日本版総合的社会調査共同研究拠点 研究論文集[11] JGSS Research Series No.8

Japanese People’s Valuation of English Skills:
Sociometric Analysis of JGSS-2010
Takunori TERASAWA
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
The University of Tokyo「日本人」の英語力に対する価値付け JGSS-2010 を用いた計量社会学的分析
寺沢 拓敬
東京大学大学院総合文化研究科博士課程This study examines characteristics of Japanese valuations of English skills by statisticallyanalyzing the dataset of the JGSS-2010. In particular, the present paper focuses on an oft-claimed
view of the Japanese that they have high aspirations toward English skills. According to thedescriptive statistics, the majority of Japanese people do not put a high valuation on English skills,
suggesting that the view above is an over-generalization. In addition, this analysis also reveals that awide recognition gap is originated from a variety of social and occupational factors such as
generations, years of schooling, stratifications, and a type of job. Furthermore, this study investigates
the determinants of non-English-users’ valuation of English skills based on a series of logistic
regression models. The result shows that the strata factor has a different effect between male andfemale workers; its effect is evident only in the female valuation of English skills for hobbies or
personal relationships. Based on these findings, this paper discusses the possibility of a gender
structure in attitudes toward English skills.
Key Words: JGSS, Japanese valuation of English skills, recognition gaps by social strata
本研究の目的は、「日本人」の英語力志向を JGSS-2010 の計量分析により明らかにすることである。特に、《その低い通用度にもかかわらず英語熱は大きい》としばしば評される日本像を検討の俎上に乗せる。記述統計では、過半数の「日本人」は英語力の有用性を認識しておらず、したがって上記の日本像は過度に一般化されたものであることが明らかになった。
また、有用性認識には社会グループ間で大きな差があることも示された。また、ロジスティ
ック回帰分析により、「非・英語使用者」の英語有用性認識の規定要因を検討した結果、社会階層の影響の仕方にジェンダー差が見られることが明らかとなった。すなわち、趣味等での有用性認識への効果は女性のみに見られたが、男性には確認できなかった。また、仕事での有用性認識への効果は男女いずれにも見られなかった。この結果に基づき、英語力への態度にジェンダーによって異なる構造が見られる可能性について議論した。
キーワード：JGSS，「日本人」の英語力志向，認知の階層差

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1. Introduction
Japan is sometimes viewed as a society enthusiastically oriented to English language and its skills.
For instance, this point of view is held by Phillip Seargeant’s The Idea of English in Japan, which
thoroughly examines how English language has been conceptualized as a symbol of a high status byJapanese people. In the work, Seargeant states:
One of the most frequently voiced opinions about English in Japan is that the high profile of, andimmense interest in, the language is not matched by an equally high level of communicative
proficiency among the population. (Seargeant 2009:3)
According to Seargeant, this inconsistency between great enthusiasm and low skills has received
much attention from the professional and research community of English language education, and has
affected policy reform. Such a view also seems to be held by some Japanese researchers. Tsuda (1990),
for example, claims that the Japanese society is characterized as people’s high aspirations toward
English, and criticizes it in that it results from fanatic adoration of the West and disrespect of Japanesevalues and has caused irrational policies and practices of English education.
This view, however, seems to extremely overgeneralize Japanese attitudes since it is probably
1992
Language Learning
impractical to assume that so many Japanese people
1999
2005
wish to obtain English skills. Indeed, any social survey
in recent years implies that the majority of Japanese
Cultural activities(Art or music etc.)
people are not so interested in English language. For
instance, according to “Public Opinion Poll about
Lifelong Learning” conducted by Cabinet Office of theSports or
Health activities
Government of Japan in 1992, 1999, and 2005
(samples = males and females aged 15 and older), only
0 20 40 60 80 100
a tiny minority (under 10%) hope to learn foreign
languages. Furthermore, this figure is much lower thanSamples who want to do (%)
the other social and cultural activities such as art,
Figure 1 Motivation to foreign language
music, sports, or health activities.
learning (Source: “Public Opinion Poll about
The question, then, is how many people are
Lifelong Learning,” each year)
oriented toward gaining English skills and how many
people are not. The answer of this question, however, has not been sufficiently provided by theprevious works which have dealt with Japanese attitudes toward, or belief in, English (e.g. Sakui &Gaies 1999; Yashima 2002; Erikawa 2008; Seargeant 2009) because they mainly conduct case studies
or analyze symbolic examples about Japanese valuation of English, making it uncertain whether theirconclusions give a general picture of the Japanese society.
Therefore, it is important to empirically examine this issue by analyzing data which properly
represents Japanese people and society.
Based on the discussion above, this study specifically examines the following questions:
1) How many people in Japan put a high valuation on their acquisition of English skills?
2) What kind of Japanese people tend to do so?

