Multicultural Competence and Cosmopolitan Citizenship in the Hispanic-Japanese Context of Higher Education

Abstract

The increase in the internationalization of universities has been accompanied by an increase in multiculturalism in classrooms. Due to this situation, with the objective of knowing the conceptions of university professors around pluricultural competence and attending to the connection with their positioning in relation to the models of cosmopolitan citizenship; a mixed research is developed in the Hispanic-Japanese context of higher education, focusing attention on education and social sciences professors. In general, it is concluded that there are connections between the positioning of multiculturalism and cosmopolitan citizenship. Thus, the university professors of both countries highlight the advantages of cultural plurality in educational environments and, despite the fact that there is governmental support for academic internationalization, in the sample of Japanese professors, there is a greater concern about the preservation of national identity in cultural plurality.