Women’s Education and Gender Roles in lapan

K U M I KO F U J I M U RA-FA N S E LOW
and ATSUKO KAMEDA

SINCE the 1960s numerous discussions have been undertaken and various proposals set forth by governmental bodies for the improvement and reform of the Japanese educational system. All of them, however, have failed seriously to address issues related specifically to the education of women. This neglect or indifference can be traced in part to the presumption widely prevalent in Japan that, since the reforms of the educational system following the end of World War I1 under the direction of the American occupation firmly established the principle of gender equality in education, there no longer exist any problems. The lack of attention may also be traced to the fact that most people have not really thought it important or desirable to have women participate in society in the same capacities as men, and therefore have not been concerned with the question of how girls and women are educated. As a result, there has been little effort to look carefully at manifestations of sexism and gender inequality at various levels of education, to investigate ways of dealing with them, or to try to redress sex imbalances in educational participation and achievement.

However, the women’s movement that appeared in the 1970s, together with the birth of women’s studies on college and university campuses from the latter part of the 1970s, and the example of American and British research in the field have given rise to a growing concern among feminist educators and researchers regarding gender issues in education. Moreover, in an attempt to understand why, despite the abolition of legal and structural barriers io educational access for women, gender differences persist, educators and scholars, as well as groups of concerned women, have begun to examine the issue of gender equality not only in terms of educational access but also in terms of actual outcomes. Their goal is to analyze how sexism arid gender stereotyping at various levels of the educational system function to perpetuate inequality.

This essay explores both change and continuity in patterns of female participation and achievement in education at various levels. We will also explore the factors, within and outside ofschools and the educational process that contribute to the perpetuation of sex-based disparities in educational outcomes. We will examine efforts underway to combat sexism and eradicate barriers to the realization of gender equality. The last section of the essay is devoted to an examination of some of the most recent trends and developments pertaining to women’s education, including the growth of women’s studies in institutions of higher education, the increasingly uncertain future of women’s colleges and universities, and the growing presence of nontraditional students, particularly women, in higher education institutions.

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN EDUCATIONAL PARTICIPATION

Postwar growth in female educational participation

In the wake of the reorganization of the Japanese educational system that took place following World War II, women were granted the legal right to pursue their education as far as their abilities would permit, at whatever types of institutions and in whatever fields they might choose. The various sex-segregated streams or tracks that had existed beyond elementary school were consolidated at each level, resulting in a single-track structure with each level qualifying students for the next higher level. University status was granted to various existing institutions, including many of the women’s colleges. Compulsory education was extended from six to nine years, and a 6-3-3-4 structure was adopted (six years of elementary school beginning at age six, three years of lower secondary school, three years of upper secondary school, and four years of university or two years of junior college). Coeducation, which had formerly been limited to the early years of elementary school, was extended to all levels, including the university, and a common curriculum was instituted in all schools. These reforms, embodied in the School Education Law and the Fundamental Law of Education of 1947, established the necessary legal and structural basis for gender equality in terms of access to educational opportunity.

TABLE 3-1 Percentages of Graduates from Lower Secondary School Attending Upper Secondary School
(Selected Years, 1950 to 1991)

SOURCE:Mornbusho (Ministry of Education), Gakko Kihon Chosa (School Basic Survey) for various years.

Since that time, remarkable progress has been made in terms of attendance at various levels within the educational system. Nearly all girls and boys receive nine years of compulsory education, and the percentage of girls graduating from lower secondary school and continuing on to upper secondary school has increased from just 37 percent in 1950 to 96 percent in 1991 (see Table 3-1).

The expansion in upper secondary school attendance has been reflected, in turn, in a dramatic growth in enrollment both among females and males at institutions of postsecondary education. The growth has been especially striking, however, in the case of females: There was a fourfold increase in the proportion of girls entering junior colleges and universities between the years 1960 and 1986. The proportion of females in the relevant age group entering college (that is, the number of college entrants as a proportion of the total number of females who graduated from lower secondary school three years prior to a given year) rose from just 5.5 percent in 1960 to 18 percent in 1970, 33.5 percent in 1986, and 39.2 percent in 1991. Since 1989 the figure has exceeded that of males. There are a variety of social and economic factors that have promoted this expansion in women’s postsecondary enrollments, including (1) the growing prosperity of the Japanese people brought on by the dramatic economic growth experienced in the 1960s; (2) the general improvement in the Japanese living standard, coupled with a reduction in the number of children per family, which has meant that more family resources are available to educate daughters as well as sons; (3) the growing shift from an elite to a mass system of higher education, which has led people to view college attendance as a matter-of-course for those belonging to the middle- class and upper-class; and (4) a change in social attitudes toward acceptance of the desirability of providing higher education for women.

