people, and participated in the community as a newcomer. As time passed, the student started to expand his social network with local people, and played a role as a central participant of the CoP by conducting self-organized events such as outings and doing volunteer activities. In year 1, he organized only three activities on his own, but the number of self-organized activities increased to 75 in his 4th year. The photos that he had taken also demonstrate how he had increased the number of opportunities to interact with local people. While only 5 % of photos he took had local people in it during year 1, the percentage increased to 46 %

in year 4, which means about a half of his pictures were either taken with locals or were pictures of locals (p. 762). The increase in the number of self-organized events and pictures with local people indicate that he gradually became a central member of a CoP, but it took four years until he accomplished it.

While Umino & Benson (2016) portray, with the support of quantified evidence, a successful development of membership in a CoP over time, it remains difficult for international students with temporary residential status to have an access to a local community (Duff, 2007;

Umino & Benson, 2016). In addition, support by the old-timers is necessary for newcomers in order to become a member of a CoP in addition to student’s own effort (Montgomery, 2010). It is similar to a social network in the sense that constructing a social network with local residents is influenced by the local environment beyond personal factors.

The CoPs and social network are two different ways to see social structures, and most groups have both social network aspect as well as CoPs aspect (Wenger et al., 2011). Therefore, it is important to take both theoretical frameworks into consideration when analyzing international students’ interaction with local residents in a study abroad context. Constructing social network with individuals of the local people in the CoPs is also a part of the process of becoming a full participant of the CoP.

Figure 2 below illustrates an individual (A)’s social network with individual (B) to (F).

The relationship with each individual can vary from friendship to kinship and some other kinds of connection with common interest. For example, (A)’s relationship with (F) can be kinship while

(A)’s relationship with (E) is friendship that developed at school. Also, (A) can be a member of

the CoP that consists of (A), (B), (C) and (D) if they have a shared interest and interact regularly to achieve a common goal. This is illustrated in with cross connections among these four individuals. Note that the figure is simplified, and in an actual case, the social networks are more complex and multi-dimensional.

Figure 2: A model of social network and Communities of Practice.

2.3 The Third Space

The Third Space is a concept that has been developed by Jian (2018) to explain a field where more than two individuals who have different cultural and linguistic backgrounds encounter each other:

A 3rd space, where different cultures converge, contest and cooperate; where rules for games and expectations for players do not entirely and constantly conform to the assumptions and norms of one culture, but dynamic and fluid, motivated by specific goals of the game in question and negotiated among involved players; and where players are necessary multilingual and cross-cultural subjects whose performed cultures co-construct the third space (Jian, 2018, p. 3).

According to Jian (2018), a Third Space automatically emerges when two individuals meet, or it can emerge between groups of people. This is the first and fundamental stage of a Third Space, 14

but this Third Space will develop gradually through several stages. At the next stage, the individuals recognize their potential common goals to coexist in the space. They also find gaps in their assumptions and cultural backgrounds that could be obstacles to achieve the potential goal.

Once they recognize the gaps, they negotiate to fill the gaps, and cooperate to achieve their common goals: this is the next stage of further development of the Third Space. In the process of development, the members’ common goals or strategies of negotiation can change because they are dynamic and fluid.

In the context of study abroad, as soon as an international student joins a CoP that consists of local people, a Third Space emerges because the space is multilingual and multicultural. In this

Third Space, “cooperation” is one of the most critical concepts for international students to coexist with local residents in the host country. However, cooperation does not mean giving up their own base culture, or completely accepting the target culture. Cooperation requires members of the Third

Space to acknowledge the differences between their own base cultures and to negotiate until they have awareness for a common goal that both international students and local residents wish to achieve together.

The three theoretical frameworks provide basis on which to analyze social network development among international students in a short-term stay in Japan. We now turn to possible factors that figure into students’ interactions with off-campus local community people.

2.4 Three factors that influence students’ interaction with local residents

While it is recognized that social networks with local people are important, students sometimes have difficulty creating them. Needless to say, different individuals have different experiences even if they are in the same program (Isabelli-García, 2006; Stewart, 2010). Several studies examine possible factors that can make it difficult for the students to be connected with local residents, and scholars have pointed out three main factors: personal factors, local environment, and program variables (Campbell, 2016; Coleman, 2015; Dewey et al., 2014;

Kinginger, 2008).

Personal factors include an individual’s personality and their initial target language proficiencies, as well as motivations toward study (Dewey et al., 2014). If international students are not open to understanding and accepting the target culture, they might miss opportunities to interact with local people. Also, student sojourners’ language proficiency prior to study abroad can play a role in activities they will be involved in. For example, if a student has higher proficiency, they can participate in a greater number of kinds of activities (Campbell, 2016). On the other hand, limited language proficiency can limit opportunities (Segalowitz & Freed, 2004). In addition, motivation toward cultural and language learning is also one of the personal factors that influence how international students communicate with local people (Hernández, 2010; Isabelli-García,

2006).

However, even though international students are eager to communicate with local people, they may still face difficulty in making local acquaintances because the construction of a social network by a student sojourner is also dependent to a large degree on the willingness of community

members of the host country to interact with foreigners (Kinginger, 2008). For example, in a homestay environment, while many host families welcome international students as a member of family and take an initiative to communicate with them, some host families do not actively interact with students because their main purpose of accepting the students is motivated by the extra income they can expect from accommodating them (Tanaka, 2007). In addition, it is also difficult for international students to expand their social networks in an academic environment if students in the host institution are not interested in interacting with international students. A study by

Harrison and Peacock (2007) about UK students’ attitudes toward interaction with international students shows that some local students are not willing to interact with international students because it requires extra effort to communicate with them due to their insufficient language ability.

In addition to personal factors and local environment, students’ study abroad experience is essentially conditioned by how the program is designed (Churchill & DuFon, 2006; Dewey et al.,

2014). Dewey et al. (2014) compared six study abroad programs to examine possible predicators for language use during study abroad, and found that program design is the most influential factor that determines students’ language use. By comparing students’ frequency of target language use between programs, they found that there is a gap among programs. When a program required international students to use the target language outside of the classroom at least two hours a day, the international students reported that they used the target language more than the students in a different program with no language use requirement. Dewey, Belnap, and Hillstrom (2013) also report that the language use requirement influences students’ construction of social networks with local people. Since program design impacts how students spend time in the host country, some

British universities try not to send a large number of students to one location so as to encourage them to mingle with locals rather than co-nationals (Coleman, 2015).

The previous studies demonstrate the importance of program intervention in promoting interaction between students and local residents. Conversely, international students have less opportunity to interact with the local people without program facilitation (Campbell, 2016).

Directives and guidance by study abroad program is especially important for students on short- term programs, given their limited time to develop connections with locals (Campbell, 2016;

Ingram, 2005; Spenader, 2011).

In spite of scholarly recognition of the importance of intervention of a study abroad program to students’ social networking with local people, empirical studies remain limited on how students form their social networks if there is support by a study abroad program. While some researchers mention interaction between international students and local residents outside of an academic context (e.g. Campbell, 2016; Kinginger, 2008; Nishimata (Fukai), Kumagaya, Sato,

Konoeda, 2016; Yamakawa, 2012), detailed actuality of the phenomenon remains to be investigated.

2.5 Research question

By examining the previous studies, the following research question emerges for the current research: with the intervention of a study abroad program that fosters Community Engagement activities, do exchange students from U.S. institutions of higher education succeed in constructing

social networks within communities of practice of local off-campus residents in the first term of a trimester program?

Becoming a fully functional participant of a CoP from newcomer status requires time, sometimes as long as long as four years (Umino & Benson, 2016). The current research sheds light on the early stage of students’ participation in CoPs, and examine to what extent students can construct their social networks with individual members of CoPs through interaction with them, and/or to what extent they are accepted by community members of CoPs.

This research question is operationalized through four sub-questions:

1. How much time do students spend with members of the community during Community

Engagement activities? With which members do they interact? The time spent with members of the community indicates the quantity of interaction, especially at the initial stage of network formation.

2. To what extent do students in their journals refer to realization of friendship, interdependency, and/or common interests with members of the community where they are assigned for the Community Engagement activities? This question addresses the level of negotiation students may have with members of the CoPs toward developing the Third Space.

3. To what extent do students in their journals refer to realization of friendship, interdependency, and/or common interests with local people connected to, but outside of, the community where they are assigned for the Community Engagement activities? This question addresses the possibility of satellite networking, that is, expanded networking enabled through

participation in the CoPs. It is assumed that the more fully the relationship with CoPs members is negotiated (and the Third Space stabilized), the more easily developed the extended networks.

4. To what extent do members of the CoPs in their interviews with the researcher refer to realization of friendship, interdependency, and/or common interests with students they accept?

This question addresses the view of the Third Space from the perspective of the people with whom international students would cooperate in the Third Space in Japan.

This chapter reviewed theoretical frameworks—Social Network, Communities of Practice

(CoPs), and the Third Space—along with previous research studies within the frameworks, and posited a research question that is operationalized with four specific sub questions. The next chapter discusses research methodologies that were designed to examine the research question.

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

This chapter begins with providing information of the adopted research design. It is followed by information about the research site and description of participants. Then, instrumentation, data collection procedures, and data analysis procedures are described.

3.1 Research design

The present study employs a multiple case-study method. The case study is an appropriate research method if “the phenomenon under study is not readily distinguishable from its context”

(Yin, 1993, p. 3). Also, case study aims to explore the uniqueness of a particular phenomenon in a specific, real life context from several perspectives (Simons, 2009). Since the purpose of the current research is to elucidate how international students interact with local residents and construct social networks when such network building is supported by their program, the phenomenon (i.e. social network construction) and the context (i.e. study abroad) are not separable.

Thus, the case study was selected as a research method for this study. Moreover, multiple-case study was employed because multiple-case study allows scholars to replicate findings among the cases in the context (Yin, 1993). Studying multiple cases provides diverse pictures of phenomenon under study, which help scholars deepen their understanding of it more than single case study.

3.2 Research site

As the research site for the current study, I chose a study abroad program in Japan that is administered by a university in the U.S. The program has an exchange partnership with a university in Minami-city,3 Tokyo, Japan, and all the participants of the study abroad program study there for a year or a trimester. Minami-city is located in a suburban area of Tokyo with approximately

186,000 residents as of March 2018. While there are commercial areas around train stations, the city is mostly residential, and it is replete with nature. The city has been recognized as an Intelligent

Community with respect to their cooperation among city administration, industry and higher education institutions.4

The host university is located in a primarily residential area of Minami-city, and there are approximately 3000 students including both undergraduate and graduate students. Around 800 students live in dormitories that are located on campus. 295 students, which is 9.6 % of the whole student population is international students that include approximately 130 one-year or one trimester exchange students as of October 2017.

The focal study abroad program has its office on the host university campus and there are an on-site director and a part-time staff member who support the students in the program. As of

September 2017, there were 16 students in the study abroad program. The students of the study

3 This city name is a pseudonym 4 The information is from the city website. In order to protect anonymousness of the city, the website URL is not listed in the reference. 22

abroad program all come from several universities in the U.S., but their nationalities vary, including American students as well as students who are from outside of the U.S. but are pursuing their degrees in the U.S. (e.g. Chinese students who study in the U.S. as international students, but study abroad in Japan too).5 All the students in the study abroad program live in the dormitories on campus, and they take Japanese language courses and content courses (in Japanese and/or

English) offered by the host institution. In addition, they are required to take a course called

“Community Engagement” which is offered by the study abroad program, exclusively for the students in the program. The purpose of the course is to provide the students with opportunities to interact with the local people through Community Engagement such as volunteer, internship, or club activities.6 Students are encouraged to participate in off-campus activities, but they may opt to join on-campus club activities with students at the host institution. Off-campus activities include, for example, volunteering at a local elementary school, interning at a local business, or participating in a social club activity with local people. The communities with which students are engaged should consist of a group of people who have common goal(s) and meet regularly, in other words, Communities of Practice (CoPs). In the first trimester of their study abroad

(September to November), each international student chooses a local CoP that s/he wants to be

5 The current 16 students’ background information such as their home institutions, native languages, ages are not publically available. 6 From course syllabus which is available publicly from the online website of the study abroad program. In order to protect privacy of the participants, the website name is not on the reference list. 23

involved in, and engage in activities for 24 hours in total over four weeks, ideally, 6 hours per week.

As suggested by research to date, that intervention by the study abroad program is necessary in order to promote interaction between international students and local residents

(Campbell, 2016; Churchill & DuFon, 2006; Dewey et al., 2014), and the nature of intervention provided by this program requires careful examination. The interventions of the study abroad program are listed below:7

1. The program requires students to be involved in a community of practice that mainly consists of off-campus local residents or on-campus local students if they choose to join a club activity.

2. The program helps students with the first contact with the local community by organizing an orientation that students can meet with community people who are interested in having the students in their CoPs.

3. Once students decide which CoP to join, the program staff helps the students and CoPs with scheduling and students’ understanding of known regulations associated with working with the community members.

7 The information regarding the course including course syllabus is public through the website of the study abroad program. In order to preserve the anonymity of the study abroad program as well as participants, the name of website is not listed in the reference list. 24

4. As one of the course requirements, students keep a time log and write electronic journal entries about each of their Community Engagement activities and share their journal entries with the director and the staff.

5. Course grades are determined based on their participation to the activities, a research paper that they will write at the end of trimester, attendance to regular class meetings, and three presentations.

6. The Director and the staff member prepare to intervene in cases where direct communication between students and members of the CoPs become so difficult as to jeopardize continuation of Community Engagement.

3.3 Participants

The data for this study was collected from seven participants: four student participants of the exchange program during the fall 2017 trimester, and three local residents who interacted with these students.

3.3.1 Student participants

All of the four student participants were 20 years old female juniors at their respective home universities. For the purpose of discussion, they are referred to as Helen, Mia, Cassie and

Lilly, all pseudonyms. Lilly, who had originally come from China when she entered college, is a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese. The other three grew up in the U.S., but two are bilinguals;

Mia speaks Spanish and Cassie speaks Cantonese. Regarding their Japanese learning history, all

but one (Cassie) started studying Japanese at their home universities, while Cassie self-studied

Japanese when she was in high school. When they started study abroad, all of them were rated to be Intermediate-Mid or above in ACTFL Institutional OPI. Lily and Mia were rated to be

Intermediate-High. A basic outline of the four participants’ background information is listed in

Table 1 below.

Table 1: Student participants’ backgrounds

Name Helen Mia Cassie Lilly Gender Female Female Female Female Age 20 20 20 20 Year in school 3rd year 3rd year 3rd year 3rd year Duration of SA 1 year 1 year 1 year 1year program Native English English English Mandarin language Spanish Cantonese Chinese History of University University High school University Japanese study (2.5 years) (2.5 years) (self) (2.5 years) University (1year) ACTFL Intermediate- Intermediate- Intermediate- Intermediate- Institutional Mid High Mid High OPI ratings

Regarding the recruitment process, the investigator first sent an email about this research and a consent form to the local staff of the study abroad program, and the staff forwarded this email to all the students in the study abroad program in the beginning of October. Among 16 students (3 males and 13 female), four students responded. The investigator had Skype information sessions to give them a more detailed description, and also to answer questions from the students.

All of them agreed to participate in this research, so they signed the consent forms and returned them as PDF or JPG attachments.8 By the time they sent the consent forms back, all of them had already started their first Community Engagement activities.

3.3.2 Participants from local communities of practice

Three local participants were interviewed for this research. They are not affiliated with the host university or study abroad program, but accepted the international students into their CoPs.

All local participants, identified with pseudonyms, are residents of Minami-city. Mr. Yoshino, who is in his 40s is an employee at a local printing/publishing company that accepted Helen. Ms.

