Playing Education Markets: Small Juku Operators, Ideology, and Resistance

Politicians, pundits and juku operators sing the praises of supplementary education that is structured by market mechanisms. Students attend academic juku voluntarily, have plenty of options and information in selecting a juku, and the juku themselves are for-profit enterprises. In explaining the existence of the large supplementary education system, juku operators point to market pressures as forcing them (unlike convention, public and private schools) to meet the needs of students. Yet, owner-operators of small juku resist incursions of market mechanisms into their practice in several ways. The presentation is based on elements from on-going fieldwork in more than 30 gakushu juku in Kanto, Kansai, Hiroshima, and Shimane Prefecture.

Bio:
Julian Dierkes is an assistant professor and the Keidanren Chair in Japanese Research at the Institute of Asian Research of the University of British Columbia (UBC) where he teaches Asia Pacific Policy Studies. He studied at the University of California at Berkeley, Sophia University, the Free University of Berlin, and Princeton University where he received his PhD in Sociology. Julian’s research has focused on Japanese education. He has completed projects on history education and on changes in legal education. He is currently investigating the impact of the for-profit nature of Japanese “shadow education” on the diversity of teaching and learning cultures within Japanese education. Julian has also been spearheading efforts at UBC to build interest in and expertise on Mongolia. Julian is an associate editor of Pacific Affairs.