Gender differences in patterns of college enrollment

While these figures appear impressive, they conceal numerous persisting gen­ der differences, which are most readily apparent at the postsecondary leve1.l Of the roughly 366,000 women who entered college in 1990, just four out of ten went into four-year universities. The remaining 60 percent entered junior colleges. In contrast, nearly all (95 percent) of the 361,000 males entering college went to four-year universities (see Table 3-2).

Female university enrollment has increased in recent years, especially since the mid 1980s. Nevertheless, women continue to be a minority (see Table 3-3), and their proportion lags behind that found in most of the industrialized societies. Female representation is especially small at the most prestigious coeducational universities, such as Tokyo University (a national university), where just 10 percent of the students are women, and Waseda University (a private university), where they make up 20 percent of the under­ graduates. About 25 percent of all female university students are enrolled in women’s universities, of which there are 91 (82 private, 2 national, 7 public) out of a total of 514 universities.

The comparatively low rate of female enroliment at four-year universities means that women continue to be a small minority of graduate students, although in terms of both absolute numbers and relative proportions women’s
representation has increased in recent years. In 1990 women comprised about 20 percent of all students enrolled in master’s degree programs and slightly under 18 percent of those in doctoral programs.2

Gender differences are also evident in the programs of study women and men pursue in college. In recent years university women have made inroads into traditionally male-dominated faculties such as law, political science, economics, and industrial management, and in turn there has been a decline in the relative proportion enrolled in education and home economics. Nevertheless, 55 percent of all women enrolled in universities in 1991 were concentrated in the traditionally female fields of humanities, education, and home economics. By contrast, the largest proportion of men were majoring in the social sciences, followed by engineering. Relatively few women receive training for business and professional careers except in fields such as teaching or pharmacy. At the junior colleges there has been a considerable increase in the proportion of women majoring in the social sciences and in health-related fields and a decrcase in those majoring in home economics, although that, together with the humanities, is still the most popular major (see Table 3-4).

TABLE 3-2 Relative Proportions of Female College Entrants Entering Universities versus lunior Colleges
(Selected Years, 1950 to 1990)

SOURCE: Compiled from Mombusho (Ministry of Education) Gakko Kihon Chosa (School Basic Survey) for various years.

TABLE 3-3 Percentages of Females among All Students Enrolled in Universities and Junior Colleges
(Selected Years, 1955 to 1991)

SOURCE:Mombusho (Ministry of Education), Gakko Kihon Chosa (School Basic Survey) for various years.

Gender differences at the secondary level

Gender differencesfound at the postsecondary level represent the culmination of a process that begins much earlier in the educational process. There appears to be little gender differentiation at the compulsory elementary and lower secondary levels, where a common, uniform curriculum and program of study is pursued by all students, mostly in coeducational classrooms. By the time students apply for upper secondary school, however, differences based on gender become apparent. Today, the percentage of girls graduating from lower secondary school and continuing their studies in upper secondary school exceeds that of boys. Significant differences are apparent, however, when we examine the types of high schools female and male students enter and the curricula they pursue, reflecting in turn differing aspirations and expectations regarding postsecondary education.

TABLE 3-4 Percentage of Students at Universities and Junior Colleges by Various Faculties and Departments (Selected Years, 1965 to 1991)

SOURCE:Figures compiled from Mombusho (Ministry of Education), Gakko Kihon Chosa (School Basic Survey) for each year.

First, despite the fact that the postwar educational reforms called for the adoption of the principle of coeducation at all levels, many students are still found in single-sex high schools. Private high schools comprise about 24 percent of all high schools and enroll about 30 percent of female and 27 percent of male high school students.j More than 60 percent are single-sex schools, and the most competitive schools are exclusively male. Public high schools in major urban centers such as Tokyo and Kyoto these schools are coeduca tional, but in many other areas of the country (notably the northern Kanto and Tohoku regions) a significant number are single-sex institutions. High schools established after World War 11 are invariably coeducational, but many prewar boys’ middle schools or girls’ high schools have remained single-sex institutions.