Tanaka, who is approximately her 50s, is the representative of a storytelling volunteer group that accepted Mia. Ms. Ueno, who is in her 40s, runs a company that accepted Cassie. Unfortunately, no local resident from Lilly’s Community Engagement site could participate in this research.

Regarding the recruitment process, first, the four student participants were asked to approach one of the members in the CoPs to ask if that person would not mind being contacted by the investigator. Helen recommended Mr. Yoshino as he was the first contact and also he arranged her internship. Mia recommended Ms. Tanaka because she is the representative of the group as well her first contact during her activities. Cassie introduced Ms. Ueno because she was the

8 First contact emails, consent forms, background information questionnaire, journal templates and interview questions are all approved by the Ohio State University IRB (IRB approval number 2017B0365). All the documents were approved by the home institution of the study abroad program as well. 27

representative and the only staff member of the company. Lilly said that she asked a staff member who worked with her the most frequently. With the permission of local residents, the student participants provided contact information of the potential local participants to the investigator.

Based on information the students provided, the investigator sent an email of invitation to the research with a description of the study.

The investigator contacted four local residents, one for each student participant, and three of them agreed to be interviewed. A community member from Lilly’s Community Engagement site unfortunately informed the investigator that they could not participate in the research because their office had become busy and could not make time for an interview. The investigator communicated with the participants through email or Facebook messenger depending on their preference of communication method to decide on date and time of interview.

3.4 Instruments

The data were collected in three ways: background information questionnaire from the student participants (see Appendix A), journal entries of the student participants, and interviews with the three local community members. Ancillary data sources included email communication with the program director, students, and community members and information available publically on the online Community Engagement site. The information from these sources helped to contextualize and confirm data from students’ journal entries and interviews with local community members. Detailed information of each instrument is provided below.

3.4.1 Background information questionnaire

The four student participants were asked to fill out an online background information questionnaire. The purpose of the questionnaire was to grasp the characteristics of the student participants, such as age, year in school, gender, native languages, foreign languages they speak, history of their Japanese learning, Japanese proficiency, and duration of study abroad, and their reasons for choosing the particular Community Engagement site they selected. The background information questionnaire was distributed through Google Forms to individual student participants and they were completed between November 5th and 15th, which was the 10th week into the trimester.

3.4.2 Electronic journal entries from student participants

Collecting and analyzing journals is commonly adopted by scholars for qualitative research on student sojourners’ personal networking during study abroad (e.g. Cui, 2013; Isabelli-García,

2006; Stewart, 2010) because day-to-day journals record not solely the result of students’ networking but also the process entailed (Campbell, 2016). Since present study aims to examine the process of networking, journal entries comprised a central data set for analysis.

Writing an electronic journal is required for all students by the study abroad program to keep a record of what they encountered during Community Engagement activities. The participants of the current study were asked to write their journals in English every time they had a Community

Engagement activity, they were asked to write in their journals as soon as they could, but it was difficult to collect their journals right after each activity due to their busy schedule, and all of them

already started their Community Engagement activities by the time they agreed to share their journal entries. However, the students explained that they had written a rough journal draft after each activity, and made a final draft of each journal when they had time.

While the course did not require students to use any specific format for their e-journal, the four participants of the present research were asked to use a journal template which provided categories to write about. In the journal, the study participants were asked to write about the following contents:

1. Basic information such as activity date, time, and daily activities.

2. Names of the people they interacted with (the names could be pseudonyms as long as they are consistent throughout the journal entries), and detailed descriptions of interactions with the people listed.

3. Reflection on the interactions with local residents through their Community Engagement activities.

The template was developed based on Fukai & Noda (2012), with some modification for this research. For example, the modified template asks more detailed information regarding people whom students interacted with, such as length of interaction and what activities they did together.

The student participants submitted their journal entries by email to the researcher each time they finished writing their journal entries. In total, 19 journal entries were sent from four student participants, and all of the journal entries were analyzed.

3.4.3 Interviews with the local residents

Three of the four local residents who accepted students in their CoPs agreed to be interviewed after the conclusion of the trimester, that is, after hosting the students in their respective CoPs. The interviews were conducted from the end of November to December after students’ completion of their Community Engagement activities. The consent to the participation was done orally before the interview began, and the interviews were audio recorded with their permission. The interview was semi-structured and conducted in Japanese through Skype for approximately 20 minutes. The purpose of the interviews was to obtain the perspective of the host community members on their interaction with the international students. Interview is a common data collection method in case studies of study abroad context to collect in-depth information from research participants (e.g. Campbell, 2016; Cui, 2013; Isabelli-García, 2006; McFaul, 2016;

Umino & Benson, 2016; Yamakawa, 2012; Zappa-Holliman & Duff, 2015). While the previous studies tend to conduct interviews with international students only, this study interviewed local residents to hear about their experiences and their thoughts regarding Community Engagement activities by the international students. There were six core questions for all participants with some additional questions depending on their answers. The English translation of the six core questions are listed below:9

9 Questions in Japanese: Q1. コミュニティー内(所属されている団体、会社等)での学生との関係を伺ってもよろしいですか。 Q2. 留学生を受け入れた経緯、理由を伺ってもよろしいですか。 31

Q1. What is your relationship with the student in your community? (e.g. supervisor)

Q2. What are the reasons why you accepted an international student in your community?

Q3. Do you remember the first day of the student’s Community Engagement activity?

Q4. Did your impression change toward the last day of his/her Community Engagement activity?

Q5. Did you have any difficulties with communicating with the student?

Q6. What do you think about this attempt (Community Engagement activity) by international students?

3.4.4 E-mail communication

E-mail communication was also adopted to supplement the core data from electronic journal entries. This follows Cui (2013), in her research on Hong Kong students’ social networks in the U.S., in which she used computer-mediated communications to get more detailed information, and also to clarify the core data she obtained. During the research treated in this thesis, email communication was used when the investigator wanted to clarify what students write in their journals, such as the dates of activities and duration of activities. Another situation was when the investigator wanted to verify a specific member of students’ networks (e.g. “You wrote on Tuesday

Q3. 留学生の活動初日のことを覚えていらっしゃいますか。 Q4. その時の第一印象から今の印象は変わりましたか。 Q5. 学生とコミュニケーションをとる際に何か困ったことはありましたか。 Q6. 留学生が地域の活動に参加するこの試みについて、どのように思われますか。

that you talked with Mr. A, but is this person the same Mr. A who you mentioned in a previous journal entry?”). Because this research aimed to understand personal networks in a CoP, it was essential to identify members regularly while student memories were still clear.

3.5 Data analysis procedures

3.5.1 Journal entry analysis

Student participants were asked to write journal entries that consist of three parts: 1. Basic information such as activity date, time, and daily activities; 2. Names of the people they interacted with, and detailed descriptions of interactions with them; 3. Reflection on interactions with local residents through their Community Engagement activities (see Appendix B). For each student, the total number of days she engaged in her community activity and the duration of each engagement were calculated to gauge the depth of the student participant’s Community Engagement in terms of time.

In regard to descriptions of daily activities, they were itemized in order to make it easy to see what activities they did. For the second part, the names of people and time duration of interactions with each person were extracted and input into a spreadsheet for calculation. The plotting of who-when profile allowed the investigator to examine the student’s network profile, such as whom they interacted with during their activities and what they did together, in order to see if students interacted only with local residents in the Community Engagement site, or if they could interact with local residents beyond the primary CoP.

Since common interests, interdependency, and friendship are the factors of a social network construction (Dewey et al., 2012), the reflection portion of journal entries were analyzed focusing on references to the following notions: interest, dependency, and friendship from the students’ perspectives. First, students’ journal entries were segmented into smaller units, and each unit was tagged depending on whether it made references to interest, dependency, and/or friendship. Figure

3 shows the example of tagged unites.

Figure 3: Examples of tagging (From students’ journal entries)

Day # Text Interest Dependency Friendship 1 3 I wanted to join this company as an intern because √ their work seemed interesting and I wanted to see what it was like to work for a Japanese company.

Day # Text Interest Dependency Friendship 5 1 It was once again a good experience to actually √ help out [farmer’s name]-san and personally experience what they do in order to get the crops they grow available a product that can be sold to consumers.

The first example is a segment of a journal entry that mentions the reason why she chose her Community Engagement site, which is a small company. This segment is categorized as a reference to interest because it mentions her interest in working in the CoP, which was to experience working at a Japanese company.

The second example is a case of tagging to dependency because the entry mentions how she thinks she could bring a benefit to the famer by using the expression of “help out,” and what benefit she could get from them, which is to experience a process of harvesting produce and making it sellable.

3.5.2 Interview analysis

The audio recordings of the interviews were transcribed by the investigator. The scripts were segmented into small units and the investigator tagged each with references to dependency, interest, and friendship with international students from local residents’ perspectives.

Figure 4: Examples of tagging (From interview scripts)

Day # Text Interest Dependency Friendship 7 日本の食、素材から地域の素材を使う √ 知って欲しかったので、

Day # Text Interest Dependency Friendship 7 お年寄りの方って、え、アメリカから来てわ √ ざわざわたしたちのためにやってくれるの、ってなるじゃないですか？だからみんなすごい喜んでくれるし、拍手してくれるし

The English equivalent for the first example of Figure 4 is "(I) wanted (the international students) to know about food in Japan, and about consuming local products.” This segment is a reference to an interest from the perspective of a local resident who accepted an international

student into their CoP. In this segment of the interview script, the interest of the local resident is to let students know how food is consumed in Japan.

The English equivalent for the second example is “The seniors would think ‘Wow, she came all the way from the U.S. to perform a short story for us,’ right? So they really enjoy it, and clap for an international student.” This segment is a part of a comment regarding a benefit of having an international student in their CoP, which is a storytelling group. This segment is categorized as a reference to dependency because the CoP could make the elderly people (audience of storytelling) happy, as a result of having an international student.

Chapter 4: Results

The four cases that comprise the data for this study are presented in this chapter. For each case, the student’s biographical information and the Community Engagement site are first described. Then, the student’s network is profiled first from the student’s perspective and then from the perspective of a member of the CoP. We start with Helen, who spent more than 30 hours at the Community Engagement site, all within 22 days. Her case is contrasted with Mia, who spent the least amount of time with the CoP of the four, though her Community Engagement activities lasted approximately the same number of days as Helen. Cassie’s case provides an example of an extended interaction through and beyond the single member of the CoP proper, over 43 days.

Finally, Lilly’s case is considered. Lilly had approximately 20 hours of participation in her CoP over 34 days, and her interaction was well distributed among the four members of the CoP. She also had interactions that extended beyond the immediate members of the CoP. Comments about the interaction from a CoP member’s perspective was not available. All names, including those of the students and members of the CoPs, are pseudonyms.

4.1 The case of Helen

4.1.1 Helen and the Community Engagement program site

Helen is a 3rd year female student from a liberal arts college in the northeast region of the

U.S. Her native language is English, and she has studied Japanese for 2.5 years. When she started her study abroad in Japan, her Japanese proficiency was considered Intermediate-Mid level according to ACTFL’s Institutional OPI. She originally planned to study abroad for a semester, but by the end of October she decided to extend her stay one year.

Since Helen was interested in working in a Japanese company, as well as in the publishing industry, she chose a publishing/printing company located in Minami-city as her Community

Engagement site. The company was founded in the 1960s and provides community-based printing services such as creating and printing local guide maps. They also provide opportunities for local citizens to visit their printing factory as a part of their attempts to become a community-based company.10 They have accepted international students from the study abroad program before, and

Helen is the third international student the company has hosted. Because they were already familiar with the study abroad program in which Helen was participating and with the structure of the

Community Engagement course, they did not send a representative to the orientation about

Community Engagement that was organized by the study abroad program and another local

10 The information is from the website of the company. To protect their privacy, the name of the website is not listed in the reference list. 38

organization at the beginning of the semester. Instead, Helen was directly introduced to one of the company employees, Mr. Yoshino, who was in charge of accepting international students to the company. After Mr. Yoshino interviewed Helen, the company accepted her as an intern and arranged activities for her from the beginning of October until the end of October. She visited the company four times over 22 days, for a total of 34.33 hours of Community Engagement, which is the second longest among the four student participants of the current study.

4.1.2 Network profile: Helen’s perspective

There are approximately 40 people in the company, and Helen reported that she interacted with 13 company employees within her 34.33 hours of internship. Table 2 shows the frequency and duration (in minutes) of Helen’s interaction with each person in the company. On Day 1, Mr.

Yoshino introduced her to the company by introducing her to the president and other employees and teaching her how to use a time card, but she had no further interaction with him. She refers to one other employee by name (Mr. + name), given the pseudonym Mr. Rikuna in Table 2. She worked with him for 8 hours during the first day of her internship. Evidently, however, she did not have continuous direct interaction with Mr. Rikuna for all 8 hours. Rather, she was under his supervision for most of that day. Helen refers to the other ten individuals by random alphabets such as “Mr. A.” It is unknown whether she did this because she did not remember the name of the person when writing her journal or that they were never introduced to her by name. The alphabetical letters that Helen used in her journal entries are listed in Table 2, along with the suffix

(Mr. or Ms.), if used. No suffix means that Helen did not identify the gender of the employee. She

worked for the greatest length of time under the supervision of Mr. A, 9 hours, on the second day of her internship. Yet, she only refers to him as “Mr. A.”

It is clear from the total number of minutes on each day of her internship that Helen spent the entire work day at the company when she went, staying for as long as 9 hours. While she worked with various people in the company, to what extent she had direct verbal interaction with any of them is unclear. Rather, the number of minutes suggests the duration of time that she worked under the supervision of the designated individual.

Table 2: Frequency and duration of interaction between Helen and employees

10/5 10/12 10/19 10/26 Sum 1.Mr. Kimura (president) √ (60) √ (30) √ (5) √ (5) (100) 2.Mr.Yoshino (in charge of √ (15) - - - (15) accepting international student interns) 3.Mr. Rikuna (sales division) √ (480) - - - (480) 4. Mr. A (book making - √ (540) - - (540) division) 5. B (design division) - - √ (60) - (60) 6. C (design division) - - √ (180) - (180) 7. D (editing division) - - √ (30) - (30) 8. E (editing division) - - √ (180) - (180) 9. F (video editing division) - - √ (15) - (15) 10. G (factory) - - - √ (120) (120) 11. H (factory) - - - √ (120) (120) 12. I (factory) - - - √ (10) (10) 13. J (factory) - - - √ (10) (10) Sum (555) (570) (470) (265) (1860) Daily Activity Duration (555) (560) (465) (480) (2060) Note. The numbers in ( ) represents minutes

Mr. Kimura, the president of the company, is the only person with whom she interacted with every time she visited the company. Regarding the other 12 employees, she only interacted with each of them once during the internship. In other words, her frequencies of interaction with each person is limited to once except for Mr. Kimura.

Week 1. Thursday, 10/5/2017: Learning about the company

The first day was spent learning about the company. First, the president explained about the publishing industry in Japan, the technology of printing, and the history of the company. Also,

Mr. Yoshino taught her how to use a time card, and introduced her to the rest of the employees.

After learning about the company, Helen accompanied Mr. Rikuna who works in the sales division to greet the customers and deliver estimates. During the first day, Helen reported that she learned general ideas of how the company works, and hoped to contribute to the company for the rest of her internship. As she writes:

Overall, I am proud that I learned a lot of business and publishing vocabulary today, and I am happy that I was able to meet so many new people. (Helen, Journal entry, 10/5/2017)

I had a great first experience, and I am excited to see how I can help the company in the coming weeks. (Helen, Journal entry, 10/5/2017)

Figure 5 shows Helen’s connections with company employees as of the first day. There are three people with whom Helen interacted during the first day of her internship, Ms. Yoshino, Mr.

