Abstract
This chapter addresses the role of higher education institutions in fostering students’ cosmopolitan agency and self-formation. Drawing on an ecological and person-in-context perspective of cosmopolitan agency and intercultural interactions, and also interview data collected at two Japanese universities, the chapter makes a preliminary theoretical proposal that cosmopolitan agency and self-formation are cyclically augmented by intercultural interactions and cosmopolitan capital amid institutional affordances and constraints. First, it argues that cosmopolitan agency as a hallmark of intercultural interactions contributes to fostering the intercultural dimension of self-formation, leading to the accumulation of cosmopolitan capital. The chapter then illustrates how institutional policies and decisions, often beyond students’ control, enable and constrain the emergence of cosmopolitan agency and the prospects for self-formation. It then highlights the role of critical cosmopolitan agency in overcoming institutional constraints for the betterment of students themselves, other students and the environment—on and off campus. The chapter concludes by suggesting directions for future research.