Second, while more girls than boys are enrolled in the general academic program in high school, fewer are found in the most competitive and prestigious academic high schools. At the top public high schools in Tokyo that were formerly boys’ middle schools, such as Hibiya, more than two-thirds of the students are male. Of those who choose a vocational program in high school, girls are apt to take home economics or enter commercial studies in preparation for taking clerical jobs after graduation, whereas boys tend to study technical subjects. The proportion of students going on to four-year universities is much higher among technical students than those in conimercial or home economics programs.

Although high school attendance has become nearly universal in Japan, it is not compulsory, and admission to high school is determined on the basis of entrance examinations. High schools are informally ranked on the basis of their success rate in preparing students for admission to the nation’s most prestigious (coeducational) universities. Youngsters aiming for admission into one of these schools begin preparing for the entrance examinations in lower secondary school, if not earlier, by attendingspecial extra-study schools known as juku or by getting a private tutor. It appears that by the time girls reach the second or third year of lower secondary school many of them have lowered their ambitions and decided to attend a junior college rather than a four-year university. They are, therefore, less likely to seek admission to top-ranking high schools. A survey conducted in 1985 with third, fifth, and eighth graders and their mothers in Tokyo found that the percentage of students aspiring to four-year universities was about the same among boys and girls in the third grade (39 percent and 41 percent), somewhat higher among boys than girls in the fifth grade (45 percent and 33 percent), and more than twice as high among boys in the eighth grade (71 percent and ’32 percent). On the other hand, the percentage of girls aspiring to junior college was much higher among eighth graders (29 percent) than among third- and fifth-gradcrs (8 percent and 13 percent).

Within academic programs in high school there is often sex-linked tracking. In the second and third years students are given the choice of specializing either in literary or scientific studies. Those electing to pursue literary studies take more courses in English and in Japanese literature, while the science majors take more math and science courses. Themajority of male students opt for the science course, while most females go into literature. There may be further differentiation based on whether a student plans to apply to a national university or a private one and whether he or she anticipates applying to a science-related faculty or a literary faculty. Students are then given intensive preparation for the entrance examinations in the subject areas required by the institutions and faculties to which they plan to apply.’ For those planning to attend a junior college, the preparation is much less rigorous. Most of them do not require entrance exams, merely recommendations, and those that do require applicants to be tested in just two or three subjects.

What we find is that young women, on the whole, elect to pursue programs in high school that prepare them to enter the humanities or social science faculties at universities rather than the scientific or technological fields, or they decide to forego the rigorous and competitive preparation for university admission altogether and instead aim for a junior college. Those that do apply to universities tend to be a much more select group than their male counterparts in terms of social class as well as academic ability.

SOCIAL NORMS AND ATTITUDES REGARDING WOMEN’S EDUCATION AND GENDER ROLES

The differences in patterns of educational participation and attainment described above reflect in large part dominant cultural norms and attitudes regarding the role of women in society and the purposes of education, particularly higher education, for women within this culturally defined role. Such notions as “a man should be better educated than his wife,” “a girl who’s too brainy isn’t endearing to a guy,” “too much education will make a woman too proud and therefore unfit to be a good wife,” “the goal of women’s education should be to produce good wives and wise mothers,” and “the woman’s place is in the home,” old-fashioned though they may sound, summarize many Japanese people’s attitudes regarding women and women’s education.

TABLE 3-5 Attitudes regarding Gender Roles, in Response to: “How do you feel about the idea that men should
work and women should stay at home?”

SOURCE:Sorifu (Office of the Prime Minister), Fujin ni kansuru yoron chosa (Public Opinion Survey on Women, 1987 and 1990).

Nationwide public opinion surveys conducted in recent years reveal that while there has been a general rise in the levels of education that the Japanese desire for children of both sexes, parents continue to assign higher priority to the education of sons. Most parents want their daughters to receive at least a high school education, but beyond that they are likely to think in terms of a junior college for their daughters and a four-year university for their sons. In a 1988 national opinion poll by NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), 33 percent of the respondents indicated they wanted daughters to receive a four- year university education (45percent wanted them to go to a junior college), in contrast to 78 percent in the case of som6These results are similar to those derived from the survey of third, fifth, and eighth graders and their mothers in Tokyo referred to earlier, in which 68 percent of the mothers indicated they wanted a four-year university education for sons and just 37 percent in the case of daughters.’ Those parents with more education and a higher socioeconomic level who reside in large urban centers are more likely to want a university education for their daughters. Yet at every level, Japanese parents exhibit higher aspirations for sons than for daughters and place a higher priority on getting sons into good universities. This tendency reflects in large part the assumption that women will marry and have children and not take up careers following completion of their education. Thus, the general cultural-enrichment type of education that junior colleges provide is considered sufficient. The view that “men should work and women should stay at home” has only recently come to be questioned by a substantial proportion of women themselves, while among men it continues to have considerable support (see Table 3-5).