Kimura (president), and Mr. Rikuna.

Figure 5: Helen’s social network with company employees as of the first week (10/5)

Note. SAP = The study abroad program.

Week 2. Thursday, 10/12/2017: Making small contributions to the company

Helen was given some tasks to do on this day. Mr. A, who is in the book making division, was the supervisor of the day. Helen had various interactions with him, such as receiving instructions on tasks for the day, going to a different location to sell books, and learning how to sell the books and how to talk with customers properly. Helen thinks she contributed to the company on this day by completing two tasks: first, she looked up a picture of a former U.S. president using both Japanese and English websites, which only Helen might be able to do with her English skills, as she writes “I also think I felt the most productive this day because I was contributing something that might be more difficult without me there” (Helen, Journal entry,

10/12/2017); Second, Helen was able to sell some books to the customers during a book-selling event that occurred at a location outside the company. Although Helen was “afraid to be the foreigner who would mess up the sales for the books because of [her] lack of Japanese skills”

before the event started, her tasks “ended up working fairly well and [she] was able to sell some books (with the help of Person [A])” (Helen, Journal entry, 10/12/2017).

Week 3. Thursday, 10/19/2017: More contribution to the company.

On the third day, Helen came late to the company because she missed a bus, so she went to see the president to apologize. Although she "felt really bad” (Helen, Journal entry, 10/19), she was relieved later in the day, as she writes “the president seemed happier because I worked diligently throughout the day” (Helen, Journal entry, 10/19). She tried to make it up by working harder because she found that being diligent is the norm of this company; she describes that the employees “work really diligently” (Helen, Journal entry, 10/19). She was given multiple tasks such as looking for formatting errors, correcting text mistakes, and looking at several maps and pamphlets to see what kind of pamphlets look good from a foreign visitor’s perspective. She spent most of the time on her own doing her tasks, but there were four employees (B, C, D, E) who gave her instructions, assisted and checked her completed jobs. She also interacted with Employee F, who described his/her responsibilities in the company to Helen, but Helen did not work with him/her directly on any projects. Given the type of business Helen’s company does (publishing), the nature of her work on this day was probably very typical of anyone working there. In that sense, this third day, when she began to do a lot of desk work on her own while interacting with multiple employees as needed, marks a significant development in her existence at the company.

She was satisfied by her work on this day because she could use her perspective as an international visitor to contribute to the company. In her journal, she writes about this day explaining that she

“really liked this day’s small jobs because [she] felt like [she] was actually contributing something to the company” (Helen, Journal entry, 10/19/2017).

Week 4. Thursday, 10/26/2017: Working on tasks that depended on her

Similar to the 3rd week, she spent most of her time by herself and completed the assigned tasks. The employees (G, H, I, J) in the printing factory, which is located next to the company building, gave her instructions on what to do, and helped her complete the assigned tasks. Helen was asked to put labels on envelopes and put printed posters into envelopes that were to be sent to customers. In her journal, she explains that she had difficulty on this day because “[she] had very few interactions with other employees,” but on the other hand, she enjoyed “the time to think while also accomplishing necessary jobs.” She takes this experience positively because “it was a good experience to independently complete a job for the company” (Helen, Journal entry, 10/26/2017).

Her expedience on this day was also a sign of development of her presence in the company because she was assigned responsible tasks that could directly affect the company.

As another highlight of the day, she found other employees enjoying a new 360-degree camera outside of the factory, and she was invited to take a picture with them. Although it is a small event, Helen records about it in her journal as a new finding about the company employees— that they do not only work, but sometimes enjoy their break time—as she writes “Everyone was doing their own job, but we all came together to have fun for a part of the day” (Helen, Journal entry, 10/26/2017).

Figure 6 shows people with whom Helen interacted with over the four-week period of her internship. Compared to week 1 (Figure 7)11, her social network within the company has expanded, but she interacted with each person only once, except for the president Mr. Kimura. Beyond the company, she also had opportunities in week 1 and 2 to interact with customers of the company, speaking with them for a short time.

Figure 6: Helen’s social network throughout her Community Engagement activities (10/5-10/26)

Note. SAP = The study abroad program; A, B, etc. = Individuals with whom Helen had interactions

11 Figure 7 and Figure 5 are the same. 45

Figure 7: Helen’s social network with company employees as of the first week (10/5)

Note. SAP = The study abroad program.

Examination of Figure 6 against Figure 7, which depicts Helen’s social network scheme after the first day of her Community Engagement activity, suggests Helen’s awareness of the complexity of this particular CoP, having several divisions, each with several people. It is as if pieces of a jigsaw puzzle have been placed in the correct spot, so that she can begin to make more intentional connections with some of these other members of the CoP. Opportunities for such direct interactions may not come for some time, but Helen now has a map of people to work with, if an opportunity presents itself.

4.1.3 Summary of Helen’s perspective

When she started her Community Engagement activity, she had a general interest in the company because she was interested in publishing. From the first day, she expressed her desire to make a contribution to the company, and throughout her four journal entries, she described how 46

she would be able to contribute to the company on that day. She especially felt that she contributed to the company when she could utilize her English language skills, or when she could complete tasks that totally depended on her. She attempted to be accepted as a newcomer in the company by making contributions through her hard work.

Over the four visits to the company, most of her journal entries had to do with the company, employees’ jobs, or her given tasks. She did not clearly mention “friendship”, “interdependency” or “common interest” with any specific individual employees in the community, therefore from her perspective and measured from the presence or absence of references to these features of interactions, it is not concluded that she was able to construct a strong social network with individual members of the company. However, she expanded her connections with members of the company over four-week period internship, and she expressed positive attitudes toward them.

4.1.4 Network profile: A community representative’s perspective

Mr. Yoshino, who arranged Helen’s internship, participated in the interview. He is an employee in the company, and he is in charge of arranging internships with international students.

According to Helen’s journal entry, the interaction between Mr. Yoshino and Helen was limited to only 15 minutes on Day 1. However, Helen recommended Mr. Yoshino as a potential participant to the interview because he was the first contact when she started her internship. Actually, her interaction with Mr. Yoshino began prior to her internship reporting days in that he had interviewed

Helen, even if it had been pro forma, prior to accepting her as an intern.

According to Mr. Yoshino, the company is basically ready to accept an intern anytime when the study abroad program has a student who is interested in the company:

For us, we basically adopt a stance of accepting international students.12 (Mr. Yoshino, interview)

In Helen’s case too, they accepted her because the study abroad program introduced her as a potential intern. Since the company has accepted Japanese student interns frequently, they are used to having interns in the company. Mr. Yoshino thinks that the employees communicate with international students in a similar way to how they would interact with Japanese student interns because the students from the study abroad program do not have a problem with communicating in Japanese:

We regularly accept student interns, so we are used to working with them, for example, when a student comes for several days, then we have them accompany the sales person, and give them the opportunity to experience the work environment. Students from the study abroad program do not have problems with communicating in Japanese, so as long as they followed the same structure, each division does not have to give them special treatment.13 (Mr. Yoshino, interview)

12 こちらとしては、まあ基本は受け入れのスタンスなので。 13 定期的にインターンを受け入れていたので、何日間来るんだったら営業で、営業車に乗ってお客さんを回ってもらう、体験をしてもらう、などみんな流れになれているので、特に、[留学プログラム]の学生さんの場合、日本語でのコミュニケーションが問題がないので、今までと同じ流れに乗ってもらうと、各部署、特に特別の対応もなく、対応できるというところがあったので。

On the other hand, they also realized that what international students can do would be limited depending on their Japanese reading and writing skills. In other words, the higher their reading and writing proficiency, the better variety of tasks they would be given. If the student was not good at reading and writing in Japanese, the intern’s experience would be limited to a small snippet of the task. As he states:

If the student’s reading and writing skills are weaker than their conversational skills, we explain (orally) the work routine, make sure they understand, and have them experience a little of it. Well, I guess this sounds like treating her as a guest rather than an intern, but I think we have been flexible [depending on their language skills]. 14 (Mr. Yoshino, interview)

Since Helen had only four days of internship, albeit four full days, and she interacted with different people each day, Mr. Yoshino did not have a chance to interact with her very much except for on the first day and he did not mention any comments he might have heard from others who interacted with her. Therefore, regarding his interaction with Helen, the “friendship” code was not found and it was difficult to say that there was a strong connection between Helen and Mr.

Yoshino, and possibly other employees of the company. However, Mr. Yoshino mentioned that the company would be ready to have her next semester because they did not have any problems communicating with her, and she was a responsible intern. As a way to explain her responsible

14 逆に、会話は問題ないけれども読み書きはそこまで、という学生さんであれば、あのー、業務フローを説明して、理解してもらって、ちょっと体験してもらう、まあインターンというよりは少しお客さんっぽくなってしまうんですけども、そういう程度にとどめるという形で柔軟に対応はしてきたかな、という感じですね。 49

character, he brought up the story when Helen missed a bus and was late to her internship. Helen called the company as soon as she found out that she would be late, and he appreciated how she behaved as an intern. Also, he was aware that Helen wanted to continue her internship during a break of the trimester, even though she already fulfilled the hours required by the study abroad program.

Mr. Yoshino did not comment on Helen’s impact on the company because he had not talked about it with other employees yet by the time the interview was conducted. However, he mentioned the impact of previous students who worked for more than a semester with them. Regarding one of the former students, he explained that the company members regarded him/her as a substantial member of the company because s/he liked reading Japanese texts, and s/he accomplished more than they usually expected of interns. For example, the student sometimes found mistakes in documents that even employees did not find while they were proofreading. As Mr. Yoshino states:

[One of the previous students’ name] liked reading Japanese, was detail oriented, and found small mistakes that even we did not find. So we didn’t see accepting [that student] as inconvenience, rather, the company member’s responses were quite positive because [the student] contributed to the company as a substantial work force.15 (Mr. Yoshino, interview)

Ms. Yoshino explained that in general, the company members have positive attitudes towards accepting international students, and they would welcome more of them in the future.

15 [以前の学生の名前]なんかは文章を読むのが大好きで、こちらが気づかないことまで気づいてくれて、細やかな性格だったので、受け入れてアレンジするのが大変だった、というよりかはむしろ戦力として役にたったというポジティブな反応があって。 50

After accepting multiple students, having international students as interns has become a part of their routine for the company members. In that sense, there is a dependency between the company and the study abroad program, but not necessarily with the students themselves.

4.2 The case of Mia

4.2.1 Mia and the Community Engagement program site

Mia is a 3rd year female university student. She speaks English and Spanish as native languages, and she has studied Japanese for 2.5 years. Her Japanese speaking proficiency is considered Intermediate-High according to ACTFL’s Institutional OPI at the time she started study abroad.

Mia chose a volunteer group in Minami-city as her Community Engagement site. The aim of the group is to perform short comic stories (a story could be less than 30 seconds), known as kobanashi, in front of the public to entertain them. The volunteer group has approximately 55 members in total, mostly retired people, and they regularly perform kobanashi for elderly people in nursing homes or community centers in Minami-city. Although there are approximately 55 members registered in the group, they usually have only 7 to 8 members perform on a given day.

Mia states two reasons for choosing the group as her Community Engagement site: first, she “was

interested in seeing the relevance of kobanashi and rakugo16 in today's Japanese society,” and secondly, she “wanted an opportunity to practice [her] own Japanese pronunciation and by being part of a group that focused on oral performances” (Mia, background information questionnaire).

The kobanashi volunteer group had accepted two other international students from the same study abroad program before, so Mia was the third student they hosted. The representative of the group, Ms. Tanaka, did not participate in the orientation in the beginning of the semester, because she had attended the orientation before. Although Ms. Tanaka did not participate in the orientation, Mia was introduced to Ms. Tanaka directly by the study abroad staff when she decided to join the kobanashi volunteer group.

Mia started her first Community Engagement activity at the beginning of September, and her last activity date was in the middle of October. She participated in the activities four times over

21-day period, and for 7.25 hours in total. Compared to the other three students, her engagement duration was significantly shorter because of the volunteer group’s irregular activity dates and times. However, she reported that she would participate in another performance next semester to complete the 24 hours of Community Engagement that the program required.

16 Another type of Japanese traditional storytelling. 52

4.2.2 Network profile: Mia’s perspective

During the four times she participated in the activities, Mia reported that she interacted with 11 community people in total, and all of them were members of the kobanashi volunteer group. Table 3 shows the frequency and duration (in minutes) of Mia’s interaction with each person in the group. Mia used pseudonyms in her journal to refer to members except for Ms. Tanaka.

Table 3: Frequency and duration of interaction between Mia and members of the kobanashi volunteer group 9/28 10/8 10/17 10/18 Sum 1. Ms.Tanaka (supervisor) √ (20) √ (40) √ (40) √ (10) (110) 2. Mr. A (member) √ (5) - √ (5) - (10) 3. B (member) √ (5) - - - (5) 4. C (member) √ (5) - - - (5) 5. D (member) √ (5) - - - (5) 6. E (member) - √ (10) √ (5) √ (5) (20) 7. F (member) - √ (10) - - (10) 8. G (member) - √ (10) - √ (15) (25) 9. H (member) - √ (5) √ (20) - (25) 10. I (member) - √ (5) - - (5) 11. J (member) - - - √ (15) (15) Sum (40) (80) (70) (45) (235) Daily Activity Duration (90) (120) (105) (120) (435) Note. The numbers in ( ) represents minutes

Throughout the four days, she interacted with Ms. Tanaka the most and for the longest time because she was in charge of taking care of international students as a supervisor in the group. As a supervisor, Ms. Tanaka communicated with students about scheduling volunteer activities and she also gave some advice to international students regarding their performances since they started

accepting international students. Ms. Tanaka participated in all the activities Mia participated in, which made them interact with each other for a longer time compared to other members whose attendance was less consistent.

Week 1. Thursday, 9/28/2017: Understanding the group and performing for the first time

Mia chose the kobanashi volunteer group because she was interested in Japanese short story telling, which is a common interest with the kobanashi volunteer group. However, although

Mia knew that the kobanashi group is a performance group, she wrote in her journal that she did not exactly know how the group worked:

I had originally believed that we would meet at the same place for each event but apparently, we go to different places, on different days, at different times. (Mia, Journal entry, 9/28/2017)

In addition to her misunderstanding of the activity schedule, Mia also did not know that she was going to perform from the first day. Although she did not expect to perform on that day,

Mia managed to perform a story by reading a written script in front of the audience. She also had a chance to meet other members, but since they “had such little time after the performance,” Mia had just enough time to introduce herself. The short duration of her interaction with them did not give Mia a chance to know much about the members, and Mia did not even remember their names.

I don’t remember their names! We had such little time after the performance and they left earlier than [Ms. Tanaka] and I so I was unable to learn much. Thus, I hope to get to know them throughout the semester! (Mia, Journal entry, 9/28/2017)

Figure 8 shows Mia’s connections with kobanashi volunteer members as of the first day.

She interacted with five members of the CoP including Ms. Tanaka. 54

Figure 8: Mia’s social network with members of the kobanashi group as of the first week (9/28)

Note. SAP = The study abroad program; A~D = Individuals with whom Mia had interactions

Week 2. Sunday, 10/8/2017: The second performance

Mia performed a story in front of children and their parents at a community center. Again, most of the time was spent on performances, but she had a chance to interact with other members during tea time after the performance. Although they only conversed for a short time, she enjoyed interacting with members of the volunteer group who were different members from the previous week:

I love having tea and treats after performances and I think I got a little bit too used to being treated so nicely. (Mia, Journal entry, 10/8/2017)

At this point, Mia’s journal entry does not mention anything that can be tagged as a reference to

“friendship” or “interdependency” with the members of the volunteer group, but she recognizes

“being treated so nicely” as something she likes and she became accustomed to how the group treats her well.

