A case study of how education labour markets are organized in Japan: mandatory teacher rotation in Japanese public schools

ABSTRACT

Public teachers in Japan are subjected to a compulsory rotation system where the prefectural board of education governs their entire career paths. Past research has written of the macro- and micro-level impacts of rotation systems, including Japanese teacher rotation, but this paper, based on years of working in and observing Japanese schools, is the first study in English to offer a detailed examination of how the system functions, revealing how informal and formal organizational structure work in concert to facilitate teacher rotation in Japan.

KEYWORDS:

• Jinji idou (personnel change)
• kibou hyoumei (transfer requests)
• tanshin fu’nin (solo assignment)
• informal organization
• human resource management

Acknowledgments

I thank Dr. Joe Galaskiewicz, Dr. Jane Zavisca, Dr. Jeff Sallaz, and Dr. Hirohisa Takenoshita for their comments on this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded in part by the following agencies or fellowships: Fulbright Fellowship, National Science Foundation, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, National Council on Teacher Quality, Boren Fellowship, and the University of Arizona Social and Behavioral Sciences.

Notes on contributors

Ryan Seebruck

Ryan Seebruck recently earned his PhD in sociology from the University of Arizona. He has recently published work on labour market inequality in The Sociological Quarterly, Sociological Focus, and Sociological Inquiry and on teacher quality in the California Geographer and McGill Sociological Review.