Education and Social Justice in Japan

Abstract

Japan’s education system has long been a source of fascination for people from a wide variety of fields: from those who wished to emulate it during the heyday of the economic boom, to those who focused on what it had to say about Japan more broadly – warts and all. The debate over whether the Japanese education system can be said to be ‘equal’ has raged for a similar length of time. Classic texts in the genre, such as Cummings (1980) and Rohlen (1983) are frequently juxtaposed to highlight the two sides – with the former arguing that schooling is egalitarian, and the latter underlining the features that complicate that view. Some recent scholarship provides a more comparative education approach, positioning the Japanese system in the globalised debate on equality (Kariya and Rappleye 2020); other works trace the evolution of the concept of equality (and related or competing terms such as egalitarianism and meritocracy) throughout Japanese education policy and the views of the people who make it (Okada 2012). In contrast, Okano’s focus is firmly on the current results of such changes on students themselves. Education and Social Justice in Japan provides an updated evaluation of schooling in Japan; invaluable considering the huge social, economic, and demographic shifts since Okano’s previous book on the subject (Okano and Tsuchiya 1999) was released. This book not only covers what the developments in schooling have been in the intervening thirty years, but also their impact on minorities and disadvantaged pupils and what this means for social justice in the Japanese education system. The book opens by defining what social justice means for the purposes of Okano’s research: both the ‘distribution’ of educational opportunity and the mechanisms by which its content is decided. A thorough look at the history of Japanese schooling until 2019, and its role in shaping Japan into what it is today, follows. Reforms and their reception are also covered, with Okano pointing out that these were less radical than what is often assumed from reactions at the time. Having set the scene, the book pivots to examining specific aspects of Japanese schooling and how things have changed (or not) for students in this system. Okano first focuses on the experiences of children from CLD (culturally and linguistically diverse) groups. Japan is still often assumed to be a homogenous society, and this chapter systematically disabuses the reader of this notion by following students from both longestablished minority backgrounds (such