Negotiating Identities in Virtual Exchange: Japanese Students’ Essentialist and Critical Reflections in a COIL Project with Chinese Peers

要旨

<jats:p>Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) has emerged as an increasingly important approach to internationalization at home, offering students opportunities for sustained intercultural interaction without physical mobility. However, less is known about how students in Asian contexts negotiate identity through such virtual exchange. This study aims to examine how university students in Japan (N = 41) with an average CEFR B1 level proficiency negotiated their identities during a COIL virtual exchange (VE) project with university students in China (N = 35). Drawing upon qualitative data from final written reflections, this study highlights how students in Japan described cultural differences in essentialist and critical ways. Findings suggest that VEs like COIL can serve as a catalyst for identity negotiation by prompting students to both reproduce and question cultural stereotypes. While some students expressed essentialist comparisons, others demonstrated a certain degree of emerging critical awareness by recognizing the diversity within cultural groups as well as their own shifting perspectives. These results highlight the importance of structured pedagogical scaffolding in VEs to facilitate learners seeing beyond simplistic cultural binaries toward more flexible, inclusive intercultural identities.</jats:p>