This study explores the factors of study abroad programs that contribute to cultivating intercultural competence. Through an empirically based quantitative examination of 303 Japanese study abroad students, it attempts to gain an understanding of the factors that enhance the development of intercultural competence. Considering that many previous studies worked with students in English-speaking countries, this study examines whether an investigation of Japanese students would yield similar results, given the different context. The primary findings show that program type, prior local language proficiency, and predeparture orientation are predicted to have significant impacts on intercultural competence. The findings clearly demonstrate the importance of empirically based arrangements of study abroad programs based on student and program profiles to enhance students' intercultural competence.

Higher education partnerships between the Global North and the Global South are a recognized as means of developing research and education capacity, especially in the institutions of the Global South. Due to the realities of individual agreements, however, not all partnerships work effectively. This article examines a Norwegian and Ethiopian university partnership named “The South Ethiopia Network of Universities in Public Health (SENUPH)” as a case study to identify key elements in the development of effective, mutually beneficial partnerships from policy and institutional perspectives. The first part of this article outlines the different concepts of aid-focused partnerships and mutuality-focused partnerships. The second part reviews the evolution of the Norwegian Funding Programmes for Higher Education Partnerships. The third part describes the mission and key characteristics of SENUPH. The final part analyzes the policy implications for the development of functional, mutuality-focused higher education partnerships, as learned from the SENUPH case study. The Norwegian case provides three implications for how to make such mutual partnerships functional: 1) the importance of fostering the authorship of the partnership among key actors; 2) the significance of multiple phases and periodic evaluation to assess the progress of the partnerships; and 3) the promotion of knowledge and skill development among recipients so they can promote growth and cause a spillover effect that has a positive regional impact.

This article discusses the impacts of the East Asian Leaders Program (EALP) organized as a trilateral collaborative educational program participated by students from Japanese, Chinese, and Korean universities. The East Asian Leaders Program has been operated under the CAMPUS Asia initiative led by the governments of the three countries, aiming at cultivating talents who contribute to promoting mutual understanding between the three countries. The empirical analysis of this study was designed by a mixed method approach collected from 16 Japanese students. The results showed that the East Asian Leaders Program has cultivated students’ attitudes and skills for mutual understanding, including acceptance/willingness to understand, ability to consider different perspectives, self-expression and assertion, and initiative and resilience. As this study indicates that the East Asian Leaders Program is effective for fostering students’ attitudes toward mutual understanding, further policy development should consider encouraging universities to develop such practices to increase intra-Asian student mobility as an alternative strategy for the internationalization of higher education.

No abstract

論 文 human capital, fostering the innovation that stimulates economic development and sustainability (The Middle East Institute, 2010). For example, "Arab Human Development Report: Building a Knowledge Society", a publication by the United Nations Development Programme, observes that higher education would be the way for the Arab world, including the UAE and Qatar, to develop a pool of skilled knowledge workers in order to sustain its long-term economic growth in the global knowledge economy (UNDP, 2009). The Gulf region has one of the highest proportions of youth in the global community (TresVista, 2010). Over half the population of the Arab states is under the age of 18, and demand for access to higher education is growing (Romani, 2009). However, this report also indicated that most higher education institutions in the region were failing to produce enough qualified graduates with skills that serve the needs of the emerging knowledge economy. Since public higher education institutions cannot accommodate the increasing numbers of secondary graduates, the private sector is fulfilling the demand (Bertelsen, 2009). Given the above, a significant trend in the UAE and Qatar is to invite foreign universities to establish International Branch Campuses (IBCs). According to the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education (OBHE), the number of IBCs worldwide