Social Class in Contemporary Japan

Hiroshi Ishida is Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Tokyo, Japan.David H. Slater is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Japanese Studies at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and the Graduate School of Global Studies, Sophia University, Japan.

• 1. Social Class Analysis as a Research Program Hiroshi Ishida and David H. Slater Part 1: Class Structure 2. Does Class Matter in Japan? Demographics of Class Structure and Class Mobility from a Comparative Perspective Hiroshi Ishida 3. Marriage as an Association of Social Classes in a Low Fertility Rate Society: Towards a New Theory of Social Stratification Sawako Shirahase Part 2: Class Sorting 4. From Credential Society to "Learning Capital" Society: A Rearticulation of Class Formation in Japanese Education and Society Takehiko Kariya 5. Social Class and Economic Life Chances in Post-Industrial Japan: The "Lost Generation" Mary C. Brinton Part 3: Class Socialization 6. The "New Working Class" of Urban Japan: Socialization and Contradiction from Middle School to the Labor Market David H. Slater 7. What Color is Your Parachute? The Post-Pedigree Society Amy Borovoy Part 4: Class Strategies 8. Motherhood and Class: Gender, Class, and Reproductive Practices among Japanese Single Mothers Aya Ezawa 9. How Ethnic Minorities Experience Social Mobility in Japan: An Ethnographic Study of Peruvian Migrants Ayumi Takenaka

"The chapters suggest indirectly why there is little class consciousness in Japan, because sorting through educational performance legitimizes differential outcomes and obscures the underlying mechanisms of class. Yet, the book’s broad analytical framework demonstrates that there is much more to class analysis and much more still to be done. Any edited volume can be raided for individual chapters to assign to a class, but some edited volumes such as Social Class in Contemporary Japan offer truly collaborative research that advances the field. This book can and should be read as a coherent whole. It demonstrates the importance of asking social class questions about Japan and provides an array of good models to show young scholars how to do it effectively." - Patricia G. Steinhoff, University of Hawai’i"In a climate in which both academic and popular attention is focused upon social stratification and disparity, this timely book presents a collection of innovative studies conducted by several of the foremost scholars in class analysis from Japan, the United States, and Europe, all of whom had been advocating the importance of class research long before it came into vogue in recent years. The current volume is groundbreaking... This landmark study is recommended not only to students of Japan but to all scholars who wish to gain critical insight into the dynamics of class and stratification in general." - Yoshio Sugimoto, La Trobe University, Emeritus; Journal of Japanese Studies, 37:2 (2011)"This volume is a must-read for any scholar of contemporary Japan. It is highly recommendable as a class reader in seminars on Japanese society. The introductory chapter not only gives a comprehensive account of how the analysis of social structure in Japan has shifted in focus; it is also an excellent illustration of how to place an analysis within a clearly defined theoretical frame. The single articles are well-structured and profound in content as well as research method. This not only makes them an informative read but also good examples of academic analysis valuable to students (and researchers) in the fields of social sciences and ethnography." - Carola Hommerich, Pacific Affairs: Volume 83, No. 4 – December 2010"Combining quantitative and qualitative analysis, this book should be of interest to students of contemporary Japan, especially as it offers a major corrective to the cultural studies paradigm which appears to have colonized Japan studies in recent years... Deservedly it should take its place in any library." - Geoffrey C. Gunn, Faculty of Economics, Nagasaki University, Japan; Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 41 No.2 (2011)"The contributors to this welcome addition to the scholarly literature on Japanese society hail from the disciplines of sociology and anthropology and thus are able to address the issue of social class from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives...This long-needed book is an outstanding contribution to Japan studies...Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above." - J. W. Traphagan, CHOICE (June 2010)