Schooling has thus contributed to the social order and has legitimated attempts at social control within adult society by preparing students to base their primary social identity on group membership and to respect vertical relations of authority. But as Japan tries to rebound from a period of slowed economic growth, many places, and especially schools at the bottom of the finely stratified secondary school ladder, are showing signs of stress as the consensus supporting collective social identity and hierarchy is increasingly more difficult to secure and maintain. This research attempts to outline how the expectations and strategies of students at two Tokyo metropolitan high schools are shaped by the new permutations of the logic underlying the cultural structure. This logic presents particular occupational futures to the students at these working-class schools. All complex societies are characterized to a varying extent by the unequal distribution of material and non-material social resources.
Japan is no exception.
But social class inequality is treated in a rather peculiar way within Japanese academic circles. As a result, class analysis is often ignored or denied by social scientists of all persuasions in Japan. However, ironically, issues driving class analysis are increasingly becoming evident as the Japanese economy struggles with extended recession. The aim of this paper is to outline patterns of social inequality in contemporary Japanese society, especially those associated with educational attainment, that demand engagement with the notion of class. I use statistical data to trace social class differences in participation and performance in the educational system, with particular attention to the recruitment of graduates into the most privileged occupational strata.