Wednesday 15 February 2006
6:00pm – 8:00pm
Youth, Education and the Generation Gap
Daiwa Foundation Japan House
Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation in association with The Japan Society
Japan’s low birth rate has implications for the future of its education system. There is increasing concern that the ageing of teachers and competition for dwindling numbers of students will impact upon the quality of education in both schools and universities. This seminar will focus upon some of the issues affecting young people in Japan as they face the transition from school to work. Their aspirations and the response of the educational establishment to this demographic challenge is paving the way for social and institutional change in the years ahead.
Organised in association with The Japan Society
About the contributors
Professor Kariya
Takehiko Kariya is Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Education and a Senior Associate Member at St Antony’s College and the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies, Oxford University. Professor Kariya completed an MA in Sociology of Education in 1981 at the University of Tokyo and a PhD from Northwestern University, USA, in 1988. His publications include “From high school and college to work in Japan – meritocracy through institutional and semi-institutional linkages” in From School to Work: A Comparative Study of Educational Qualifications and Occupational Destinations (OUP, 1997) and “Stratified Incentives and Life Course Behaviors” (with James Rosenbaum) in Handbook of Life Course (2003).
Professor Earl Kinmonth
Earl Kinmonth is Professor of Sociology at Taisho University in Tokyo. Dr Kinmonth has lived in Japan for some 15 years and is a specialist in modern Japanese social and intellectual history with an emphasis on education and related issues. He has taught at Cornell University, the University of California, Davis and the University of Sheffield.
In 2005, his article “From Selection to Seduction: The Impact of Demographic Change on Private Higher Education in Japan” was published in The ‘Big Bang’ in Japanese Higher Education: The 2004 Reforms and the Dynamics of Change (Trans Pacific Press).
Julia Goldsworthy MP
Julia Goldsworthy MP has been a Member of Parliament for Falmouth and Camborne (Liberal Democrat) since 2005. Upon completing a History degree at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, she spent a year in Japan at Daiichi University of Economics. In 2003, Julia completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Economics at Birkbeck College, London. Julia Goldsworthy was Senior Political Adviser to the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party (Economy and Education) in 2003-4, and served as policy advisor for the Liberal Democrats in 2005, specialising in education issues and the economy.