Session 167: Gender, Equality, and Education in Contemporary Japan

Organizer and Chair: Peter Cave, University of Hong Kong

Discussant: Merry I. White, Boston University

Keywords: education, gender, equality, Japan, sociology, anthropology.

Education is a key institution in the socialization of children into gendered behaviors and thinking. This panel examines the interrelation of education and gender in contemporary Japan, a society in which gendered behavior is highly salient and gender inequality pervasive, yet where traditional gender roles and categories have recently been under serious question. Two panelists, Cave and Grimes-MacLellan, use anthropological case studies to examine gender socialization at particular school sites, one at primary and one at junior high level. Whereas Cave finds that in his study, teachers raised gender awareness and promoted gender equality, Grimes-MacLellan argues that at her school, lessons on gender equality were tacitly contradicted by gendered school practices. The two other panelists, Nakamura and Yamamoto, use the methods of qualitative and quantitative sociology to examine relations between education, gender, and social position. Nakamura shows how women can improve their socio-economic status even through `disadvantageous’ female-dominated higher educational tracks, by exploiting the social, cultural and human capital gained to obtain a marriage partner. Yamamoto demonstrates how mothers’ class position is related to their beliefs and expectations about daughters’ and sons’ educations. The panel discussant is Merry White, a leading scholar of education and youth in Japan. The panel brings together panelists based in Asia and North America, from two disciplines and of three nationalities, to reappraise a topic of widespread interest.

Gender Socialization and Gender Awareness in Japanese Primary Education

Peter Cave, University of Hong Kong

Studies of gender socialization in Japan usually criticize Japanese education for reinforcing gender stereotypes and contributing to the subordination of women in society. However, this study challenges that view. It is based on ethnographic research in the upper grades of primary schools in a small city in the Kinki region of Japan between 1994 and the present. The paper argues that the schools and teachers studied actually made significant efforts to promote gender mixing, treat children equally, and raise awareness of gender issues. While there was considerable evidence of gendered differences in children’s behavior, it is doubtful how much of this could be laid at the door of the teachers or the schools. The paper concludes that Japanese schools, like schools elsewhere, have been too readily blamed for behavioral and categorical differences that have much deeper and wider roots. Changing these differences will require a sustained effort and will take time, since it is difficult for Japanese public education to run too far ahead of opinion in the wider society. Nonetheless, there are encouraging signs that Japanese primary education is helping to promote a society in which gender has a less significant impact on behavior and life chances.

Gendered Meanings of Everyday Practices at a Japanese Junior High School

Dawn Grimes-MacLellan, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

In 1996, the Japanese government announced the "Plan for Gender Equality 2000," an action plan aimed at "helping correct the public understanding of stereotyped gender roles and make gender equality take root in the minds of people." For elementary, and secondary education, the plan called for several "concrete measures" to foster gender equality through enhanced instruction, improved educational materials, teacher training, curricular revisions, and extracurricular activities promoting mutual understanding and cooperation between girls and boys. Today in Japanese schools, many of these objectives have been carried out, with lessons on gender awareness becoming standard parts of the curriculum in many classrooms.

Yet, at the same time, observations of the everyday practices at Japanese schools reveal the prominent role played by schools, whether intentional or not, in producing gendered identities. These tacit gendered meanings often directly challenge the formal curriculum and reflect both the cultural-historical nature of established institutional practices as well as the individual gendered predispositions of teachers. This paper examines everyday practices at a junior high school in Kobe, Japan, illustrating how they are inscribed with gendered meanings that permeate the school environment, and are fundamental to the development of students’ gendered subjectivities.

University Education and Status Attainment for Women in Japan

Mayumi Nakamura, University of Chicago

This paper examines how differences in characteristics of universities and of first occupations may affect Japanese women’s status attainment through marriage. The Japanese educational and occupational system for women is often said to be two-tiered, with a "female-dominated track" and a "gender-neutral track." The female-dominated educational track includes institutions such as all-women’s universities and junior colleges, and departments such as literature. The female-dominated occupational track includes occupations such as non-career assistant clerical positions (OLs), and female-dominated semi-professional occupations. The choices of female-dominated tracks like literature majors and OLs are often claimed to be the major factor hindering women’s long-term occupational attainment, but I argue that such a track has advantages as well—it can benefit women’s status attainment through marriage.

Using survey data on educational and occupational attainments of women in their thirties and their husbands, I tested the hypothesis. The results show that those women who chose certain types of "female-dominated track" in education and occupation actually did seem to benefit from such choices, and were significantly more likely to be married to men of higher educational attainments, even after controlling for women’s own educational attainments. The benefit of such feminine tracks seems to derive partly from their social capital (i.e., meeting channels peculiar to such "feminine tracks") and cultural and human capital (i.e., "feminine" demeanor, knowledge, and skills that such tracks enhance, which can be used to women’s advantage in the marriage market).

Gender and Social Class Differences in Japanese Mothers’ Support for Children’s Schooling

Yoko Yamamoto, University of California, Berkeley

Gender is centrally related to academic achievement and parents’ expectations toward their children’s education in Japan. There has been a great gender gap in four-year college attendance. In addition, there is a wider social class gap in girls’ educational attainment than boys’. Despite such discrepancies, few studies have examined how mothers’ class position, which in part determines their beliefs about women’s roles, is intertwined with daughters’ educational processes at home. How do social class and the gender of children mediate maternal beliefs about learning and the processes of supporting the education of their young children?

This study highlights the interactions between gender and social class in Japanese mothers’ beliefs and practices related to children’s education. The examination is based on qualitative analyses of four successive interviews conducted over a three-year period of sixteen Japanese mothers of young children. The findings demonstrate that social class mediates the value mothers place on education and their expectations toward their daughters’ schooling. Educated mothers tended to expect their children, both sons and daughters, to pursue higher education while less-educated counterparts did not always believe that educating women was important. However, women’s higher education was not necessarily perceived as an investment in future careers even among educated mothers. The study also demonstrates that the influence of social class on one’s parenting can be mediated by the individual’s psychological variations and own school experiences.