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The second question, because of its exploratory nature, requires appropriate reference to previous
work which has empirically examined Japanese behavior toward the English language (e.g. Sugita
2004; Koiso 2009, 2010; Terasawa 2011). Therefore, the present paper is based on the analytic
framework of these studies, i.e. analysis from a point of view of generation, gender, education level,social stratum, work status, and residential area.
The structure of the present paper is as follows: Section 2 explains the data used; Section 3
describes the distribution of Japanese people who set a high valuation on English skills. Section 4
examines its determinants and discusses the results.

2. DataThis study examines the questions above by analyzing the dataset of the Japanese General Social
Survey conducted in early 2010 (hereafter, “JGSS-2010”). The JGSS-2010 is a 2010 version of aseries, one of the largest-scale social surveys in Japan, aiming at exploring the behaviors and thoughtsof Japanese people. Its sample is extracted from adult men and women (from 20 to 89 years old) living
in Japan based on a method of two-stage stratified random sampling (its sample size is 9,000 and avalid response rate is 62.16%). JGSS-2010 is composed of two datasets, Form A and Form B, and thepresent paper uses the former, which includes questionnaire items about the English language. Its
number of valid samples is 2,507.
The following two questions in the dataset are supposed to represent the people’s valuation ofEnglish skills, i.e. a dependent variable of a central interest in this study:
 To what extent do you think improvement in English proficiency is of advantage to your job?
 To what extent do you think improvement in English proficiency is of advantage to your hobby
or personal relationships?
Table 1

Valuation of English skills

To jobNever
HardlyA little
To some extent
To a great extent
Total
Currently I don’t have a job
NA

To hobby or personal relationships
n
435
482
348
190
113
1,568
936
3

%
27.7
30.7
22.2
12.1
7.2
100.0

Never
HardlyA little
To some extent
To a great extent
Total
NA

n
751
746
536
291
165
2,489
18

%
30.2
30.0
21.5
11.7
6.6
100.0

The first question is concerned with a valuation of English skills related to the job, and the second
one related to non-business activities. Each question is answered in a five point scale from “Never” to“To a great extent” (see Table 1). The samples who chose the latter three choices can be regarded as
people who put a relatively high valuation on English skills because they showed a more or less apositive attitude toward its usefulness, while the sample who chose the former two choices are
considered to be people who do not. Thus, this study from now on analyzes these binary variables (i.e.
1 or 0) of the valuation of English skills.

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3. Valuation on English skills in Japanese society
As illustrated in Table 1, it is not the majority of Japanese who recognize the usefulness ofEnglish skills. People who put importance on their improvement of English skills for their job are
41.5 % of all workers, and the counterparts for hobby or personal relationships are 39.8 % of Japanese.
Although it is difficult to conclude whether these estimations (about 40%) are too low or not, it is safe
to say at least that these figures prove that the common view presented in Section 1 that Japanese put ahigh valuation on English is too monolithic.
The misrepresentation of the monolithic view becomes more obvious if the percentage by
generations is estimated. Table 2 estimates the percentage of each age group and its generational effectby Goodman and Kruskal’s gamma(1). Table 2 clearly shows that older people (especially, over 60s)
are less likely to recognize the importance of English skills for their job, hobby, or personal
relationships (men’s recognition for job is an exception). What should be noted here is that evenyounger generations show about 55% at most; therefore it is hard to conclude that the vast majority ofyoung Japanese put a high valuation on English skills.
Table 2People who put a relatively high valuation on English skills by generation
To one's hobby or personal
relationships

