【特集・大学に通うとは】Column: More equity, less prestige - Comparing Japanese higher education with Anglosphere
In the UK where some of the world’s oldest universities were established, higher education was labelled as ‘shops for selling class limitations’, an elitist institution exploited by those in power to reproduce their class privileges.
Analysing the current state of higher education in Anglo-Saxon countries, one could draw interesting comparisons with the challenges faced in past societies. 200 years ago, conflicts between wage workers and capital arised as a result of rapid division of labour that was not accompanied by the development of appropriate moral regulations. Contract forming was often coercive in nature, as parties were not equipped with equal negotiating power due to differences in resources at their disposal. These conflicts, as Karl Marx famously put it, ‘can only be obviated only if the division of labour is coordinated with the distribution of talents and capacities, without the higher occupational positions being dominated by a privileged class.’
In a similar fashion, access to higher education in the Anglo-Saxon world is highly unequal. Characterised by high tuition fees that severely limit financing options and a skewed emphasis towards co-curriculars, they punish class differences relentlessly. While middle class parents can pass on cultural and material advantages that privilege their children to succeed within such education systems, working class families are unable to reproduce these privileges in their children given their disadvantaged habitus and capital. One can see western societies’ ongoing attempts at addressing such inequalities when accessing higher education through expansion of higher education on a national level. However, with flawed redistribution policies that continue to fail dismantling capital that goes with class statuses, accessing higher education remains a riskier, and unequal choice which resembles more of a gamble for the working class compared to their middle class counterparts. The expansion of higher education is also questionable in the sense that if it would actually help achieve social inclusion, since it is difficult to determine targets of widening participation efforts without excessive profiling.
On the other hand, Japan represents an interesting counter argument to the seemingly inequitable nature of higher education in the Anglo-Saxon world. Japan has seen a shift from a pre-war, European styled elitist system to a post-war system prizing equality. Albeit with a relatively small education budget, Japan has managed to achieve a ‘schooled society’ with high participation in higher education across classes. Interestingly, it was not solely the result of governmental effort, but rather an interesting combination of socio-environmental factors - the labour market is oriented to ‘educational credentialism’, labour demand of secondary education graduates is gradually replaced by that of college graduates, and tuition fees, while not cheap, remained within reach for parents who largely agree supporting children’s higher education is a personal responsibility. Furthermore, entry into higher education is largely based on academic merit that do not overly accentuate class privileges. While there are shortcuts to higher education for the privileged, the outcomes of higher education do not see much disparity based on class differences.
The current model of higher education in Japan might be a sociologist’s dream from an equity standpoint, but one certainly has his concerns on whether the true purpose of higher education has diminished under such. The slide in research capacity and global rankings of the top universities, within an ever so superfluous number of higher education institutions in the country, rings a bell on whether higher education still retains its role in generating prestige over compulsory lower education options, and answers to the nation’s search for academic excellence, and in turn, comparative advantage that leads to betterment in standards of living.
While the Anglo-Saxon world remains fixated on the issue of self-reproducing class privileges in an elitist higher education system, Japan on the other hand, focuses on the completely different issue of diminishing prestige in the system. Prestigious US and UK universities serve as clear-cut ‘class filters’ at both points of matriculation and graduation. While they wreak havoc on the already delicate social fabric, they spur struggles which become drivers of growth. Top Japanese universities do not erect similar barriers of entry and do not grant disproportionate privileges to graduates that translate into amplified class divides. The relative absence of Japanese high institutions in propagation of class limitations preserves integrity of its society, but its lukewarm environment leaves much to be desired when it comes to driving innovation and growth.
Outlining Japanese higher education’s differences with the Anglosphere models, it can be said that the Japanese model is a more equitable, and less exclusive (or prestigious) one. Furthermore, looking back at how Japan’s higher education has evolved, it is notable in its spontaneity - the Japanese higher education system is a polished, complex end result upon the gradual influence of its unique socio-economic environment.
(Steven LIU)