Full-time instructor of English language education Ritsumeikan University, United States
Abstract: The pandemic has challenged and upended everyday life in innumerable ways, differently and sometimes unexpectedly or without much noticing for certain groups. One such group was international students, more so if they were studying in English in a non-English speaking country and found themselves not only without part-time jobs, but also lacking access to information to seek help. Based on the case study of one group of students, liaising faculty members, and a collaborating NPO, this presentation will illustrate how community engagement was sparked bottom-up, driven by a strong equity and inclusion commitment, developed into a reciprocal collaboration, and empowered students to be leaders in community engagement and community building (Cress & Samuelson, 2021). The ongoing research is being conducted collaboratively, following the principles of constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2017), which sees the researcher and participants as co-equals. Data includes participant observation, interviews, and focus groups with students, faculty, and NGO members. The presentation will focus on the specific challenges faced and strategies employed by this group as an international group with domestic members, in their interactions with the institution and the community, and in their development towards a sustainable, inclusive, powerful agent of change on and off campus. Implications for informal community-based learning, questions about ownership and institutional embedding, and considerations regarding ethical research and multiple roles will be touched upon as well.
Narrative: Over the past three years, the pandemic has not only posed a range of serious challenges around the globe, from health care to supply chain management to education, it has also led to an increase in creativity to deal with these unfamiliar issues, a rediscovery of the role of community in problem-solving, and a recalibration of priorities in many people's lives. The presentation will illustrate one of the problems exacerbated by the pandemic, food insecurity, and how community building across campus and community engagement beyond campus provided not only a means to take care of a pressing need, but an opportunity for mutual help, personal growth, and political action. The focus will be on a group of international students, their issues of access and striving for inclusion, and the way the current research hopes to contribute to making this grassroots community engagement sustainable by documenting its evolvement, inviting all stakeholders to collaborate in the research process, and negotiating the fine line between advocacy and empowerment (Kono, 2020).
The case study presented here depicts a grassroots initiative coordinated across international students, liaising faculty members, and a community organization in the context of Japan. International students, especially those studying in English in non-English speaking settings, were facing a double challenge of disappearing part-time jobs and lack of access to information and support during the pandemic. In the current case, the situation led to a concerted effort by faculty and students to provide emergency relief, to the establishment by students of a student-led food bank on campus, and to a cooperation with the local food bank, including workshops for the students who volunteered there as well. The presenters aim to support the the project by providing documentation and analysis from a multi-perspectival angle (Hocking, 2016), which offers contextualization, examines different layers of a phenomenon, and provides a link between discourse and practices.
A similar multi-stakeholder approach was taken by Ivanova (2020), who examined short-term social capital generation through interaction between international students and Japanese civil society organizations in the Kansai area. Besides helping to identify factors that contributed to the formation of social capital, such as intentionality, flexibility, and attitude, this approach also allowed to pinpoint obstacles in the process, such as mismatch of motivation, exclusion from planning and decision-making, or misalignment of values. Likewise, Akiyoshi et al. (2023), comparing multiple stakeholders across four sites in Japan, note recurring fluctuations in the nature of the relationship from transactional to transformational and back, suggesting changes in abilities, attitudes, and values among both university and community actors.
The present study follows the principles of constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2017), which pursues a collaborative, critical, reflective, contextual, and relational path towards knowledge creation. This dovetails with prevailing approaches to community-based research, which may encompass a range of philosophies and practices but by definition include two essential dimensions: action-orientation and a participatory nature (Etmanski et al., 2014). The ongoing research includes participant observation, interviews and focus groups with all stakeholders, as well as document analysis. Stages in the research process, focal points, and modes of participation are negotiated; teaching, learning, and research are variously engaged in as a new community with a common purpose emerges.
Initial findings from the student side indicate multiple access issues; on one hand, access to food, as some students, not only international ones, lost their part-time jobs, on the other, access to university support structures, which did not provide information or needs-based support . For international students, both language and institutional barriers prevented them from accessing the services they needed. These barriers continued to play a role in setting up the student-led food bank and in contacting businesses on and off campus. Students, however, were able to compensate for some of these hurdles by focusing on outreach and messaging, actively recruiting Japanese members, and building community through gatherings, events, and celebrations. Their stated goals include providing food support for food-insecure students, alleviating food insecurity and food waste, promoting a supportive campus community, and raising awareness on campus poverty issues.
To summarize, the significance of this study lies in its spotlight on international students, a stakeholder group often overlooked. It describes a unique reciprocal collaboration between a community food bank and a newly established campus food bank – the first in Japan - that arose over an emerging need, shines a light on issues of access and inclusion, and demonstrates the fluctuating and multiple roles of learner, teacher, and researcher among the actors involved. It thus serves to illustrate and expand current concepts in community engagement by adapting them to a specific context, time, and place. While the purpose of the research is to document and analyze this collaboration to support its further development and growth, the aim of this presentation is to share some insights gained in the research process and contribute to the discussion on creating and sustaining needs-based community engagement.
keywords: international students, Japan, access, reciprocity
References
Akiyoshi, M., Morita, M., Okunuki, M. & Hata, K. (2023). Daigakusei no chiiki katsudō wa chiiki ni nani ka o motarashieru no ka? Katsudō ni kakawaru akuta-kan no kankeisei kara no kōsatsu [The potential for community activities of university students to transform the community: Verification from the relationship among actors involved in the activities]. Boranthiagaku Kenkyū, 23, 1-12.
Charmaz, K. (2017). Special invited paper: Continuities, contradictions, and critical inquiry in grounded theory. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 16 (1), 1-8.
Etmanski, C., Hall, B. L., & Dawson, T. (Eds.). (2014). Learning and teaching community-based research: Linking pedagogy to practice. University of Toronto press.
Hocking, Darryl (2016): The brief in the art and design education: a multi-perspectival and mixed-methodological study. Macquarie University. Thesis. https://doi.org/10.25949/19435022.v1
Ivanova, P. (2020). Criteria and factors of social capital generation: Study of the interaction between Japanese CSOs and international students. Ritsumeikan Annual Review of International Studies, 19, 113-140.
Kono, N. (2020). Linguistics: Community-based language revitalization. In R. Iphofen (Ed.), Handbook of Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity (pp. 1037-1049). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16759-2_45