To one's job

Age: 20-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-69
70-89

Male
n
%
70
45.7
170
39.4
176
54.5
194
52.1
139
33.1
41
48.8
γ = -.02

Female
n
%
90
46.7
149
54.4
208
36.5
154
42.2
103
24.3
11
0.0
γ = -.24

Male
n
%
103
55.3
181
48.6
193
53.4
211
42.7
259
33.6
194
30.4
γ = -.24

Female
n
%
134
50.7
219
54.8
273
46.5
240
38.3
270
26.3
212
14.2
γ = -.39

γ: Goodman and Kruskal's gamma

Such an uneven distribution of the valuation is also evident in education. Table 3 reveals thatpeople who experienced higher education are more likely to recognize usefulness of English language.
However, again, it is difficult to regard even highly-educated people as generally oriented to English
language since their percentages are no more than about 50%. Furthermore, factors of stratification
seem to influence the valuation on English skills, too. Table 3 also shows the rate of people who
recognize the usefulness of English skills for each stratum identification(2). As the results indicate,people who consider themselves to be at a higher stratum are more likely to set a relatively highvaluation. Regional factors, in contrast, do not have much stronger effects on valuations than thevariables discussed above. In Table 3, which also shows the percentages by residential area(3), allgamma coefficients are rather weak (.04 ~ .16), suggesting only a small correlation between the city
size and the percentage.

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Table 3People who put a relatively high valuation on English skills by education, strata, and residence
To one's hobby or personal
relationships

To one's job

Educational background
Compulsory education
Secondary education
Higher education
Stratum identification
Lower / Lower middle
MiddleUpper middle / Upper
Residential area
Towns and villages (in 2000)
Other cities (in 2000)
13 large cities (in 2000)

Male
n
%
64
32.8
39.0 374
55.5 348
γ = .31

Female
n
%
53
11.3
344
36.0
315
49.8
γ = .37

Male
n
%
150
21.3
528
38.3
457
54.3
γ = .39

Female
n
%
190
12.6
670
31.8
484
55.6
γ = .53

38.4 365
326
49.7
96
60.4
γ = .26

327
36.4
313
40.3
71
57.7
γ = .18

548
39.1
462
44.4
127
48.8
γ = .12

608
31.6
589
39.6
137
56.9
γ = .2544.7 197
43.3 448
55.2 145
γ = .10

186
34.9
377
40.3
152
47.4
γ = .15

279
40.9
652
42.3
210
44.8
γ = .04

351
31.9
735
37.8
262
45.0
γ = .16γ : Goodman and Kruskal's gamma

Table 4 shows the percentages of each work status and Cramer’s V which indicates the degree of
non-ordinal association between work status and valuation. The result shows remarkably highpercentages among students and low percentages among, for example, temporary workers.
Table 4People who put a relatively high valuation on English skills by work status
To one's hobby or personal
relationships

To one's job
Male%
WORKER
Regular employee
Executive of company
Self-employed/family worker
Temporary worker
NON-WORKER
Student
Mainly engaged in housework
Retired
Others

47.4
47.7
38.3
47.0

Female
n
%

n

519
65
128
66

51.3
41.2
33.3
33.7

V = .07

V = .17

Male
%
269
17
78
323

47.3
44.8
39.0
38.0

Female
n
%

n

526
67
136
79

72.2
18
62.5
8
30.6
206
43.9
66
V = .15

55.4
66.7
44.2
33.7

271
18
95
338

75.0
16
28.4
458
44.4
27
30.4
46
V = .24

V : Cramer's V

Finally, Table 5 shows the results of job-related variables such as types of job, industries, size ofcompany, and annual income. Note that the number of each denominator (i.e. n) is based on jobholders.
Judging from the size of coefficients indicating the degree of association (V or γ), the types of job andannual income seems to have relatively strong association with the valuation of English skills. With
regard to the type of job, in particular, professional workers are more likely to put a relatively highvaluation on English skills, whereas blue-collar workers (i.e. agricultural, skilled, semi-skilled, andunskilled workers) are less likely. Highly paid workers also tend to recognize the usefulness of English
skills to their jobs, which suggests that the jobs whose workers are requiring English skills are more
likely to be well-paid.