Week 4. Tuesday, 10/17/2017: Developing an awareness of a member of the community

There was no activity in week 3, but Mia participated in activities twice in Week 4 that were held on Tuesday, October 17th and Wednesday, October 18th. The activity on October 17th, the third day of Community Engagement activity for Mia, was challenging for her. She decided to perform two stories which she had avoided the last two times because it was a long story that she found difficult to perform. However, she decided to challenge herself and perform two stories in order to develop as a performer of the group, as she explains:

Since it takes me more time to memorize and practice these stories, I never did any long ones. However, in order to be able to continue practicing my performances, I picked 2 kobanashi as my set performances. (Mia, Journal entry, 10/17/2017)

As a result, she received positive feedback from Ms. Tanaka for taking on this new challenge.

However, Mia herself was not satisfied with her own performance. Her journal entry reads:

I did well for the first part, but I did forget one of the lines I was having trouble with. It didn’t really make a difference overall, but I was upset with myself for having forgotten a line I worked so hard to remember….I expressed to [Ms. Tanaka] my disappointment in myself and was relieved to hear her say that it’s okay. She acknowledged that I am putting in the effort and the fact that I forgot a line was fine. No one can even tell. (Mia, Journal entry, 10/17/2017)

Even though Mia’s evaluation toward her own performance was low, her challenge can be interpreted as her attempt to become a member of the performance group rather than a guest who just wants to “experience” performance.

Week 4. Wednesday, 10/18/2017: Feeling of accomplishment as a member of the group

On the fourth day of her activity with the kobanashi volunteer group, Mia realized her identity as a member of the group by having a particular audience who responded very positively to Mia’s performances despite her mistakes:

There was a woman who was really enjoying herself quite a bit. She seemed to genuinely find the kobanashi humorous and laughed out loud without a problem. It made me really happy to see her so happy and so full of laughter, which is the purpose of Edo kobanashi….It was still super great to see the way in which this woman was the spitting image of our mission to spread laughter and smiles. (Mia, Journal entry, 10/18/2017)

Having this member of the audience who visibly enjoyed her performance made Mia feel accomplished as a performer of the group, because she could make an audience laugh which is a mission of the volunteer group. As she says “our mission” as opposed to “their mission”, it seems that Mia considers herself as an in-group member of the CoP. On the other hand, Mia still worried about how she was perceived by members of the community when she made mistakes in her performance:

But, even hearing my colleagues congratulate me and after expressing my feelings of failure only to be reassured that it is all good, I couldn’t remove the fear that people saw me under a negative light. For example, the fact that I messed up came not from lack of practice or dedication, but rather in the slight insecurity in my language ability in terms of pronunciation and understanding, which led me to doubt myself mid-performance. However, to others it may have looked like I had not taken the time to memorize it. (Mia, Journal entry, 10/18/2017) 57

While Mia experienced a moment of having accomplished the purpose of the volunteer group as a performer, she was not sure if she was accepted as a member of the group by the other individual members.

Although Mia is unsure about being accepted as a member of the group, she feels that she accomplished her goal of learning the differences between kobanashi and rakugo, and also practicing Japanese:

I had a great experience with Edo kobanashi. Not only did I have fun while going to my Community Engagement project, I was able to practice my Japanese as well as learn new words….As opposed to rakugo, which obviously tells stories which contain elements of traditional Japanese daily life, language and cultural experience/understanding definitely play a bigger role in kobanashi. (Mia, Journal entry, 10/18/2017)

Figure 9 shows Mia’s social network with individual members of the CoP over her 7.25 hours of Community Engagement. Compared to the first week (Figure 10)17, she expanded her network from 5 to 11, and all of them are the members in the group. However, note that there is also the presence of the audience during her Community Engagement activities, as Mia mentions in her journal entries.

17 Figure 10 and Figure 8 are the same. 58

Figure 9: Mia’s social network throughout her Community Engagement activities (9/28-10/18)

Note. SAP= The study abroad program; A~J = Individuals with whom Mia had interactions

Figure 10: Mia’s social network with members of the kobanashi group as of the first week (9/28)

Note. SAP = The study abroad program; A~D = Individuals with whom Mia had interactions

Compared to Figure 10, Figure 9 shows that Mia’s social network has become more substantial within her CoP. If she were to continue with this group, she may be able to have an increased number of interactions with its multiple members.

4.2.3 Summary of Mia’s perspective

Although she had a common interest with the members, which was performing short stories in front of Japanese audience, she was not confident with her performance at the beginning.

However, when she received applause and praise on the last day of her Community Engagement activity, she felt that she was accepted as a performer by the audience and volunteer members.

Especially, instantaneous, positive reactions, such as laughter from the audience, gave her a feeling of accomplishment as a member of the kobanashi volunteer group because one of the missions of the group was to spread laughter to the audience. On the other hand, when she could not perform stories as well as she expected, she was fearful of not being acknowledged as a dedicated person by the members of the kobanashi volunteer group. Throughout the four days of her participation, therefore, she went back and forth between two kinds of feelings: a feeling that she was accepted as a member, and a fear that she would be considered ineffective as a performer by the members of the CoP.

With respect to her interactions with members in the group, she does not refer to

“friendship” with individual members of the group because she had little opportunity to interact with them except for Ms. Tanaka. However, she had a positive impression toward group members in general. Although Mia did not develop a strong social network with members of the CoP, she

achieved her goal of joining the CoP, which was to practice her Japanese pronunciation and learn about kobanashi. Through experience of performing stories in Japanese, she found herself developing her skills in language and cultural competency.

4.2.4 Network profile: A community representative’s perspective

Ms. Tanaka is the representative of the kobanashi volunteer group, and she communicated with Mia not only when they had performances but also between performance days through emails.

As the representative of the group, she thinks she interacted with Mia more than other members during Mia’s Community Engagement activities:

Interviewer: Did Mia interact with all the members?

Ms. Tanaka: She did not interact with all of the members….When we visit places such as nursing homes or regular meetings, I contact the students, and I participate in almost all of the events, so I am the person [who interacted with Mia every time she came].18 (Ms. Tanaka, interview)

She believes that joining this group is beneficial for international students in terms of language learning and cultural learning because kobanashi is word play based on Japanese traditional culture, saying,

For international students as well, Edo kobanashi is an aspect of Japanese culture, right? By performing Edo kobanashi, you get exposed to Edo culture. Also, it’s a kind of word

18 全員とは関わっていないんです。. . .高齢者の施設だったりとか、あるいは常会の例えば交流サロンに行ったりするときの連絡は私がやっているので、私はほとんど行くので、はい。［毎回学生と関わっているのは］私です。 61

play in Edo culture. Uh, rakugo is something you enjoy by listening to it, but Edo kobanashi is something you enjoy by performing it, especially if it's a short story. So, experiencing kobanashi means that the student is exposed to Japanese culture a lot.19 (Ms. Tanaka, interview)

Also, she thinks that performing in front of people is a good experience for international students to feel confident, and the more they participate in activities, the richer their learning experiences becomes. As she said,

Speaking in public requires a lot of courage. If they do it over and over again, they can gradually gain more confidence. So I think the more they participate in our activities, the more they can gain from the experience.20 (Ms. Tanaka, interview)

In addition to students’ benefits, Ms. Tanaka notes that having an international student is also beneficial for the group because they bring a youthful presence to the CoP, saying:

Although we were only able to interact for a short time, having a new person changes the atmosphere of the group, so it is very nice to have a young, cheerful person with us.21 (Ms. Tanaka, interview)

19 留学生さんにとっても、江戸小咄って言えば、日本文化ですよね。江戸文化に触れるっていう。あと、江戸文化の中の言葉遊び。あの、落語は聞くものだけど、小咄は話して楽しむもの…とくに短いのは。なのでそれを体験してもらえるというのもとても日本文化に触れてるっていう。 20 人前で話すのってかなり勇気がいることなので、それを積み重ねるっていうことは、こう、やるぞ、っていうようにだんだん自分でなっていけるので、たくさん多分参加してくだされば下さるほど、得るものは大きいなあというふうに思います。 21 ほんの些細な交流なんだけど、やっぱり人が、違う人が一人入るって場の雰囲気が変わるので、元気で若い人が入ってくれるのはとても嬉しいことですよね。 62

Since the CoP consists of retired people, having a young person provides them with new perspectives. As another positive impact on the group, she also suggests that having an international student, who came all the way from the U.S., perform stories in Japanese impresses the audience:

The seniors thought, “Wow, she came all the way from the U.S. to perform kobanashi for us?,” right? So they really appreciated it, and clapped for her.22 (Ms. Tanaka, interview)

As an example, Ms. Tanaka brought up a story when Mia provided laughter to the audience by performing a new kobanashi story that included English word play.

There is a short story called “cake.” For example, you would say “How are you, Mr. Carpenter?” “I’m ton-ton”23 and everyone laughs. The story continues by substituting the carpenter with a different person, and so on and so on. One day, I suggested she change it to “mama”, which is like, “Mama, how are you doing?” “I’m mâmâ”24 Isn’t it good? It’s funny because she performs it. Because she is from the U.S. Her performance of this story made the audience laugh.25 (Ms. Tanaka, interview)

22 お年寄りの方って、え、アメリカから来てわざわざわたしたちのためにやってくれるの、ってなるじゃないですか？だからみんなすごい喜んでくれるし、拍手してくれるし。 23 The onomatopoeia of using a hammer. 24 Mâmâ (â represents a long vowel) means so-so in Japanese. 25 彼女がやった小咄の中で、ケーキという名前の、あのー、例えば、うーんと、大工さん景気はどうですか、トントンです、みたいな、でそこで笑いが起こる、それが永遠と続くのがあるんですよ、大工さんじゃなくて、それが変わるので。で、そこで私がちょっと思いついて、ケーキの一番最後の小咄の時に、アメリカのお母さん景気はどうですが、というののオチをまあまあ、って言ったの。まあまあ、って。いいでしょう？それを[学生の名前]さんが最後に言うことに価値がある。彼女はアメリカだから、アメリカから来たから、ってというので、最後に入れたのは結構受けたと思いますね。

Thus, Ms. Tanaka acknowledges the interdependency between international students and their CoP: students can learn Japanese language and culture and become confident with performing in Japanese; the CoP can have a youthful and international perspective in their group and can impress audience with their performance.

In summary, although Ms. Tanaka recognizes the limited opportunities for students to interact with all the members in the community, she believes that involving international students who are interested in performing kobanashi in their CoP is beneficial for both students and the group.

4.3 The case of Cassie

4.3.1 Cassie and the Community Engagement program site

Cassie is a 3rd year female university student. Her native languages are English and

Cantonese. She started learning Japanese on her own from high school by watching Japanese animations and dramas. She also studied Japanese for a year at her home university, and her

Japanese proficiency was considered Intermediate-Mid by ACTFL Institutional OPI when she started her study abroad.

She chose a single-person operated promotional company located at Minami-city as her

Community Engagement site. Unlike the Community Engagement sites of the other three students in this study, it was the first time for this company to accept an international student as an intern.

Cassie found out about this company through the Community Engagement orientation in the

beginning of the trimester. She chose the company because she was interested in the company’s activities, which is promoting products from prefectures in Japan. In addition, the fact that the company handles food products caught her attention because of her interest in cooking. Cassie decided to work as an intern at the company with another student from the same study abroad program.

The company was founded by Ms. Ueno in 2015 and is located in Minami-city. She is the representative of the company and runs the company on her own. The company selects attractive local products from all over Japan and sells them in Minami-city. In addition, Ms. Ueno organizes a variety of events, such as cooking and crafting workshops. Although the company does not have other employees, Ms. Ueno has developed various connections with people in and around Minami- city through her business.

Cassie started her internship at the end of September, and the last visit was at the beginning of November. She interned with this company seven days, 38 hours in total, over a 43-day period.

4.3.2 Network profile: Cassie’s perspective

Over seven times of Cassie’s internship, her journal entries reported that she interacted with Ms. Ueno frequently because she organized all the activities and accompanied Cassie everywhere they visited during her Community Engagement. Table 4 shows how long Cassie interacted with Ms. Ueno each day over the 43 days that she interned with Ms. Ueno. Cassie provided the approximate duration of her interactions with Ms. Ueno in her week 1 (9/28), week

2a (10/1), and week 7 (11/9) journal entries but not in her week 2b (10/5) to week 5 (10/26) entries.

She later explained in an email that she did not write the duration of interaction with Ms. Ueno from week 2b to week 5 because she was with Ms. Ueno all the time and interacted with her frequently, which made it difficult for her to calculate the duration of interaction. Therefore, although the table shows the total duration of the interactions with Ms. Ueno is 520 minutes, the actual interaction with her was longer than 520 minutes.

Table 4: Frequency and duration of interaction between Cassie and Ms. Ueno

9/28 10/1 10/5 10/12 10/19 10/26 11/9 Sum Ms. Ueno √(480) √ (30) √(?) √(?) √(?) √(?) √ (10) (520+)

Daily Activity Duration (480) (180) (390) (210) (540) (300) (180) (2280) Note. The numbers in ( ) represents minutes

Week 1. Thursday, 9/28/2017: Learning about Hiroshima and Aomori prefectures

Cassie and the other international student intern accompanied Ms. Ueno to visit a

Hiroshima antenna shop26 that is located outside of Minami-city in order to see the shop and talk with employees there. They also visited an office which helps people in Tokyo migrate to

Hiroshima, and learned what is entailed in that job. Next, they went to an Aomori antenna shop that has local products from Aomori prefecture to learn about Aomori prefecture and how to make

26 Antenna shops are stores that specialize in selling local regional products outside of the region so people can buy local regional products without going there. For example, Hiroshima antenna shop has products from Hiroshima prefecture. 66

traditional handmade goods. After the trip, they visited a café (Chair Café) in Minami-city to talk about an event that would be held there.

Figure 11 illustrates people who Cassie met on the first day. Cassie interacted with 6 people in total that day, and she had a positive impression toward them, as she explains, “Everyone is also very kind and hospitable,” in her journal (Cassie, Journal entry, 9/28/2017).

Figure 11: Cassie’s social network with local residents during her Community Engagement as of the first week (9/28)

Note. SAP = The study abroad program; A~E = Individuals with whom Cassie had interactions

Week 2a. Sunday, 10/1/2017: Learning more about Hiroshima prefecture

The second day was a short internship. Ms. Ueno, Cassie and another international student intern had lunch at a diner that provides local cuisine from Hiroshima prefecture. They learned more about Hiroshima prefecture and the food though their interactions with Ms. Ueno and the owner of the diner. Cassie and the other student intern also had a chance to introduce themselves to Ms. Ueno’s daughter for 2 minutes. Being introduced to a family member is unique to Cassie’s case in the current study.

Week 2b. Thursday, 10/5/2017: Learning about farming in Minami-city and developing an idea for a drink menu

Cassie, the other international student intern and Ms. Ueno visited a local farmer in

Minami-city to learn about farming in Tokyo. This experience let Cassie learn more about food, which was one of Cassie’s interests when she started her internship with Ms. Ueno’s company:

It made me more grateful for how easy I have it and how easily I can obtain food….The idea of vegetable vending machine does not exist in America and farmer communities as well as other revitalization communities and efforts are rare in America. (Cassie, Journal entry, 10/5/2017)

On that day, they also visited four small local shops in Minami-city and Ms. Ueno introduced Cassie and the other student to the owners of the shops. The interactions lasted for only five minutes with each person. Later, they visited the Chair Café again in order to discuss a new drink menu because making a new drink option for the upcoming event was a part of their project as interns.

