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This paper examines the impact of social class and a variety of attitudes regarding society and education on attitudes toward educational expenditures. In Japan, the rapid rise of educational participation rates has been strongly supported by household expenditures. The scale of private funding is very large in comparison with other countries, and not only high income parents, but also low income ones, make expenditures for their children's education. Therefore, the following question arises: what motivates Japanese people to give education to their children? Previous research on economics and the sociology of education has focused on investment and consumption. However, considering that the motives for educational expenditures are complex and are influenced by a variety of characteristics of parents, including attitudes on society and education, this paper investigates attitudes toward educational expense using data from the 2003 National Survey on Work and Daily Life. In order to identify significant patterns in many variables, decision tree analysis is used as a data mining techniques. Following a brief introduction of decision tree analysis, the technique is applied to delineate the key features that distinguish between people who are eager to pay their children's educational expenses and those who are not. First, the data indicate that many people believe that parents should pay for nearly all of their children's educational costs. Second, decision tree analysis reveals that the most important factor influencing the payment of educational expenses is not the benefit of education, but rather the recognition of educational inequality in contemporary Japanese higher education. People who perceive educational opportunities as being equal are more willing to pay for their children, because they believe that there is stiff competition for educational credentials. Third, investment and consumption are important factors for people who believe there is educational inequality. As a result, the motive for making educational expenditures depends on attitudes toward society and education. On the other hand, the group that showed most strongly negative attitude is people who believe that educational opportunities are closed by family income and that their own subjective social status is low, and that education does not play a central role for achieving high income and social status. This finding suggests that at present, educational costs are very heavy, and that if the burden of tuition fee and other educational expenses clearly brings an awareness of educational inequalities according to family income, many people will perceive education as being meaningless for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Japan, disparities in high schools showed an increasing tendency until the end of the 1970s. Since that time, attempts have been made to analyze and reduce these disparities, both in the field of sociology of education and educational reforms. This paper aims to re-examine the challenges in both fields and to elucidate their positive outcomes and limitations, and in addition, to point out a new perspective for future challenges in this area. Academically, the study of disparities began with the application of the concept of "tracking." At the beginning, many types of evils caused by disparities were problematized, and the concept of "tracking" was adopted to document the situation. The concept of "tracking" was compatible with functionalism, which was the main theoretical stream in the sociology of education at that time. The concept of "tracking" was originally used in studies of high schools in the United States to reveal the fact that there were invisible mechanisms for the selection of students in open curriculum systems. However, in Japan, the concept was used to report the fact that there were great differences in the inner processes of schools and subjective aspects of students based on school disparities. In other words, the concept was used to point out the effects of the disparities. As a result, the study of disparities has been developed as the study of "tracking effects." It can be said that studies of the tracking effect could have contributed to investigations of the inner processes of schools and subjective aspects of students. But instead, they took a macro perspective from the studies of school disparities. As a result, disparities were not examined in relation to social structures. Politically, there are two ways to reduce disparities in schools. One is to control the level of achievement of new students in order to prevent the emergence of differences among schools (input control). The other is to control educational activities in the schools to ensure that tracking effects do not take place in each school (through put control). Since the late 1970s, input controls have been carried out through reforms of the entrance examination system of high schools and improvements of the guidance system of junior high schools. However, these controls were too indirect to reduce school disparities. In other words, whether they could reduce the disparities or not depended on their ability to change students' standards for school choice, which were indeed subjective. Through put controls have been carried out as reforms of high schools. High school reforms after the 1980s were generally seen as an attempt to weaken classifications and frames of education. Logically, it seemed that these efforts led to a limitation of tracking effects in each school and to a reduction in school disparities as a whole. However, these attempts were not effective as they lacked a grand design and were done separately for each school. Challenges to the school disparities in both fields mentioned above seems to be homologous. They share the fact that they look at the disparities from a narrow perspective, only in relation to inner processes of each school or the subjective aspect of students. School disparities are social disparities. For example, they involve class differences among the enrolled students, and are related to regional differences. Consequently, in order to reduce school disparities, it is necessary to see them in their social context. The conclusion of this paper, by introducing recent challenges to school disparities, proposes this new perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The measurement of children's academic achievements and the explanation of differences between social classes should not be dismissed by sociologists of education. Although inequality is a major theme of the field, the sociology of education has lacked empirical evidence on the structure of disparities in academic achievements. This is partly due to the difficulties involved in collecting sufficient data on academic achievement through schools. In and after 2002, studies were begun on the relationship between academic achievement and social class in Japan. At the time, schools were being heavily criticized within the context of the debate over falling children's academic achievements. Some significant surveys were administered at that time, though they were small in number. However, they left some important issue to be solved. The first is that analyses of the determinants of academic achievement are inadequate for clarifying what factors will diminish class differences in achievement. The second concerns the reliability and validity of the variables collected. In particular, variables on the economic conditions of households are lacking. Finally, the surveys were conducted only in large cities. This paper examines the factors that affect children's academic achievements, and the extent of the effect of such factors, through an analysis of the data of the Japan Education Longitudinal Study 2003 (JELS2003). JELS2003 was conducted in two areas: one a middle sized city within the capital metropolitan areas, and the other a small local city. It also contains variables about the economic conditions of households. The major findings of the paper are as follows. 1. In the small local city, the differences of academic achievement between social classes were relatively small. 2. In the middle-sized city within the metropolitan area, children's academic achievements were affected by the level of monthly educational expenses, level of educational expectations of the child, and income level of the family. Inequalities in children's academic achievements in our society should be grasped in the context of the substitution of "parentocracy" for meritocracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, there has been a great deal of talk about widening social disparities in Japan. A number of books have been published declaring that Japan is now on the threshold of being transformed into a "society of disparities." This paper discusses some of the methodological difficulties that must be taken into account when considering widening disparities between the haves and have nots, seen from the standpoint of the sociological study of education. Firstly, the recently published works, with their declaration that social disparities are widening, are making an assertion about an uncertain future. The same point can be made about studies that examine the actual state of the social disparities on the basis of empirical data. This means, in other words, that any discussion of the effects of various current phenomena characterizing education on future social disparities always contain an element of uncertainty. Secondly, the extent to which social disparities are likely to grow in the future will be significantly affected by our current and future political choices. In determining, for example, the extent to which the ongoing process of globalization will transform economic and educational systems, it is utterly useless to make guesses based on simple forecasts. Rather, considering the combined effects of people's political choices and the social influence of experts at present and in the future, it is extremely difficult to predict the direction of change. Considering the foregoing factors, it is far from easy to carry out studies on how to reform the existing educational system and help alleviate the problems of inequalities that now beset the system, in ways that are acceptable to everybody. This paper calls attention to two crucial points. First, researchers studying the relationship between social inequality and education cannot remain indifferent to the question of political choices or choices among competing values. In other words, they must endeavor to analyze the issues of inequalities in education and formulate, on the basis of their analyses, concrete political visions or political programs. Another important point is that once the social disparities and their extent have been identified through academic investigations, it is necessary to call upon citizens, who have the competence to make political decisions, to decide whether they find the gaps acceptable or not. In order to make this possible, it is essential for school education to perform the function of helping children to develop the ability to make political decisions. And the question of what should be done to reinforce this function of school education needs to be studied in a sincere manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]