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Table 5Workers who put a relatively high valuation on English skills by job-related variables
To one's hobby or personal
relationships

To one's job

Type of job
Agricultural
SkilledSemi-skilled
Unskilled
ClericalManagerial
Professional
Sales
Industry
Construction
Financial institutions, insurance
Restaurants
Agriculture, forestry, fishery & mining
Transportation
Wholesale trade
Real estate
Other services
Electricity, gas, steam supply, water works
Legal and accounting services
Manufacturing
Retail trade
Medical and welfare services
Information and communication services
Public administration
Educational and research services
Broadcasting, publishing, & advertising
Size of company
1 ~ 9 employees
10 ~ 99
100 ~ 999
1000 or more
Government agency
Annual income
Below 1.00 million yen
1.00 ~ 2.49
2.50 ~ 5.50
5.50 ~ 9.99
10.00 or more
V : Cramer's V ,

Male
n
%
33
36.4
33.0 194
91
35.2
36
5.6
54.2 16840
52.5
69.9 11350.9 110
V = .31

Female
n
%
12
8.3
64
18.8
59
11.9
71
18.3
45.9 2464
25.0
60.4 13448.4 122
V = .34

Male
n
%
38
36.8
40.6 202
95
33.7
40
15.0
46.9 17540
57.5
63.7 11348.7 113
V = .23

Female
n
%
16
25.0
69
34.8
63
31.7
74
28.4
50.2 2534
75.0
51.8 137
44.3 131
V = .18

19.8 106
19
31.6
15
33.3
33
36.4
46
37.0
27
37.0
10
40.0
98
48.0
8
50.0
2
50.0
50.3 189
71
50.7
44
52.3
38
60.5
44
61.4
27
74.1
8
87.5
V = .28

20
30.0
36
47.2
48
47.9
13
7.7
18
16.7
22
36.4
4
50.0
36.9 103
1
0.0
2
50.0
90
31.1
38.9 126
42.3 142
21
71.4
17
41.2
45
62.2
4
25.0
V = .2235.1 111
19
47.4
16
43.8
38
36.8
47
23.4
28
42.9
12
50.0
45.1 102
9
44.4
2
0.0
48.5 196
73
49.3
44
47.7
38
47.4
44
56.8
29
65.5
8
62.5
V = .18

21
52.4
36
47.2
55
38.2
17
23.5
18
33.3
22
54.5
4
75.0
47.7 111
1
0.0
2
50.0
93
39.8
43.0 135
41.3 143
21
47.6
17
47.1
47
55.3
4
50.0
V = .1340.1 202
39.0 210
49.7 165
54.4 12566
60.6
V = .15

34.4 151
38.3 20942.9 126
89
49.4
69
50.7
V = .1242.3 213
41.2 22144.0 16853.6 12569
55.1
V = .1042.0 174
45.8 216
40.9 127
90
54.4
70
47.1
V = .09

41
41.5
86
33.7
39.6 298
60.0 175
2975.9
γ = .33

30.0
36.0
59.3
57.1

220

49
24.5
95
35.8
44.0 30753.1 175
2962.1
γ = .27

33.6
42.5
60.7
50.0

200
145
21
0

γ = .36

241
207
145
22
0

γ = .31

γ : Goodman and Kruskal's gamma

This section has revealed some social and occupational groups who tend to recognize theusefulness of English skills. It should be noted, however, that it is still uncertain whether thesevariables determine the valuation directly since the associations revealed above might be spurious.
Therefore, they need to be examined in further detail. The next section investigates this issue.