Week 3. Thursday, 10/12/2017: Discussing tourism of Hiroshima prefecture

Cassie, the other international student intern, and Ms. Ueno left Minami-city to meet with four people who work at Hiroshima prefecture’s tourism office. Cassie and the other student were asked for their opinions regarding Hiroshima prefecture’s problem in tourism, which is, a majority of the tourists who visit Hiroshima prefecture do not stay overnight there, but only stop by for a short time. The prefecture tourism association is therefore trying to increase the number of people who stay overnight in Hiroshima prefecture. Cassie and the other student were asked about the possible reasons for this problem and suggestions to address this issue from an international student’s point of view:

We told them that as foreign guest/tourists, we would usually search for a more quiet place with a nice neighborhood and avoid hotels and area that don't have a “homey” feel….Although as students and as foreigners who don't completely understand Japanese society, it felt like we couldn’t exactly help out much, we were able to the very least give this suggestion. (Cassie, Journal entry, 10/12/2017)

Cassie was aware of her limited knowledge regarding tourism in Japan, but she gave her personal opinions as a suggestion because the tourism office members expected some comments from them.

Week 4. Thursday, 10/19/2017: Learning about farming by harvesting and cooking

The other student could not participate in the internship on this day, so Cassie had her internship by herself with Ms. Ueno. They visited another farm in Minami-city to help the farmer sort out peppers that s/he grew. While sorting, she learned from the farmer about a farmer’s festival that would be held soon in Minami-city. The day’s activity was wrapped up with a cooking class

that was specially arranged for Cassie because cooking is one of her interests. The class was taught by Ms. Ueno’s friend, and two other friends of Ms. Ueno also attended the class.

Week 5. Thursday, 10/26/2017: Making apple cider for the Chair Café

Cassie, the other student, and Ms. Ueno visited the Chair Café in order to make a new drink option for the café. They came up with the idea of making apple cider because of the following reasons: apple cider is a popular winter drink menu in the U.S., but it’s not well known in Japan, and apples are a famous product of Aomori prefecture. Thus, it was reasonable to make an apple related drink to wrap up their internship after learning about Aomori prefecture. Later on the day, they visited a cooking class offered by a private English language class where Ms. Ueno’s daughter studies. They had a chance to interact with students who were studying English there.

Week 7. Thursday, 11/9/2017: Helping Ms. Ueno hold an event and wrapping up their internship27

Cassie and the other student went to the Chair Café to help Ms. Ueno hold an Aomori prefecture promotion event, and introduced the apple cider drink as a new menu item. This event was the last day of their internship with Ms. Ueno’s company, but they were invited to Ms. Ueno’s

BBQ party at her house that would be held at a later date. Having been invited to her private event,

Cassie felt that she became a member of the CoP, which she thinks is a rare experience for a foreigner in Japan. As she says,

27 There was not an activity on Week 6 70

While one said Japan is very hospitable and polite, this also prevents foreigners from actually assimilating and being fully accepted into the community as something other than a guest. (Cassie, Journal entry, 11/9/2017)

I felt like I was being accepted into the community and a part of the “in-group.” (Cassie, Journal entry, 11/9/2017)

Regarding her relationship with Ms. Ueno, Cassie had a positive reaction, as she writes, “I believe that for our Community Engagement we were able to get close to [Ms. Ueno] pretty well”

(Cassie, Journal entry, 11/9/2017).

4.3.3 Extended interaction (Satellite)

Cassie’s case is unique among the four student participants of this study in terms of the variety of extended interactions beyond the first CoP. Cassie reported that she had opportunities to interact with 22 people who are connected with Ms. Ueno through her business associates or private social group. Table 5 shows the frequency and duration (in minutes) of Cassie’s interaction with these people.

Table 5: Frequency and duration of interaction between Cassie and people in Ms. Ueno’s social network

9/28 10/1 10/5 10/12 10/19 10/26 11/9 Sum 1. Mr. Mura(=A) √ (30) ------(30) 2. Ms. Hino(=B) √ (45) ------(45) 3. Mr. Inou(=C) √(120) ------(120) 4. Mr. Taira(=D) √ (15) ------(15) 5. Mr. Koyama(=E) √(150) - √ (60) - - √(180) - (390) 6. Mr. Kawano(=F) - √ (30) - - - - - (30) 7. Hanako(=G) - √ (2) - - - √(120) - (122) 8. Mr. Yorita(=H) - - √(120) - - - - (120) 9. Naka(=I) - - √ (5) - - - - (5) 10. Tashiro(=J) - - √ (5) - - - - (5) 11. Okano(=K) - - √ (5) - - - - (5) 12. Sogabe(=L) - - √ (5) - - - - (5) 13. M - - - √(120) - - - (120) 14. N - - - √(120) - - - (120) 15. O - - - √(120) - - - (120) 16. P - - - √(120) - - - (120) 17. Mr. Tsui(=Q) - - - - √(180) - - (180) 18. Ms. Onaha(=R) - - - - √(300) - - (300) 19. S - - - - √(300) - - (300) 20. T - - - - √(300) - - (300) 21. U - - - - - √(180) - (180) 22. V - - - - - √(120) - (120) 23. Students - - - - - √(120) - (120) Sum (360) (32) (200) (480) (1080) (720) (0) (2872) Daily Activity Duration (480) (180) (390) (210) (540) (300) (180) (2280) Note. The numbers in ( ) represents minutes

Cassie interacted with those people through several “visits” to Antenna shops, a tourism office, cafés, a diner, local small shops, local farms and cooking classes over seven weeks of internship.

Mr. Mura (=A) through Ms. Koyama (=E) are those whom Cassie met in the first week.

Mr. Mura (=A) is a manager of the Hiroshima antenna shop and Ms. Hino (=B) is office staff who 72

works to reconnect people who are originally from Hiroshima prefecture and to give advice to people who are thinking of moving to Hiroshima prefecture. Mr. Inou (=C) is a staff member of the Aomori antenna shop who showed them around and taught them how to make traditional handmade goods. Mr. Taira (=D) is the CEO of a burger shop with whom Cassie had a conversation about Aomori prefecture. Mr. Koyama (=E) is a manager of the Chair Café where

Cassie visited several times over her internship with Ms. Ueno. Mr. Kawano (=F) is an owner of the diner where Cassie had Hiroshima prefecture cuisine. Hanako (=G) is the daughter of Ms.

Ueno. Mr. Yorita (=H) is the local farmer in Minami-city, and he taught Cassie about farming in

Tokyo. From Mr/s. Naka (=I) to Mr/s. Sogabe (=L) are owners of small local shops in Minami- city. Cassie interacted with them for only 5 minutes each because the interaction was limited to a greeting. M, N, O, P are staff of the Hiroshima prefecture tourism office where Cassie and the other student visited to learn about tourism in Hiroshima prefecture. Cassie was asked for her suggestions from a visitor’s point of view regarding Hiroshima prefecture’s problems in tourism.

Mr. Tsui (=Q) is another farmer who provided an opportunity for Cassie to sort out peppers. Ms.

Onaha (=R) is the cooking teacher who is a friend of Ms. Ueno and S, T are also friends of Ms.

Ueno. Person U is another staff of the Chair Café who helped Cassie with making apple cider.

Person V is the English teacher of Ms. Ueno’s daughter. By attending the English class, they met several students who learn English in that class.

Although there are 22 local people (+students) in total who were present where Cassie did her internship, Cassie interacted with them only once except for Mr. Koyama (i.e. manager of

Chair Café), and Hanako (i.e. Ms. Ueno’s daughter). Figure 12 shows Cassie’s social network with

people through Community Engagement activities. Compared to the first week (Figure 13)28, her social network developed significantly.

Figure 12: Cassie’s social network throughout her Community Engagement activities (9/28-11/9)

Note. SAP = The study abroad program; A~V = individuals with whom Cassie had interactions

28 Figure 13 and Figure 11 are the same. 74

Figure 13: Cassie’s social network with local residents during her Community Engagement as of the first week (9/28)

Note. SAP = The study abroad program; A~E = Individuals with whom Cassie had interactions

Cassie’s social network depicted in Figure 12 shows that it has fanned out from Week 1, illustrated in Figure 13, with Ms. Ueno being the key connector to all others. The connections to individuals other than Ms. Ueno are only indirect and mediated by Ms. Ueno at this point, but it may become more webbed, if Cassi begins to have direct interactions with these individuals in the future.

Cassie understands one of the goals of Community Engagement is “to have us integrate into the community as actual members, rather than to leave us as the guest” (Cassie, Journal entry,

11/9/2017). On one hand, Cassie believes she could establish a close relationship with Ms. Ueno; on the other hand, she thinks that she was unable to become a part of a community beyond Ms.

Ueno due to the short amount of time for activities: 75

Unfortunately, for us to really become integrated into the community as a member, less than three months is a bit too short. I feel like we were almost there, however before we could really become full members, the program ended. (Cassie, Journal entry, 11/9/2017)

4.3.4 Summary of Cassie’s perspective

Cassie decided to do her Community Engagement activities at Ms. Ueno’s company because she was interested in the work, which is to promote Minami-city and other rural regions of Japan, and also she was interested in food in Japan. In that sense, Cassie had a common interest with Ms. Ueno when she started her internship. During her internship, Cassie wrote in her journal that she learned not only about Minami-city and other prefectures (e.g. Aomori and Hiroshima prefecture) but also how well people who work in Japan are connected with each other:

It was a valuable experience in my opinion because I was able to learn more about not only different prefectures in Japan but also about local communities around [the name of the host university]. (Cassie, Journal entry, 11/9/2017)

I found it was interesting how well connected people are in Japan. (Cassie, Journal entry, 9/28/2017)

Among the 23 people with whom Cassie interacted, she felt a strong connection with Ms.

Ueno by the end of their internship because Ms. Ueno was with Cassie throughout seven days of her internship. Although Cassie did not go as far as to tag this relationship as “friendship,” from

Cassie’s point of view, it appears that Cassie and Ms. Ueno constructed a close relationship. As a story to demonstrate their close relationship, Cassie mentions that she was invited to go to a BBQ by Ms. Ueno, which made Cassie feel closer to her.

Cassie does not explicitly refer to “interdependency” between her and local residents whom she met through Ms. Ueno, but she indicates that she as able to give a small contribution to the

people such as giving a suggestion to Hiroshima tourism office, helping the farmer, and making apple cider for the Chair Café.

4.3.5 Network profile: A community representative’s perspective

Although Ms. Ueno attended to the orientation at the beginning of trimester, she did not expect to accept an international student as an intern until she was informed that the students were interested in her company, as she explains, “I attended the orientation without assuming that I would [end up hiring] an intern” (Ms. Ueno, Interview). However, since Cassie and the other student were very interested in her company, Ms. Ueno decided to accept them:

[A staff member from the study abroad program] contacted me and told me that there were students who were interested in interning [with my company].29 (Ms. Ueno interview)

Since it was her first time accepting interns, Ms. Ueno arranged activities for Cassie and the other student from scratch, as she said:

[In the orientation] I explained that I organize some events with other organizations and local government to promote local regions in Japan, so I planned this program [i.e. intern] by incorporating the students’ opinions.30 (Ms. Ueno interview)

29 [留学プログラムスタッフ]の方から、インターンシップ希望者がいるんですが、という連絡を後日受けました。 30 [会社名]の活動がこう言った形でよその団体さんや自治体さんと地域の魅力を感じるようなイベントをしている、という説明をしたものですから、そこに準じた形で Cassie さんや[他の学生の名前]の希望も入れながら、プログラムを作った、という形。 77

In the interview, she mentioned three points that she wanted the students to learn: 1. the relationship between Tokyo and two other prefectures in Japan, 2. how food is delivered from a farmer to a home, 3. how people are connected in Tokyo. Based on these points and by incorporating the students’ interests, Ms. Ueno planned some activities for the seven days. The majority of the activities (e.g. the visits and a cooking workshop) were created for the benefit of the student interns, which means the activities were beyond her regular work schedule. Mr. Ueno chose Hiroshima prefecture antenna shop to visit because her hometown is located at Hiroshima.

She also found out through a conversation with Cassie that she had studied abroad in Hiroshima.

In addition, Aomori prefecture was chosen as another focal prefecture during this internship because Ms. Ueno was organizing an event that was related to Aomori prefecture. This internship emphasized learning about local regions of Japan, differing from a typical internship experience like Helen’s.

Ms. Ueno believes that this internship program provided a good opportunity for international students to learn more about Japanese culture through interacting with people who international students usually may not have a chance to meet with, such as farmers in the community, as she explains:

It’s not that they only met with people who run a company. For example, as I mentioned earlier, [students met] people such as a farmer who rarely have a chance to use English in their current situation.31 (Ms. Ueno, Interview)

In addition to the students’ benefits, she also recognizes the positive impact that the students have had on local community. For example, by visiting local farmers and asking questions about farming in Tokyo, the students provided opportunities for the farmers to interact with people with an international background. Also, the interaction with the students gave the farmers a newfound appreciation for the work they do (e.g. vegetable vending machines). In addition, accommodating students and having conversations with them during the activities provided Ms.

Ueno a chance to learn about international students’ daily life in Japan and what they think about

Japanese culture, saying:

I, myself did not know about international students’ daily lives in Japan, so it was a good opportunity [to know about their daily lives].32 (Ms. Ueno, Interview)

They said what they think and what they liked, and from that I learned that their perspective on Japanese traditions are not as bad as we thought, or what we, as Japanese, thought was special was not necessarily attractive to them, such as how we promote the Japanese language. I think it was a good opportunity to hear what they actually think about their experience in their own words.33 (Ms. Ueno, Interview)

31 会社をやっている人とばっか会うわけではないということと、例えば先ほど申し上げた農家さんとか、英語にあまり接することのない、今の状況ではない方。 32 私が自分自身が一般的な学生さん達の毎日というかこの日本に来てからの生活というのを知らなかったので、いい経験というか。

In terms of building relationships with the students, she did not explicitly refer to it as

“friendship,” but she mentioned that they had personal conversations that strengthened their relationships. Unlike other CoP in the current study, Ms. Ueno did not have other members in her company, which let them have more interactions and establish a close relationship.

While she shows a positive attitude toward the students themselves because the students were passionate people, she hoped that the study abroad program would give more feedback about the activities she arranged. Since it was her first time accepting international students, she expected the study abroad program to give comments on her activities because she was not sure whether these activities were acceptable for the study abroad program. However, despite her expectation, she did not receive sufficient feedback from the study abroad program. As she hesitantly states:

This time I accepted them because they were very passionate about interning, so I convinced myself that this is a good chance to spend time with them. I didn’t have any complains about the students at all, but, I haven’t received any follow-up feedback from the study abroad program.34 (Ms. Ueno, Interview)

33 これは素敵だとか、これはこういう風に思うということも常に口に出して言ってくださっていたので例えば、その、こっちの思っているほど、いわゆる日本の伝統的なものの見え方というのは悪くないなというのと、あとはこういうところが素敵でしょ、例えば日本語を見せる魅せ方が必ずしも彼女たちに響いてないとかそういうところですね、そういうところを言葉にして教えていただいたので、なのでこういう意見っていうのもきちんと聞ける機会だったなと思いますね。 34 今回はお二人の熱意が高かったというので活動の中に彼女たちと一緒に時間を作ったというところで私自身も納得して進めていたんですけれど、彼女たち二人については全く何も問題はなかったんですが、はい。というところですね。今後どうするかとかアフターフォローというものが全く届いていないのでそういうような状態だと、ちょっと信頼関係の問題になってくると思うんです。 80

Because she could not receive a sufficient feedback from the study abroad office, she is reluctant to accept a new international student next time, and if she does accept, she would create a different internship program for those new students:

I can probably accept students next time, but I thought maybe I could make a different program from this time.35 (Ms. Ueno, Interview)

Thus, while she found this program to be beneficial, she expects further support from the study abroad program in the future if she accepts another international student.

