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Shadow Education and Social Inequalities in Japan pp 155–184Cite as

Effects of Shadow Education

Achieving Educational Goals: Who Benefits from Investments in Shadow Education?

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Abstract

This chapter analyzes the Effects dimension outlined in the Shadow-Education-Inequality-Impact (SEII) Frame, specifically addressing the question whether shadow education inherits the power to enhance all students’ chances to achieve a high education level independent of socioeconomic origin. Apparently, a comparatively high percentage of academically resilient students is found in Japan, meaning students showing top performance despite disadvantaged socioeconomic background. Unfortunately, whether these students have the chance to benefit from shadow education and thus become academically resilient, thus achieving a high education level, has not been empirically researched yet. Focusing on students’ shadow education investment returns as expressed in students’ likelihood to enter prestigious high schools or universities and by extending Shadow Education Investment Theory, my calculations based on data of the 2011 Hyōgo High School Students (HHSS) survey show the following main findings:

  1. (1)

    Whether investments in shadow education increase students’ chances of gaining entrance to high-ranked schools depends largely on the duration, the used type, and the purpose of study and varies considerably across social strata.

  2. (2)

    Whereas long-term investments in juku-classes focusing on transition/entrance exams prove most effective for entrance to prestigious schools, disadvantaged strata also gain significant advantages from short-term investments in shadow education.

  3. (3)

    Even though well-off families have the advantage of making more use of all lessons, disadvantaged students gain generally higher benefits from their investments in transition-oriented classes. These findings imply that social inequalities in Japan are only significantly reduced if more disadvantaged students join the competition and make goal-oriented and purposeful investments.

“Yon-tō, go-raku –Four (hours of sleep and you)pass, five (hours and you) fail”(Popular saying among students whoprepare for high school or universityentrance exams)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Long-term investments are understood as investments at more than one school level, e.g., in high, middle, and primary school or middle and primary school. Short-term investments are understood as temporally limited investments in response to certain learning problems or needs (for exam preparation and so forth), e.g., only in high school or middle school or primary school.

  2. 2.

    This classification was done using logit coefficients of the use of shadow education participation as a function of students’ mathematics scores while controlling for several influential variables such as students’ socioeconomic background, language, sex, community, remedial teaching, and the interaction term between socioeconomic status and mathematics performance. The shadow education systems of each country were categorized as enrichment in nature, if the logit coefficient showed a positive significant effect; as remedial, if the coefficient showed a negative significant effect; and as mixed, if the found effect was insignificant (Baker et al. 2001).

  3. 3.

    For general critique on using ILSA data such as TIMSS and PISA for analyses concerned with shadow education and its effects, see Bray and Kobakhidze (2014).

  4. 4.

    Since only a very small proportion of students who will enter the labor market following high school graduation actually participated in shadow education during their high school years and if, followed a hoshū study purpose, my analysis will omit such students and focus on those who continue their educational career in the tertiary education sector, I will concentrate on whether students enter top universities and thus achieve a competitive advantage or not.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department for Education, Social Science Educational Research, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    Steve R. Entrich

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Entrich, S.R. (2018). Effects of Shadow Education. In: Shadow Education and Social Inequalities in Japan. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69119-0_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69119-0_6

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