4. Determinants of a valuation on English skills
This study so far has revealed a gap in the valuation of English skills among people with different
social backgrounds. The question then is what kind of factors differentiate it. One plausible answer isthat the use of English causes a high valuation on English skills. It is quite natural to assume that themore frequently people use English, the more likely they recognize its importance. Indeed, as shown52

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in the following analysis, valuation of English skills is strongly associated with the use of English.
4.1. Use of English and its valuation
JGSS-2010 asked respondents whether they used English for the following purposes (“Have you
ever read, listened, or spoken English for the following activities for the past 12 months? Choose allthat apply”). As indicated by Table 6 (in which each percentage shows the rate of samples who
answered that they used English, and each gamma coefficient denotes the degree of association withthe recognition of the usefulness of English skills), the actual use of English is strongly associatedwith the perceived usefulness of English skills.
Table 6

Use of English% of users(n = 2502)

Association with perceived usefulness(Goodman and Kruskal's γ)
Job

Hobby etc.

Business

11.0

.81

.62

(Non-business purposes, total)
Socializing with foreign friends or acquaintances
Watching movies, listening to music or reading a book
The Internet
Overseas trips
Others

35.0
6.1
23.1
10.0
7.8
3.8

.39
.56
.29
.56
.28
.15

.62
.74
.58
.64
.55
.40

Not at all

60.8

-.55

-.65

What should be noted here is that, as well as the valuation of English skills, the use of English isalso strongly influenced by social factors. According to Koiso (2009), the use of English for bothbusiness and non-business purposes is determined by a variety of job-related factors (e.g. type of job)and social backgrounds (e.g. education and gender). Based on these findings, it is necessary to control
the use of English in order to examine the determinants of the valuation of English skills in detail,otherwise, it is hard to distinguish a direct effect (i.e. a specific type of people, other things being
equal, tends to recognize the usefulness of English skills) from an indirect effect (i.e. a specific type of
people tends to use English, resulting in a gap of the valuation).
For this reason, the present paper will now focus on non-users of English. This focus is importantin that it is well fitted to the idea this study examines. As discussed in Section 1, Japan is recognized asa curious society in which the English language obtains much popularity but little currency; in otherwords, what receives much attention from researchers is not rational or natural aspirations toward
English (such as a high valuation of English by a worker whose office requires him or her to use
English for international transactions, for example), but rather a seemingly-irrational enthusiasm for
the English language. Indeed, as exemplified by the quite bitter terms with which some researchers(e.g. Tsuda 1990; Yakushiin 2005) have used to describe Japanese aspirations toward English such as“delusion” (môsô), “syndrome” (eigo byô), or even “a fool” (eigo baka), the Japanese valuation ofEnglish is understood as an unnatural desire which is no longer based on the necessity to use or learn
English. Therefore, it is likely that people create the idea that Japanese are highly oriented to acquiring
English based on the non-user’s behavior rather than the user’s one(4). Thus, the following analysis
examines the determinants of the non-users’ valuation of English skills based on a series oflogistic-regression models, which predicts whether a sample recognizes the usefulness of English
skills or not from some predictors such as age and education.

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4.2. Analytic models and variables
This model, in particular, aims at testing the influence of gender, strata, and residential area
(specifically, urban vs. rural). These factors often receive much attention from previous work on thephenomena of English language in Japan. In the previous works, one of the most important topics isthe close connection between gender and English learning (e.g. Kelsky 2001; Bailey 2006; Seargeant2009: Chapter 7). Bailey remarks:
In the modern Japanese social context the meaning of English-language learning is strongly
gendered. For men, where it is necessary, it functions as a communication tool, whereas for
women it opens a gateway to … atarashii jibun or transformed selfhood (2006:109)
However, this attitude of women is probably not a universal phenomenon, evident in a variety ofJapanese women, but relevant to a specific group of women. For example, Kelsky (2001) focuses on“highly-educated, urban, mostly single career women between the ages of twenty and forty-five(Kelsky 2001:5),” and, thanks to this focus, she successfully demonstrates the mechanism of theirlonging (akogare) toward the West, white men, and the English language. Based on this discussion, it
is presupposed that urban residence(5) has a greater impact on women’s valuation of English skills thanmen’s valuation.
Social strata may also have a different effect on the valuation on English between men andwomen. Kataoka’s (2003) sociometric analysis of Japanese behavior concerning hobbies and culturalactivities, although she makes no mention on behaviors related to English language, reveals thatwomen at a high stratum are more likely to be oriented to cultural activities considered to beprestigious, whereas men do not show such a difference. Therefore, if use of English is also viewed asa prestigious activity, the valuation of English would also show gendered effects of social strata. Basedon the discussion so far, the present paper sets the model which examines a gender-gap of effects ofresidential and stratification factors. More particularly, the model includes the variables in Table 7.
Table 7
Dependent variable
High valuation on English