4.4 The case of Lilly

4.4.1 Lilly and the Community Engagement program site

Lilly is a 3rd year female university student and her native language is Mandarin Chinese.

She has studied Japanese at her home institution for two years. When she started her study abroad, her Japanese language proficiency was considered Intermediate-Mid according to ACTFL’s

Institutional OPI. It was the first trimester of her one-year study abroad, and she selected a tourism association of Minami-city for her Community Engagement activity.

35 また次ももちろんないことはないんですけど、また今回とは違う形のプログラムを組んでもいいのかなという風に思いました。

The tourism association office is located in front of the central train station of Minami-city.

Tourists can stop by and ask questions regarding sightseeing sites and buy souvenirs of Minami- city. Lilly chose the tourism association primarily because the office was looking for a native speaker of Chinese to translate documents, and also Lilly was interested in working in a Japanese office environment. Since the study abroad office knew that the tourism office was looking for a native speaker of Chinese, they asked Lilly directly if she was interested in working there as an intern. The tourism association has accepted international students as interns before, so they knew about the study abroad program and the system of Community Engagement activities. Since they had prior experience accepting students, they did not attend the orientation in the beginning of the trimester. Lilly had worked five times from the end of September until the beginning of November, in total 20 hours over 34 days.

4.4.2 Network profile: Lilly’s perspective

There are four local members in the tourism association office, and Lilly reported that she interacted with all of them over five weeks. Table 6 shows the frequency and duration of Lilly’s interaction with each person in the office. Over her internship period, she interacted with Mr.

Wakatsuki for the longest time. However, in terms of frequency, her interactions with Ms.

Yoshimura and Ms. Takei were the most frequent because she met each of them on four out of the five days that she visited the office. On any given day, she stayed in the office for 4 hours.

Table 6: Frequency and duration of interaction between Lilly and office members

9/29 10/4 10/18 10/23 11/1 Sum 1. Wakatsuki, √(60) √ (10) - √ (240) - (310) (representative) 2. Ms. Yoshimura √(10) √ (10) √ (10) - √(120) (150) (member) 3. Ms. Takei √(30) √ (30) √ (30) - √(120) (210) (member) 4. Ms. C - - √ (30) - √ (20) (50) (member) Sum (100) (50) (70) (240) (260) (720) Daily Activity Duration (240) (240) (240) (240) (240) (1200) Note. The numbers in ( ) represents minutes

Week 1. Friday, 9/29/2017: Understanding the community’s expectations

On the first day, Mr. Wakatsuki, the representative of the office, introduced her to the other office employees (Ms. Yoshimura & Ms. Takei) and he gave her a brief orientation of the office.

Although Lilly chose the CoP as her Community Engagement site, she commented that she did not really understand their roles in the city until she had this brief orientation. As she writes,

I was able to learn more about the purpose of the office, which I was not certain about. (Lilly, Journal entry, 9/29/2017)

After one hour of orientation, she was given a map to translate from English into Chinese.

She concentrated on translation for most of the time, but she had a chance to talk with Ms.

Yoshimura and Ms. Takei about Lilly’s background for a short time.

I was seated at the same table with [Ms. Takei], who serves as a reception clerk at the office. She talked to me intermittently while I was working on the translation for the remaining three hours. I reached out to her when I had questions, too. Our conversations add up to about 30 minutes. [Ms. Yoshimura] is another staff at the office and she talked to me briefly asking about my background. (Lilly, Journal entry, 9/29/2017)

In her journal, she explains that her role in the office on the first day was different from what she originally thought, and it was slightly “disappointing” because she did not have opportunities to interact with visitors to the office. She writes:

The role I take in the office is actually very different than what I expected. I did not get to interact with people a lot because all the staffs were busy and when customers came, the staffs handled them, which was kind of disappointing. (Lilly, Journal entry, 9/29/2017)

However, she understood that the office members expected her to help them by translating documents to Chinese. She actually enjoyed the translation tasks because she could reconnect with her Chinese and learn more about Minami-city by translating documents about the city. Therefore, although Lilly’s expectation and reality differed, she found that working on translation tasks was beneficial for her. In other words, although Lilly’s original interest—interacting with native speakers of Japanese—was different from the CoP’s expectation—having documents translated, she ended up seeing the value in translating tasks she was given. This change in perspective made the translation work beneficial for Lilly as well, thus making for an interdependent relationship.

The figure below shows with whom Lilly was able to create a relationship in the tourism office as of the first week of her Community Engagement. At this point, she reported that she interacted with three members in the CoP.

Figure 14: Lilly’s social network with staff members of the tourism association as of the first week (9/29)

Note. SAP = The study abroad program

Week 2. Wednesday, 10/4/2017: Learning the purpose of translations

She started another translation task after completing the one from the previous week. Ms.

Yoshimura helped Lilly when she had questions about the Japanese documents that she was assigned to translate. On this day, through a conversation with the office members, she learned that the Chinese translation documents are not only for Chinese tourists but also international students and Chinese residents of Minami-city:

[Ms. Takei] explained to me that the English or Chinese versions are mainly for the few international students in local universities. Moreover, there is a Chinese old lady who married to Japan and had come to the office once. They remembered her and hope to provide a Chinese version to let her better comprehend. From this, I see how they take every detail considered and try to provide thoughtful service for everyone. (Lilly, Journal entry, 10/4/2017)

Knowing that the association cared about the small Chinese population in Minami-city made Lilly feel happy and proud that she was contributing to the office’s project, as she says, “I am happy that I can contribute to it” (Lilly, Journal entry, 10/4/2017).

Week 3. Wednesday, 10/18/2017: “Real office staff” experience

In addition to working on another translation task, Lilly met another employee of the office,

Ms. C for the first time since she started her internship. Lilly had a chance to go to a supermarket in order to buy snacks for the upcoming business meeting with Ms. C. While shopping, they had a conversation about the budget and the shopping list. Lilly describes this event positively because it was the first time Lilly was asked to go shopping together:

In the previous two activities, I have seen office staffs going out to buy drinks and snacks for the office, and I am happy the they asked me if I wanted to tag along this time. (Lilly, Journal entry, 10/18/2017)

Lilly also found this experience to be where she felt “included as a real office staff” (Lilly, Journal entry, 10/18/2017), because she was not only invited to join their regular routine but also Ms. C took Lilly’s suggestions into account on what to buy.

Week 4. Monday, 10/23/2017: Meeting new people beyond tourism office staff members

On the fourth week, she attended a meeting that was held in a different location from the tourism association office. During the meeting, she could extend her connection with other local residents beyond the tourism association office. It will be discussed later in section 4.4.3.

Week 5. Wednesday, 11/1/2017: Exchanging personal contacts with members

Lilly spent the last day with the three office members without Mr. Wakatsuki because it was his day-off. She completed all of her translation tasks and helped Ms. Yoshimura count souvenir goods. She also had an opportunity to converse with office members about their personal lives and exchanged contact information to keep in touch with them even after her internship:

I exchanged LINE with my colleagues and learned more about them. It is a shame that I could have done it earlier but I am happy that we are able to keep in touch even if the Community Engagement ends. (Lilly, Journal entry, 11/1/2017)

Over the five weeks of her internship, Lilly completed all the translation tasks that the CoP requested of her. Although she did not explicitly mention having a “friendship” with the individual members, she hopes to continue their relationships, which might indicate the development of a stronger social network in the future.

4.4.3 Extended interaction (Satellite)

On the fourth week, she attended a meeting with Mr. Wakatsuki and met four people who were not affiliated with the tourism office. The four people develop city maps or documents for foreign visitors to Minami-city. Lilly was first introduced to them by Mr. Wakatsuki, and had opportunities to have personal conversations with Mr. Kato and Ms. G. Mr. Kato is a representative of a local organization that co-hosted the orientation for the Community Engagement program at the beginning of the semester. Ms. G is a lecturer in nutrition at a university, which is a different institution from the host university, and she occasionally organizes events regarding gender studies. Coincidentally, Lilly has been interested in gender studies since she took a course about

gender studies in Japan at her home institution. Since Lilly and Ms. G had a common interest, they exchanged contacts so Lilly could receive information about future events about gender studies:

I took a class called Gender in Japan in my freshman year and it has been a subject of my interest since then. We exchanged contact and I am very looking forwards to attend her workshop in the future. (Lilly, Journal entry, 10/23/2017)

In the meeting, the group discussed making a new poster to welcome foreign visitors that would be posted in the shops in Minami-city. Lilly was asked to provide her opinion about the language used in the poster, and her suggestion was adopted in the revised design.

In her journal, she describes that this experience was the “most interesting” and

“rewarding” experience of the program:

The Community Engagement I had today was the most interesting and rewarding one so far. It was the first time for me to be included as a “community member” in discussing topics about foreign visitors/students. (Lilly, Journal entry, 10/23/2017)

Interdependency is observed in this meeting between Lilly and the meeting group. Lilly was able to assist in the decision-making process of a local project, and the meeting group was able to hear opinions directly from an international student’s point of view.

As another outcome of attending the meeting, Lilly realized that Community Engagement is a great chance to extend her social network because she was able to meet Ms. G who had a common interest with her. In her journal of week 5, she reflects week 4’s experience as:

From the business meeting I had last week, I realized that working at office could also be a way to establish personal network. (Lilly, Journal entry, 11/1/2017)

Lilly’s realization on that day lead her to have personal conversations with the office staff members and exchange contact information on the last day of her Community Engagement activity. 88

Table 7 shows duration (in minutes) of interaction between Lilly and the people in the meeting group. Lilly reported that she interacted with them for 180 minutes.

Table 7: Duration of interaction between Lilly and the meeting group members

9/29 10/4 10/18 10/23 11/1 Sum 1. Mr. Kato - - - √ (180) - (180) 2. Mr. E - - - √ (180) - (180) 3. Mr. F - - - √ (180) - (180) 4. Ms. G - - - √ (180) - (180) Sum (0) (0) (0) (720) (0) (720) Daily activity (240) (240) (240) (240) (240) (1200) duration Note. The numbers in ( ) represents minutes

Throughout the five weeks, Lilly reported that she interacted with eight people. Four of them are employees in the office, and the other four are not office employees, but people who she met during the meetings. Figure 15 illustrates Lilly’s social network with the people whom she met during her Community Engagement. By comparing Figure 15 with Figure 16,36 which shows her social network as of the first week, one can see that Lilly’s social network after five weeks is more extended than in the first week.

36 Figure 16 and Figure 14 are the same. 89

Figure 15: Lilly’s social network throughout her Community Engagement activities (9/29-11/1)

Note. SAP = The study abroad program; E, F, G, etc. = individuals with whom Lilly had Interactions

Figure 16: Lilly’s social network with staff members of the tourism association as of the first week (9/29)

Note. SAP = The study abroad program

Figure 16 shows that Mr. Wakatsuki has been instrumental in extending her social network.

In the future, Lilly may connect with additional groups of people through Mr. Wakatsuki, or begin to make connections to additional groups through other members of the tourism association.

4.4.4 Summary of Lilly’s perspective

Lilly chose this Community Engagement site to experience a Japanese office environment, but she was a little disappointed on the first day knowing that she would have fewer opportunities to interact with office staff and visitors than she had expected. However, since she found the value in her translation tasks on the second day, she found that she was actually contributing to the office by utilizing her Chinese language skills. Thus, Lilly was aware of common interest with the tourism association as of the second week as a result of communication with the office staff.

During the third week, Lilly enjoyed going shopping with a staff member, and felt that she had become a member of the staff from the fact that the staff invited her to come and took her suggestion about the selection of snacks.

During the fourth week, she experienced contributing to another local community by providing her opinions on a sign-making project. Attending a meeting brought her another chance to be connected with a local person who had a common interest with her. From this experience,

Lilly realized the Community Engagement program is a great opportunity to make personal connections with members. Through the first week to the third week, Lilly hesitated to interact with office staff because they seemed busy, but in the last week, Lilly attempted to talk with the office staff, and exchanged contact information in order to keep connected with them even after

the internship. Although it is not a direct reference to friendship, it indicates the beginning of social network construction.

Chapter 5: Findings and Discussion

Chapter 5 discusses the research question of this study: with the intervention of the study abroad program that fosters Community Engagement activities, do exchange students from U.S. institutions of higher education succeed in constructing social networks within communities of practice of local off-campus residents in the first term of a trimester program?

In order to examine whether students will succeed in social networking with members of the CoPs, there are four proposed sub questions. This chapter first discusses the four sub questions that are listed below, and then examines the main research question.

1. How much time do students spend with members of the community during Community

Engagement activities? With which members do they interact?

3. To what extent do students in their journals refer to realization of friendship, interdependency, and/or common interests with local people connected to but outside of the community where they are assigned for the Community Engagement activities?

4. To what extent do members of the CoPs in their interviews with the researcher refer to realization of friendship, interdependency, and/or common interests with students they accept?

5.1 Duration of time spent in the CoPs and members with whom students interacted in the CoPs

This section will discuss sub question 1, which focuses on the duration of participation in the CoPs and with whom students interacted during the community engagement program.

The students spent time in the CoPs for a total of 7.25 hours to 38 hours, but they did not necessarily spend the entire time interacting with the members of the CoPs. When the students and the members of the CoPs are not interacting, they work on tasks by themselves sometimes under supervision of community members. This means that the total duration of Community Engagement activities is not equal to the duration that students are able to have interactions with members of the CoPs.

Shorter duration of interaction with members of the CoPs is not necessarily a negative aspect. It also implies that the students are treated as newcomers of the group, rather than as foreign guests who require attention and assistance from the members of the CoPs all the time. For example, in Helen’s case, she was under the supervision of members of the CoP for the entire time during the first two instances of her activity. On the last day, in contrast, she was given tasks that she worked on by herself, interacting with the CoP members only when she needed help from them.

Thus, having fewer interactions can mean receiving less attention and assistance from the members of the CoPs, which could be a sign of gaining status as a newcomer rather than a guest.

A similar case is reported in Fukai & Noda (2012) in their study that followed international students’ process of becoming members of local CoPs. They discuss that the more status an international student gains as a full participant of a CoP, the less attention they receive from established members of the CoP. In the case of Adam in their study, Ms. Suzuki, who is one of the

community members of a local CoP, commented that she found herself, over approximately 10 weeks, ceasing to be concerned about what Adam was doing in the CoP, because his presence had become normal for the CoP.

Unlike the study by Fukai & Noda (2012), the current study does not show signs of students becoming full participants of CoPs, probably because of the short duration of Community

Engagement activities. Even Cassie, who spent the longest time (38 hours over a seven-week period) for her activities, comments that she was not able to become a full participant of the community. As she says,

“Unfortunately, for us to really become integrated into the community as a member, less than three months is a bit too short. I feel like we were almost there, however before we could really become full members, the program ended” (Cassie, Journal entry, 11/9/2017).

However, although they were not able to become full members of the CoPs, it seems like at least the students’ presence has been acknowledged not as foreign guests but more or less newcomers, which is an initial stage of becoming a full participant in the CoPs.

