Extracurricular Paths into Job Markets in Contemporary Japan: The Way of Both Pen and Soccer Ball

Abstract

The literature on education in Japan typically focuses attention on achievements in the classroom. In this study, I cross the border of scholarly attention to bukatsu (extracurricular school clubs), including their demanding schedules and mandatory activities, to analyze their rich roles in preparing students for future jobs. Refocusing attention from the classroom to the playground blurs hierarchies of activity and suggests a more holistic view of education. Drawing from extensive fieldwork in Japan that includes interviews and participant observation, I locate the value of bukatsu as generating a specific type of embodied cultural capital that is explicitly requested during the hiring process in the adult work world. The bukatsu experience reinforces certain attitudes that correspond with the bu (‘warrior’) part of the old bunburyōdō (‘the way of both pen and sword’) ideal. This research demonstrates the limits of academic credentials (i.e., test scores) in achieving larger societal goals. What seems to matter increasingly in a shrinking job market are dispositions derived from long-term participation in sports organizations, gained specifically through the institution of bukatsu.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Japanese Studies program at the University of Leiden for the stimulating program they have offered in this field. In particular, I would like to express my gratitude to Aya Ezawa for her patient guidance before, during and after my fieldwork. I would also like to thank Marc Buijnsters, Nancy Cooper, Ethan Mark, Ivo Smits and Christine Yano for their helpful feedback on my project. Finally, thank you to all study participants, the journal’s anonymous reviewers and its editorial team (especially David Kelly) for their contributions and suggestions.

Notes

¹ Names of interviewees and schools are pseudonyms.

² Japanese secondary education consists of three years of junior high school and three years of senior high school, of which only the former is compulsory.

³ These correspond to the opposing categories as often heard in Japanese: Taiikukaikei (sports-oriented) and bunkakei (culturally oriented). For further reference, see Tsukahara, ‘The Origin of “TAIIKUKAIKEI” Employment’.

⁴ MEXT, ‘Chūgakusei, kōkōsei no supōtsu-katsudō’.

⁵ Nishijima et al., ‘Shizuoka-ken no kōkō bukatsudō no henka’.

⁶ See MEXT, ‘Chūgakusei, kōkōsei no supōtsu-katsudō’, and ‘The Citizens of the European Union and Sport’, 4.

⁷ Cave, ‘Bukatsudō’, 396; Rohlen, Japan’s High Schools, 189.

⁸ Nishino and Larson, ‘Japanese Adolescents’ Free Time’, 30.

⁹ Rosenbaum and Kariya, ‘Do School Achievements Affect?’, 90–91.

¹⁰ Rosenbaum and Kariya, ‘From High School to Work’, 1358.

¹¹ Cummings, Education and Equality in Japan, 9.

¹² Ibid., 218.

¹³ Amano, ‘The Examination Hell and School Violence’, 115.

¹⁴ Rohlen, Japan’s High Schools, 313.

¹⁵ Okano and Tsuchiya, Education in Contemporary Japan, 67; Rohlen, Japan’s High Schools, 308.

¹⁶ Ishida, Social Mobility in Contemporary Japan, 75.

¹⁷ Kariya and Brinton, ‘Institutional Embeddedness in Japanese Labor Markets’, 202.

¹⁸ Ibid., 199.

¹⁹ Kariya, Education Reform and Social Class in Japan.

²⁰ Ibid., 174.

²¹ Roberson, ‘Working-Class Reproduction in Japan’.

²² Umezaki, ‘Shinki daisotsu shūshoku’, 204.

²³ Borovoy, ‘What Color Is Your Parachute?’, 177.

²⁴ Chiavacci, ‘Transition from University to Work under Transformation’, 33.

²⁵ Ibid., 36–37.

²⁶ Rohlen, Japan’s High Schools, 192.

²⁷ Fukuzawa and LeTendre, The Intense Years, 55–57.

²⁸ Takai, Josei manejaa no tanjō to media.

²⁹ Nishijima et al., Shizuoka-ken no kōkō bukatsudō no henka.

³⁰ Miller, ‘For Basketball Court and Company Cubicle’.

³¹ Cave, ‘Bukatsudō’, 386.

³² Ibid., 390–91.

³³ Although gender, masculinity and a dependence on women through the role of the female manager (see Takai, Josei manejaa no tanjō to media) are important and relevant issues for any bukatsu, it goes beyond the scope of this article to include considerations of female executives and in what ways they may cultivate similar or alternative dispositions.

³⁴ See, for instance, Allison, Nightwork, 94, and Hidaka, Salaryman Masculinity, 41, 130, 137.

³⁵ Senpai is used to refer to people from upper years: your seniors.

³⁶ Allison, Nightwork, 98.

³⁷ Ibid.

³⁸ Rohlen, ‘Order in Japanese Society’; Allison, Nightwork.

³⁹ Rohlen, ‘Order in Japanese Society’, 28.

⁴⁰ Rohlen, For Harmony and Strength, 72–73.

⁴¹ Cave, ‘Bukatsudō’, 404.

⁴² Eng and Shear, Kokoyakyu.

⁴³ Yoneyama, The Japanese High School, 101.

⁴⁴ Kondo, Crafting Selves, 109.

⁴⁵ Eng and Shear, Kokoyakyu.

⁴⁶ Miller, ‘Beyond the Four Walls of the Classroom’.

⁴⁷ Hurst, ‘The Warrior as Ideal for a New Age’, 209.

⁴⁸ Hurst, ‘The Warrior as Ideal for a New Age’, 209, 224.

⁴⁹ Bourdieu, ‘What Makes a Social Class?’, 4.

⁵⁰ Ibid.

⁵¹ Musoba and Baez, ‘The Cultural Capital of Cultural and Social Capital’, 156.

⁵² Bourdieu, ‘The Forms of Capital’, 47.

⁵³ Ibid., 49.

⁵⁴ Ibid.

⁵⁵ Umezaki, ‘Shinki daisotsu shūshoku’, 204.

⁵⁶ Bourdieu, ‘The Forms of Capital’, 47.

⁵⁷ Ibid., 49.

⁵⁸ Nishijima et al., Shizuoka-ken no kōkō bukatsudō no henka, 299.

⁵⁹ Cave, ‘Bukatsudō’, 415.

⁶⁰ Takai, Josei manejaa no tanjō to media.

⁶¹ Hidaka, Salaryman Masculinity, 65.