Variables

Recognize usefulness of English skills for business purpose or not
Recognize usefulness of English skills for hobby or personal relationships or not

Independent variables
Residential area
Social strata

13 large cities, other cities, or town and villages; see Table 3
Stratum identification: Lower = 1, Lower middle = 2, Middle = 3, Upper middle = 4, and Upper

Control variables
Generation
Education
Type of job
IncomeEmployment status

Age
Years of schoolinga)Blue collar, clerical, professional/managerial , or sales job; see Table 5
Median of each choice of annual income (million yen); see Table 5
4 categories in Table 4a)Professional and managerial workers are integrated because the number of female managerial workers is very small (n = 4).

What should be noted here is that the following analysis concentrates only on jobholders (i.e.
excludes non-workers). This treatment is necessary because it enables comparison of the effects on
valuations of two types of English skills (i.e. ones for job and ones for hobby or personal
relationships) of the identical samples. If workers/non-workers are not distinguished, each analysis
must be based on different samples, making it impossible to examine the difference between theeffects on the two types of valuations(6).

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4.3. Results and discussion
The results of logistic regression analysis are in Table 8. One of the most remarkable points isthat the valuation of English skills for the job is more greatly determined by job-related variables, suchas a type of job, than the valuation of English skills for their hobby or personal relationships, whereas
the latter valuation is more largely influenced by years of schooling than the former. However, sincean educational background is closely connected with the valuation on job-related English skills as
Table 3 indicates, this result should be understood as an indirect influence of education on thevaluation of English for job via the job-related variables.
Table 8Determinants of aspiration to English (only workers)
To jobMalebLive inTowns and villages (Ref.)
Other cities
13 large cities
Stratum identification
Age
Years of schoolingType of job
Blue collar (Reference)
ClericalManagerial/professional
Sales
Employment status
Regular employee (Ref.)
Executive of company
Self-employed / family worker
Temporary employee
Annual income (million yen)
English speaking skills(Intercept)-2LL
Negelkerke Rn2(s.e. )a)FemaleTo hobby or personal relationships
Male
Femalebb(s.e. )

(s.e. )bb)(s.e. )

-0.36 (0.22)
0.04 (0.30)
0.08 (0.12)-0.01 (0.01)-0.06 (0.05)-0.10 (0.24)
0.37 (0.30)
0.09 (0.13)-0.01 (0.01)
0.09 (0.06)-0.21 (0.24)-0.63 (0.34) †-0.04 (0.14)
0.00 (0.01)
0.11 (0.06) *0.03 (0.29)
0.41 (0.37)
0.35 (0.17) *0.00 (0.01)
0.21 (0.08) *0.69 (0.26) **1.05 (0.29) ***0.37 (0.30)

1.26 (0.30) ***1.58 (0.36) ***1.37 (0.33) ***0.34 (0.29)
1.04 (0.33) **0.39 (0.33)-0.25 (0.34)-0.42 (0.43)
0.20 (0.37)-0.03 (0.37)
0.05 (0.30)
0.33 (0.35)
0.19 (0.11) †0.37 (0.14) **-2.48 (1.48) †0.25 (0.77)-0.50 (0.42)-0.27 (0.26)
0.07 (0.14)
0.05 (0.15)-3.39 (1.90) †-0.22 (0.41)
0.03 (0.33)-0.09 (0.39)
0.08 (0.11)
0.12 (0.16)-3.18 (1.59) *1.05 (1.02)-0.26 (0.48)-0.75 (0.33) *0.29 (0.17) †0.01 (0.21)-7.43 (2.47) **38.68 ***
0.10
535

67.95 ***
0.17
513

29.39 **
0.09
440

37.45 ***
0.14
360

Estimation of log odds ratio; *** p < .001 , ** p < .01 , * p < .05 , † p < .1a)Only respondents who answered they did not use English for businessb)