With respect to local people that the students interacted with, there are mainly two group types: members of the CoPs and people beyond the CoPs. Within the CoPs, a large CoP does not necessarily guarantee expanding one’s social network with a large number of people as Mia’s and

Helen’s cases demonstrate. In Mia’s case, she joined a CoP with approximately 55 people, but she was able to interact with only 11 people during her activities. The reason might come from the short duration of her Community Engagement activities, which is 7.25 hours, but even Helen who spent more than 34 hours in her CoP was not able to interact with all the members. Also, the frequency of interactions with each member is low; interactions are mostly limited to once or twice. 95

On the other hand, Lilly and Cassie who joined smaller CoPs were able to interact with all members of the CoP, and they show signs of strong social network developments with each member of the communities. Cassie and Lilly also had opportunities to have connections with people beyond the

CoPs. Cassie was able to interact with 23 people (+some students) in total, which is the largest number among the four participants, although she had only one person in her primary CoP. The interactions with people beyond the CoPs will be discussed in 5.3.

As another note of importance, the difference of total duration among students implies the limitations of program intervention on students’ behaviors. The study abroad program required students to be involved in their Community Engagement activities for at least 24 hours, and it turned out that two students exceeded the requirement and the other two did not meet the required hours. The tangible reasons for going above or below the required time are not determined from the collected data, but at least the results indicate that even if a program requires a total duration of participation to encourage commitment to the CoPs, not all students are able to meet the requirement. While previous studies mentioned in chapter 2 emphasize the importance of program intervention in encouraging students to interact with local people during study abroad, the results of this study imply that intervention by the program could be limited. Intervention by the program is effective for students to have first contact with CoPs and to set their goals of participation in the

CoPs. Once their activities start, however, the students’ experiences, including duration of participation to the CoPs, are more affected by CoPs’ and students’ attitudes themselves.

5.2 Network and a Third Space development within the CoPs: Analysis from the students’ perspectives

This section addresses sub question 2: To what extent do students in their journals refer to realization of friendship, interdependency, and/or common interests with members of the community where they are assigned for the Community Engagement activities? In other words, what level of negotiation may students have with members of the CoPs toward developing the

Third Space?

The four students share two features when they start the Community Engagement activities.

First, their common purpose is to become a member of the CoPs as opposed to a guest. Secondly, each of them have general interests in the CoPs that they selected; Helen is interested in the publishing industry as well as business environment, Mia wants to learn about kobanashi performances, Cassie is interested in Ms. Ueno’s company, especially food-related work, and Lilly is curious about working in a Japanese office environment. In other words, the students have general common interests with the CoPs even before they start interacting with individual members in the CoPs.

On the other hand, although they show interests in the CoPs before starting the activities, their interests are rather vague such as “I wanted to understand what it would be like to work in a

Japanese company” (Helen, Background information questionnaire) and “I want to experience working at a Japanese office” (Lilly, Background information questionnaire). Also, they have a limited understanding of the CoPs that they chose at the time they started the activities. For example, Mia recorded that she did not know that the kobanashi volunteer group had an irregular

schedule for their performance days with little time for practice beforehand or reflection afterwards, and Lilly did not fully understand the role of the tourism association office in the context of a mid-sized Japanese city. Therefore, while students had general interests in the respective CoPs that they chose, it seems their interests did not necessarily match the reality of the

CoPs, nor did their interests make them stand out from other potential student interns from the perspective of the members of the CoPs.

As they participate in activities in the CoPs more, they start making efforts to be accepted as a member. Some students adjust their interests to the CoPs by negotiating their interests with their respective CoP’s interests, which is considered characteristic of moving on to the next stage of the Third Space. For instance, Lilly, when she first began her internship in the tourism association office, expected that she would have more interactions with members of the office and visitors there, which was different from what the CoP expected of her. Although there was a gap between Lilly and the CoP’s interests in the beginning, Lilly found value in her assigned tasks through interactions with members of the CoP that included conversations about the background of the translation tasks. In Mia’s case, she challenged herself and performed difficult stories in order to grow as a performer of the group because becoming a good performer and spreading laughter is an interest of the kobanashi storytelling group. Although the durations of Community

Engagement activities are limited to 7.25 ~ 38 hours, a hint of the Third Space development to the next stage is observed along with students’ commitments to the CoPs.

During the students’ community engagement activities in CoPs, members of the CoPs assign tasks for the students to complete. These tasks often require abilities or backgrounds that

are unique to international students such as their language skills and experience of living outside of Japan, but they rarely require field expertise, such as special knowledge about tourism or publishing. For example, both Helen and Lilly were asked to utilize their native language skills to complete tasks that would be beneficial to CoPs. Helen reported that she utilized her strength as a native speaker of English to lookup a picture of the former U.S. president Obama for the company’s new publication. Lilly was also assigned translation tasks to complete for the tourism office that required her Chinese language skills. In addition to their native language skills, students are expected to give their opinions as foreign visitors. All the students except for Mia wrote in their journal entries about stories when they were asked for their opinions on problems that CoPs

(or satellite CoPs) had. When they were asked for their opinions, they sometimes expressed their confusion because they were not specialists of the fields (e.g. Cassie in the Hiroshima tourism office). However, it would appear that they took these experiences as opportunities to make contributions to the CoPs, which could be interpreted as students’ realization of “interdependency” with the CoPs.

In students’ journal entries, there are no specific references to “friendship” with a particular community member. However, the students express favorable impressions to people with whom they interacted. In their journal entries, students describe these people with positive words such as

“very kind and hospitable” (Cassie, Journal entry, 9/28/2017) and “[the president of the company] was very nice” (Helen, Journal entry, 10/12/2017), and they felt that they were welcomed.

Moreover, Lilly’s and Cassie’s journal entries indicate early signs of positive network development toward the last day of their Community Engagement activities. In Lilly’s case, she

exchanged contact information with several members of her CoP on the last day of her internship, and she hoped to keep in touch with them. Cassie acknowledged that she was able to establish a close relationship with Ms. Ueno because of their shared time together.

5.3 Extended network beyond the CoPs

This section will discuss sub question 3. The purpose of sub question 3 is to examine the possibility of satellite networking beyond their primary CoPs, assuming that the more fully the relationship with members of the CoPs is negotiated, the more easily developed the extended networks.

The existence of the connections with people beyond the primary CoPs has been recognized in previous research studies about students’ friendship development during study abroad (e.g. Isabelli-García, 2006). The current study demonstrates that extended connection also exists in interactions between international students and local residents in context of Community

Engagement activities.

All four students reported that they had opportunities to meet Japanese people beyond the primary CoPs during their activities. Helen could meet clients of the company when she accompanied an employee from sales division to a sales event, and she also had occasions to make small talk with other clients when she helped sell books at an event. Mia had opportunities to perform short stories in front of an audience who were not members of the kobanashi performance group. Although she did not have a chance to talk with them directly, Mia witnessed positive reactions in the audience. However, while Helen and Mia briefly mention the people they met

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beyond CoPs in the third section of the journal, which asked students to write reflections of the day, they did not mention those people in the second section of their journal entries, which asked for the names of individuals with whom they interacted and how long they interacted (see the

Journal template in Appendix B). It indicates that Helen and Mia did not regard the interactions with these people as a part of network construction.

On the other hand, both Cassie and Lilly mention the interactions with people beyond CoPs in both the second (i.e. list of people whom they interested with) and the third part (i.e. reflection) of the journal. Cassie’s case is particularly significant because she was able to have direct contact with 22 people who are in Ms. Ueno’s social network. These extended connections provided

Cassie with opportunities to be engaged in various kinds of activities such as visiting a Hiroshima prefecture antenna shop and making a new drink option for a café. Ms. Ueno arranged to connect

Cassie and these particular people in her social network because Ms. Ueno and Cassie (and the other student) negotiated their interests when they started community engagement activities. Ms.

Ueno explained that they visited places related to Hiroshima prefecture, such as the antenna shop and tourism offices, because she realized they had a common interest in Hiroshima prefecture:

Hiroshima is my hometown….Cassie studied abroad for a short time during summer in Hiroshima when she was a high school student, so they were interested in Hiroshima a little

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bit [so that’s why I chose Hiroshima prefecture related places to visit]. 37 (Ms. Ueno, interview)

As Ms. Ueno implies in her interview, these negotiations of common interests occurred during casual conversations between Ms. Ueno and students. The idea of making a new drink item for the

Chair Café also came up during casual conversations between them.

Originally, while we are chatting about various topics, we wanted to make something tangible that shows what they experienced as interns. We discussed some ideas, and what they could do, then among some options, we developed an idea of making an original drink.38 (Ms. Ueno, interview)

Since Cassie and Ms. Ueno had opportunities to negotiate their interests during casual conversations, Ms. Ueno arranged meetings with people and activities that matched their interests.

Ms. Ueno’s extensive social network and opportunities to negotiate their interests provided Cassie with 22 connections beyond Ms. Ueno.

In Lilly’s case, she met four other people beyond the tourism association office by attending a meeting. At the meeting, Lilly was able to help the meeting group make multilingual signs so that international visitors could enjoy sightseeing in Minami-city. In addition, she was

37 広島と言うのが私自身の出身地なんです. . . . [Cassie]さんについては高校生の時のサマープログラムで広島の高校にちょっと留学をしていたというところがあって、彼女たちの中でも広島にちょっと興味があったということですね。 38 もともとですね、雑談の中でいろいろな話をしていく中で、まあ、最終的に目に見える形と彼女たちが関わったという跡を作りたかったので、まず提案として何がいいか、こういうことができるっていう中で、まあこういうことならできるんじゃないかという中に、オリジナルドリンクの作成というところが盛り上がってきた。 102

able to have a connection with a person who shared her interest in gender studies. Since Lilly does not mention the background of the groups attending the meeting and there is no interview data from a representative of the tourism association office, the correlation between Third Space development in the primary CoP and satellite networks in her case is not as clear as in Cassie’s case. However, there is an interdependency between Lilly and the meeting group (i.e. satellite network) because the meeting group could hear Lilly’s opinions, and Lilly was able to feel that she was integrated into the Minami-city community by having a chance to contribute them.

The four cases in this current study suggest that students’ interaction is not limited to individuals in the primary CoPs but also other people beyond them. These extended networks indeed provide opportunities to be involved in activities as a representative of the CoP, and also a chance to connect with other local people who have a specific common interest. In Cassie’s and

Lilly’s cases, a hint of “common interest” and/or “interdependency” with people beyond the primary CoP are observed, but none of them referred to “friendship” with those people.

In the current research study, it would appear that the smaller the primary CoP, the greater the opportunities provided for students to have an extended network, as Cassie and Lilly’s cases show. This suggests there may be a correlation between the size of the primary CoP and the existence of an extended network, but further research is necessary to determine whether the size of the primary CoP is a factor in rich satellite networking.

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5.4 Network and Third Space development within the CoPs: Analysis from the CoP representatives’ perspectives

While the previous three sub questions focus on students’ perspectives, the last sub question examines the realizations of “common interests,” “friendship,” and “interdependency” by representatives of the CoPs and discusses the view of the Third Space from the perspective of the people with whom international students would cooperate in the Third Space.

For the current study, only three representatives of local CoPs were interviewed since no one from Lilly’s community engagement site could participate in the interview. Also, an interview with representatives of CoPs was conducted only once with each person. Unlike student participants who recorded detailed journal entries for each activity day, comments from the three

CoP representatives are on overall impressions toward students’ Community Engagement. Yet, interviews with the three representatives provided a view of how they interpreted their experiences of having international students in their respective CoPs.

First, each of the CoPs have unique reasons for accepting students in their community. For example, Mr. Yoshino from Helen’s CoP explained that they accept international students as an extension of their routine practice of accepting Japanese student interns, which is one of their social services as a community-minded company. Also, providing opportunities for international students to learn about Japanese culture is a common reason to accept students for both Ms. Ueno of the promotional company, and Ms. Tanaka from the kobanashi story telling group. Ms. Ueno said:

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They participated in this internship because they like Japan and want to know more about Japan.39 (Ms. Ueno, Interview)

Ms. Tanaka also acknowledges that students can learn about Japanese culture by joining their CoP:

For international students as well, Edo kobanashi is an aspect of Japanese culture, right? By performing Edo kobanashi, you get exposed to Edo culture. Also, it’s a kind of word play in Edo culture. Uh, rakugo is something you enjoy by listening to it, but Edo kobanashi is something you enjoy by performing it, especially if it's a short story. So, experiencing kobanashi means that the student is exposed to Japanese culture a lot.40 (Ms. Tanaka, interview)

While learning about Japanese culture is an important outcome of participating in local

CoPs, the international students’ primary purpose is to be involved in the CoPs as a contributing member rather than a guest. The representatives of the CoPs did not mention this point during the interviews. This created the possibility of students’ and the CoP members’ misunderstanding each other’s interests at the beginning of Community Engagement activities, or the primary stage of

Third Space development in the CoPs.

Also, on one hand the students expected to be accepted as a member of the CoPs by contributing to them, on the other hand the representatives of the CoPs did not mention their specific expectations to them. In fact, their expectations of the students seemed relatively low. For

39 日本の事が好きで日本のことをもっと知りたいという思いで参加してくれたことはあるんです。 40 留学生さんにとっても、江戸小咄って言えば、日本文化ですよね。江戸文化に触れるっていう。あと、江戸文化の中の言葉遊び。あの、落語は聞くものだけど、小咄は話して楽しむもの…とくに短いのは。なのでそれを体験してもらえるというのもとても日本文化に触れてるっていう。 105

example, Ms. Tanaka commented that the existence of young students itself is already beneficial for the group and asking for special contributions by the students would be unnecessary. Mr.

Yoshino also mentioned being impressed by Helen for making a phone call to the company to let them know that she would come late. Mr. Yoshino appreciated Helen’s behavior because it was not what he had expected from an international student, judging from his previous experience.

Being on time is the norm for Japanese companies, and Helen’s behavior can be considered the minimum effort required to work as an intern in Japan. Ms. Yoshino being impressed by Helen suggests his low expectation of international students when it comes to behaving according to

Japanese social norms. These reactions from representatives of the CoPs suggest that local CoPs might have different or generally low expectations of international students, or that they do not have any specific expectations at all, not because they think international students are incapable, but that they are just not aware of the students’ desire to make a contribution to the CoPs and become accepted as a member of the community. The gap of expectations between international students and local people in a host country is one of the characteristics observed in the Third Space, and it becomes an obstacle to developing the Third Space to the next stage. The gaps have been observed also in context of building friendships between students from the U.S. and local language partner students in Japan during a four-week study abroad program (Tobaru, 2018).

In their interview, the CoP representatives did not mention any feelings of “friendship” between them or other members of the CoP and their respective student intern/volunteer. On the other hand, the representatives recognized the benefits of creating a Third Space to their CoPs by

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having international students there, which could be interpreted as a factor of “interdependency.”

