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Description
This narrative case study explores how non-Japanese late-career female faculty members navigate complex, intersecting identities within higher education in Japan. As visible minorities, they strive to fulfil their many roles, both professional and personal, as educators, mentors, employees, partners, parents, and carers of elderly parents, while negotiating institutional cultures that often work against such multiplicity. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with five faculty members and guided by the Job Demands-Resources model (Demerouti et al. 2001) the study reveals how structural exclusion, role ambiguity, and gendered hierarchies shape participant well-being and teaching practices. Despite these challenges, participants embrace inclusive teaching, curriculum design, and intercultural leadership, often serving as role models and mentors to diverse learners. Their pedagogy is grounded in emotional authenticity, critical language awareness, and responsiveness to diverse learning needs. Personal experiences such as parenting, bicultural family life, and identity-based isolation become powerful resources for empathy and student engagement. Rather than simply adapting, these educators advocate for systemic change, calling for inclusive hiring, support of neurodiversity, and leadership that values difference. Their stories illustrate both the cost and potential of “living on the edge” within Japanese academia, and urge us to recognise the creative, ethical, and educational potential of those willing to openly embody multiple, shifting identities. Demerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., Nachreiner, F., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2001). The job demands-resources model of burnout. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 499–512. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.3.499