Only respondents who answerred they did not use English for non-job purposes

On the other hand, the result about the residential area is contrary to the prediction; that is, it does
not show a statistically significant effect in any model. This effect, although it is evident in the
cross-table (Table 3), is likely to be absorbed by other variables such as the years of schooling andtypes of job. Indeed, there are educational and occupational gaps among these areas: percentages ofsamples with a higher educational background in 13 large cities, other cities, and towns and villages
are 51.7%, 37.9%, and 27.2% respectively, and percentages of white collar workers are 69.2%, 62.8%,
and 54.1% respectively. Therefore, an aspiration gap between rural and urban area, which someprevious studies (e.g. Hogan 2003) also imply, can be largely explained by other social gaps.
In contrast to the regional factor, the stratum identification does show an interesting effect on the55

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valuation of English skills. For the job-related valuation, neither male nor female workers have astatistically significant effect, whereas, for the valuation on English for hobby etc., a significant effectis recognized in females. This result seems to be consistent with Kataoka’s (2003) finding discussed
above that women’s orientation to prestigious hobbies is determined by strata but men’s orientation isnot. If, as many researchers (e.g. Seargeant 2009) have pointed out, use or learning of English fornon-business purposes is regarded as a prestigious activity in the Japanese society, it is plausible thatthe effect of strata on the valuation of English skills for hobby etc. also shows a gender difference.

5. Conclusion
This study has revealed some characteristics of Japanese valuation of English skills. The
important findings include (1) the majority of Japanese people do not put a relatively high valuation on
English skills; (2) there is a wide gap in the valuation among people with different social backgrounds;(3) the gap in the valuation between urban and non-urban areas can be largely explained by othersocial gaps (e.g. uneven distribution of highly-educated people or white-collar workers) between theareas; (4) a significant effect of stratification is evident only in women’s valuation for hobby orpersonal relationships. The first and second findings have successfully demonstrated that it is afallacious and too-monolithic view that many Japanese put a high valuation on English. The fourth, on
the other hand, implies the possibility that, since English skills for non-business purposes are deemedas prestigious, women at a higher stratum are more likely to be oriented to it than women at a lower
stratum (although it should be noted, again, that this may be relevant only to workers who do not use
English). These implications (especially the fourth one), of course, are still largely based on
hypothetical ideas, therefore, further empirical investigation is required.
[Acknowledgment]
The Japanese General Social Surveys (JGSS) are designed and carried out by the JGSS ResearchCenter at Osaka University of Commerce (Joint Usage / Research Center for Japanese General Social
Surveys accredited by Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology), in
collaboration with the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo.
[Notes](1) Goodman and Kruskal’s gamma, one of the rank correlation coefficients, shows the degree of ordinal-association of twoorder-scale variables, and ranges from –1.00 to 1.00 and 0.00 indicates no such correlation.
(2) The wording of the questionnaire is “If we were to divide the contemporary Japanese society into the following five strata,
which would you say you belong to?”(3) The three choices, “Towns and villages,” “Other cities,” and “13 large cities,” are based on a city size of the year of 2000.
In the first decade of 21st century, many cities, towns, and villages in Japan experienced a large-scale merger (called“the Great Merger of the Heisei Era”), in which many towns and villages (and even small cities) were absorbed intolarge cities. Due to this, a municipality label (especially “13 large cities” and “other cities”) in 2010 probably fails torepresent the degree of urbanization of the residential area in which respondents live.
(4) Although it might be not necessary to exclude the users of English if the use of English is controlled, this treatment
necessarily assumes that both English users and non-users show the same effects of each independent variable on thevaluation, therefore, it is not more robust than to focus on only the non-users. However, the author has recognized thesame results as in section 4.3. if it is analyzed in that way.
(5) Hogan (2003) also points out the possibility that a residential factor, more specifically urban vs. rural dichotomy,
differentiates Japanese attitudes toward English language.

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(6) In the preliminary analysis, the author has recognized that neither male nor female non-workers show any statisticallysignificant effect (and even its implication) of residential area and strata.

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