For instance, Ms. Ueno thinks that international students bring new perspectives to them:

They also gave me new perspectives throughout our activities by telling me what they thought about Japan as young people who grow up in the US. For example, they expressed what they thought was nice, from that I learned that from their perspective Japanese traditions are not as bad as we thought, or that what we, as Japanese, thought was special was not necessarily attractive to them, such as how we promote the Japanese language. I think it was a good opportunity to hear what they actually think about their experience in their own words.41 (Ms. Ueno, interview)

Similarly, Ms. Tanaka said:

Having a new person immediately lightens the atmosphere of the group. They provide more conversation topics, especially about the US. For example, we can ask where she lived in the US, which we never talk about without international students. For example, we were able to ask about the U.S., so I think it is really nice to have international students so we can gain a new perspective through communication. It might be difficult for us to actually go to the US, but we can ask about the US if we want to.42 (Interview)

41 アメリカで住んで過ごして見えてきたものっていうものをまあ要所要所の活動の中で教えていただいた、例えばこれは素敵だとか、これはこういう風に思うということも常に口に出して言ってくださっていたので例えば、その、こっちの思っているほど、いわゆる日本の伝統的なものの見え方というのは悪くないなというのと、あとはこういうところが素敵でしょ、例えば日本語を見せる魅せ方が必ずしも彼女たちに響いてないとかそういうところですね、そういうところを言葉にして教えていただいたので、なのでこういう意見っていうのもきちんと聞ける機会だったなと思いますね。 42 新しい人が入ると、パーっと明るくなる。とかね、話題が広がる、まして、アメリカとか。例えば、アメリカのどのへんに住んでいるの、とかそういう話は普段は絶対しないような話に話が広がっていけるし、アメリカのことを聞いたりもするかもしれないし、みんなの目線がこう変わってコミュニケーションが取れるというのはとても素敵なことだなと思います。実際にはアメリカにはなかなか行けないけれどそんな話を聞きたかったら聞けるし。 107

Moreover, Mr. Yoshino and Ms. Tanaka further mentioned the possibility of strengthening interdependency between international students and the CoPs. They recognize that they can establish interdependency with international students depending on the students’ degree of interest and duration of commitment to the CoPs. They suggested this point when they mentioned the students they accepted before. For example, Ms. Tanaka explained how a previous student showed her strong interest in performing in the kobanashi storytelling group:

[A previous student] said she liked performing very much, and participated in a lot of our activities proactively.43 (Ms. Tanaka, interview)

Also, Mr. Yoshino mentioned a previous student who liked reading Japanese texts and was committed to the CoP deeply:

[One of the previous students’ name] liked reading Japanese and s/he was detail oriented as s/he found small mistakes that even we did not find….the company member’s responses were quite positive because s/he contributed to the company as a substantial member.44 (Mr. Yoshino, Interview)

Thus, those students who show strong commitment to the CoPs and devote their time there seem to be recognized as substantial members of the CoPs. Therefore, a strong interest and

43 とても[前回の学生]は積極的で、これすごい好きだって言ってくれてて、たくさん参加しましたね。 44 [以前の学生の名前]なんかは文章を読むのが大好きで、こちらが気づかないことまで気づいてくれて、細やかな性格だったので、受け入れてアレンジするのが大変だった、というよりかはむしろ戦力として役にたったというポジティブな反応があって。

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commitment are likely to be important factors in establishing interdependency between international students and CoPs.

In summary, the CoPs have a positive attitude toward accepting students. However, there might be gaps between students’ and the CoPs’ interests at the beginning stage of their Third Space development. In this study, although “friendship” with the students is not observed from perspective of the representatives of the CoPs, it seems like they more or less acknowledge interdependency between their CoPs and international students. For local CoPs, having international students is beneficial because local members can obtain new perspectives by interacting with those international students; for international students, participating in local CoPs provides opportunities for them to learn more about Japanese culture and meet local people whom they might not be able to meet without mediation by CoPs. As a possible factor to strengthen interdependency between students and CoPs, the interview with them suggests increasing the degree of students’ interest in the CoPs and longer duration of commitment.

5.5 Examining the research question

The purpose of this study has been to explore if students from U.S. institutions of higher education would succeed in constructing their social networks in local CoPs through program- required Community Engagement activities during the first trimester of their study abroad in

Japan. The students’ journal entries and interviews with local members in the CoPs suggest that networks between students and individual members of the CoPs are loose and/or only partially developed.

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Students’ journal entries reveal that interactions with individual members of the CoPs were partially developed for some of them. Especially in large CoPs that consist of more than 40 people, students did not have opportunities to meet all of the members during their activities, and the frequency of interactions with the individuals tended to be restricted to once or twice. Compared to those who joined large CoPs, students who participated in smaller CoPs were able to interact with all the members, and they seemed to have more frequent and longer interactions with individual members. In fact, Cassie recorded that she was able to establish a close relationship with Ms. Ueno, who was the only member of a primary Community Engagement site that Cassie joined. The schematic diagrams of social network for each participant at the onset and at the end of the Community Engagement during the first trimester depict that the shape of social networks that students develop differ from each other.

Students’ social networks are found to be rather loose. First, both student participants and representatives of CoPs do not acknowledge their “friendships” between them. Also, in terms of

“common interests,” students and members of the CoP have a general common interest, but there are also gaps in interests between students and CoPs, and some students mention their awareness of these gaps. Furthermore, with respect to their consciousness of “interdependency,” there is a hint of it between international students and local CoPs, but there are also gaps between what students aim to accomplish and what the CoPs expect of students.

Although networks with individual members are loose and only partially developed, students’ journal entries presage further social network development with individual members of

CoPs, and people beyond the primary CoPs as well. Also, negotiations of common interests are

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observed in Lilly’s case at the tourism association, which is an important step to developing a

Third Space in the next stage. In addition, while members of the CoPs expect students to utilize their language skills and international perspective for the sake of the CoPs, the fact that international students are given responsible tasks to complete suggests that the students are at least accepted as newcomers who have a positive impact on the CoPs, rather than treated simply as

“foreign guests” to entertain for a set amount of time. Also, the CoPs’ representatives suggest that showing strong interest and making more commitments to the CoPs might facilitate students to be accepted as substantial members and to establish extensive relationships with more members of the CoPs as well as people in extended CoPs.

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Chapter 6 Conclusion

In this chapter, a summary of the current research will be presented first. Analysis of the findings of this research leads to some recommendations for study abroad students and programs, which will be discussed second. Finally, the shortcomings of this study will be addressed and future research implications are suggested.

6.1 Summary

A major goal of this project has been to examine if international students in Japan can succeed in constructing social networks within communities of practice that consist of off-campus local residents through program oriented Community Engagement activities during the first trimester of a one-year study abroad program. In order to examine how students constructed social networks and to what extent the students were successful in these efforts, the current study focused on four students and their interactions with local members of Communities of Practice (CoPs). The four cases are analyzed from multiple perspectives. First, in order to grasp a picture of the connections between students and members of the CoPs, the investigator asked the student participants to keep a log of their total duration of Community Engagement activities, noting people with whom they interacted and approximate duration of each interaction with them. Next, the study also explored the quality of interactions between the student participants and members

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of the CoPs whom the students reported that they interacted with. Both students’ and the CoP members’ perspectives were taken into consideration by examining the students’ journal entries on the one hand and scripts of interviews with CoP members on the other.

Neither the students’ journal entries nor the interviews with the local residents revealed construction of strong social networks between any of the students and members of their respective

CoPs during their first trimester of Community Engagement activities. Instead, the networks between the students and the CoP members are loose and only partially developed. Nevertheless, the data also indicate that it would be possible to develop stronger networks between international students and CoP members with longer and more frequent interactions in the future. Even though the students were not able to construct a strong social network with each individual member in the

CoPs, they at least are recognized as newcomers who have the potential to become full participants of the CoPs. Also, the results show that the students’ opportunities to make networks are not limited to the primary CoPs in which students choose to participate, but beyond the primary CoPs as well.

Schematic diagrams were developed to visually represent the shape of each student’s social network at different stages of their community engagement activities. The visual images of loose but developing networks are instrumental in making conjectures of potential network development in the future, if the students were to stay with the same CoPs during their second trimester of study abroad.

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6.2 Pedagogical implications

In the current multiple-case study, the student participants are all introduced to the CoPs through the focal study abroad program. Program intervention is limited once students start their activities (e.g. controlling total duration of participation), but at least in terms of providing steps to join CoPs, supportive actions made by a study abroad program play an important role. Based on the premise that intervention of a study abroad program is important, this section presents pedagogical implications for both study abroad programs and international students who are eager to expand their social networks with off-campus local residents.

When students select a CoP to join, it should be emphasized that choosing a CoP based on students’ interests or domain of expertise is important. Choosing a CoP that is close to students’ interests is beneficial in two ways: 1. students are able to have a common interest with members of the CoP, which is a factor of constructing social networks through strengthening the Third

Space; 2. having a strong interest in the CoP encourages students to commit to the goals of their

CoP. In order for students to choose a CoP where similar interests are shared between members of the CoP and the students, a study abroad program should encourage students to conduct some prior research about multiple CoPs that are potentially attractive. A study abroad program can assign research assignments such as reading CoPs’ official websites, blog entries or booklets about the

CoPs that will help students learn the CoPs’ missions. Having an information session, or orientation with potential CoPs is also beneficial for students in providing opportunities for them to ask questions to CoPs directly, and vice versa.

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Next, students should be prepared for the difference in expectations that the members of the CoPs may have and their own expectations. A prepping session should be held after students select their CoPs, but before they start the engagement activities. The expectation gap between individuals is not necessarily limited to the study abroad context, but could be more complex due to different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Some students might be affected negatively by the gap, but being mentally prepared will facilitate their recognition of the gap, which is important in mitigating any negative affect of an unprepared realization.

In terms of duration of Community Engagement, the results of this study suggest that up to 38 hours may not be long enough to construct strong social networks with individual members and to become full participants of the CoPs. The absence of discernible social networks can adversely affect the level of satisfaction of both the participating students and members of the

CoPs, and can affect negatively the continuation of community engagement programs. On the other hand, 38 hours seem sufficient for students to be accepted as newcomers of CoPs, which is the initial stage of becoming full participants of CoPs. If international students strongly wish to be accepted as full members of CoPs, study abroad programs should encourage students to participate in a CoP for longer than 38 hours, if at all possible. If the duration of their stay is limited, a study abroad program can encourage students to make extra effort, such as increasing the frequency of visits or partaking in more common experiences with CoP members.

Also, it is beneficial for the students to be prepared to express their own opinions, when requested, based on their observations in the Third Space. The research results reveal that once students start their Community Engagement activities, the members of the CoPs (or people in the

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extended CoPs) are likely to ask students questions, expecting to hear the “foreign visitor’s perspective” regardless of the students’ expertise. To prepare students for this, it is recommended that their study abroad program provide opportunities where students can practice expressing their opinions in a culturally appropriate manner. “Practice sessions” can be conducted shortly after students begin their activities in their respective CoPs. Also, suggesting students write personal diaries focusing on their discoveries about the target culture and about their CoPs, based on their own daily experiences and observations is beneficial for raising student awareness about the target culture, or about the Third Space in which they are involved.

In addition, study abroad programs can advise students to pay attention not only to interactions with members of the primary CoPs that they choose to join, but also to people in the extended CoPs beyond the primary CoP. As Lilly and Cassie’s cases demonstrate, the people in the second zone have a great potential for providing international students with opportunities to have new experiences and extend their networks further with local residents in the host country.

Lastly, in order to help future international students picture themselves participating in local CoPs, a study abroad program is encouraged to ask current students to keep a record of what they experienced in the CoP that they chose to join. Information may be limited in order to protect the privacy of CoPs and students, but keeping records and releasing some basic information would be helpful for future students when they choose CoPs to join according to their interests. It will also helpful for the current students to track their experiences and to what extent they are able to become a member of the CoPs. Programs should not only suggest students keep such journals but

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also monitor their entries and provide advice that are appropriate for each case at appropriate moments.

6.3 Shortcomings and future research implications

While the current study provides a realistic picture of international students’ social networking with local CoP members in the context of study abroad, it has several limitations.

First, the data collection sources that the student participants used are limited to self- reported data such as a background information survey and journal entries. While these self- reported data sources provide information on how students interacted with members of the CoPs, the provided information may contain students’ biases. For future research, obtaining more data sources from other perspectives such as ethnography notes through participant observation by the investigator would provide richer information to investigate the whole picture of social networking among students and members of the CoPs.

Second, the journal template has room for improvement. The journal entry asked the students to report details about interaction with CoP members including duration, but it did not specify what “interaction” refers to. Consequently, the data shows that each student interpreted

“interaction” differently, and it is potentially problematic because it might have affected the results of the current study. For example, Cassie reported that it was difficult to calculate the duration of interaction with Ms. Ueno because she was not sure what was considered “interaction”. Although the current study asked them to describe what they did together to avoid that kind of problem, future research should provide a clear definition of “interaction” for clarification.

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Third, representatives of only three CoPs participated in the interviews, compromising the case study. The problem comes from the recruitment process. When the investigator recruited participants from the local CoPs, the student participants were asked to recommend one person.

Since the investigator asked students to recommend only one person from their CoPs, there was no backup plan when one person withdrew from the study. In order to have a sufficient number of participants, recruiting multiple people is ideal in future research.

Fourth, the quantity of data sources from members of CoPs is small because interviews were conducted only once with each CoP representative. The time difference between Japan and the U.S. made it difficult to arrange time even for a single interview, so the investigator assumed that multiple interviews would be an obstacle for participating in the study. While the one-time interviews still provided the local CoP representatives’ perspectives, the interview provides only a limited glimpse of the representatives of the CoPs’ overall impression of the international students in their communities. For future research, at least one on-site interview in addition to multiple interviews via distance are recommended so that it would be possible to keep track of how their impressions may change—or not change—from the beginning to the end of Community

Engagement activities.

Another important point is that the participants of this study were mostly female. While there is one male participant from a local CoP, all four student participants were female because no male student volunteered to participate in this research during the recruitment. In case there are gender differences in social network construction with local residents, including male participants is essential for future research.

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While multiple-case studies permitted in-depth and individual characterization of network building, the results are limited by these four students and three local residents who participated in this study. The differences observed in the four cases suggest that there may be other patterns of social network development between study abroad students and resident members of the local community. In other words, the conclusion may not be directly applicable to other cases such as students in other study abroad programs. Future research, therefore, could investigate a larger group of people from multiple study abroad programs.

Finally, the present study focused on only the first trimester of students’ Community

Engagement activities. While it observed a hint of social network development among international students and members of the CoPs, it is still limited to the primary stage of a long- term process of social network development. Further longitudinal research, such as a year-long study, would likely be able to further evaluate whether students succeed in constructing strong social networks in local communities of practice, to capture the process of establishing networks between international students and individual members of CoPs, and also to observe the students’ processes of becoming—or not becoming—full participants of the CoPs.

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Appendix A: Student background information questionnaire

Background information questionnaire

*This questionnaire was distributed through google form

1. Name

2. Age

3. Year in school (1st , 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, graduate, others)

4. Gender (Male / Female / Other)

5. Native language

6. Other foreign language you speak

7. Your Japanese proficiency from OPI (Novice-Low, Novice-Mid, Novice-High,

Intermediate-Low, Intermediate-Mid, Intermediate-High, Advanced-Low, Advanced-Mid,

Advanced-High, Superior)

8. Study abroad duration (Autumn term only / One year)

9. Your Community Engagement site

10. Why did you choose the company / organization / group?

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Appendix B: Journal template

Community Engagement Journal Template Please use this template each time you write a journal entry.

Journal #____ Name______Date of entry______

1. FACTs a. Activity date & Time 2017/ / ( : ~ : ) b. What did you do? Please describe what you did in chronological order.

2. About the interaction with people a. List the names of people who interacted with you during the activity on the day written in part 1a (above), who the person is in relation to you, and how long you interacted with the person. (They can be pseudonyms, but please use the same pseudonym for the same person throughout the autumn term. If you don’t remember a person’s name, please write “person A”). Name Who is this person? How long in total did you interact with the person? e.g.) Mr. Suzuki My supervisor in ABC company 20 minutes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 b. How did you interact with people who you listed above? Please describe what you did with each person in as much detail as you can (e.g. what you did with the person, what you talked about). Please try to describe the situation when the interaction happened too. If you spent most of the time by yourself during the activity, please mention it.

3. Reflection (Approximately 300 words) Please reflect upon your interaction with community members that you described above. Feel free to write whatever you thought. E.g. ・Did you find something interesting? ・Did you have any difficulty?

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