TABLE 3-6 Attitudes regarding Socialization for Daughters and Sons

SOURCE:Sorifu (Office of the Prime Minister), Fujin mondai ni kansuru kokusai hikaku chosa (Comparative International Survey on Women’s Issues, 1982).

Looking more closely at socialization, we find that from the time children are born many Japanese have very different expectations of boys and girls. Today, we are much less likely to hear the “Oh, too bad it’s not a boy!” when a daughter is born, but comments such as “Daughters are much easier to bring up,” “With sons you have to worry about getting them into good col-leges but with daughters you don’t have such worries,” and “You must have great expectationsfor your son’s future” are still often heard. In addition there is considerable emphasis on the notions of “femininity” and “masculinity” and on instilling what are viewed as behaviors appropriate to each sex. In an international comparative study, Japanese women were the most likely to favor bringing up children differently according to sex (see Table 3-6).

Many of the women students we have taught have mentioned how the consciousness of being a female has been impressed upon them time and again by comments made by parents as well as teachers and peers, such as “You are a girl, so it’s natural that you should help with housework’ (said by a mother), “Be quiet, you must behave like a lady” (by a teacher), or “You act pretty smart-alecky for a girl” (said by a junior high school male classmate to a girl who asked the teacher a question in class). There seems to be some set standard of “femininity” and feminine-appropriatebehavior that is widely accepted within society to which girls are expected to conform. The same can be said of many societies, of course, but our impression is that in Japan this standard is defined much more rigidly, is more universally accepted, and is more strictly imposed. This standard of feminine behavior is enforced, for example, by a distinctive “woman’s language” that is characterized by, among other features, politeness and tentativeness and the use of special vocabulary (including verb forms and sentence structures, as well as by a distinctive tone of voice and carriage). Recent studies that have systematically looked at gender differences in speech point to a gradual convergence in the linguistic forms used by women and men, especially among youth.*At the same time, though, parents continue to teach children to use language appropriateto their sex, and parents as well as teachers persist in correcting children-girls in particular- who use forms of speech thought to be reserved for the other sex.

Messages about gender-appropriate behavior are conveyed through the mass media as well. To give just one example, recently we find cooking programs on television directed at children. While such programs are good in the sense that it is important for children to learn basic skills necessary for daily life, the children who appear on these programs are always girls, thereby reinforcing the notion that “femalesdo the cooking, boys do the eating.”

SEXISM AND GENDER STEREOTYPING IN EDUCATION
We will now examine some practices within schools and the educational process that contribute to the perpetuation of sex differences in educational outcomes and the efforts that are being made to bring about changes.

Gender stereotyping in textbooks

Roughly 400 million copies of textbooks are printed each year for use by elementary and lower secondary school students in Japan. Although the textbooks are put out by private publishers, they undergo rigorous inspection by the Ministry of Education prior to publication. Gender issues are not taken into account in this inspection procedure, however, and gender biases permeate school textbooks.

An analysis of textbooks used in elementary schools and lower secondary schools made by a women’s group in 1975 revealed several significant facts. The majority of figures and main characters who appeared in the Japanese language arts textbooks were male; in some sixth grade texts none of the main characters was a female. The overwhelming majority of the textbook authors were male. Scattered throughout the texts were illustrations that depicted traditional gender roles. In the social studies texts women were often portrayed as homemakers. The occupational roles in which they were shown were limited to nurses, teachers, waitresses, and other female-dominatedjobs. Finally, in English textbooks, sentences that dealt with activities such as baking and washing dishes consistently used the pronoun “she“ or a female proper name for the subject.

Subsequently, representatives from many women’s groups got together with textbook publishers and sought their cooperation in eliminating gender stereotyping in textbooks by hiring as textbook writers and editors women and men who were sensitive to the need for promoting gender equality. Over the years we have seen some improvement. Textbooks today are more likely to include illustrations and pictures of fathers grocery shopping or preparing meals and women working in a variety of occupations. However, when the League of Japanese Lawyers conducted a study in 1989 to examine the extent to which gender discrimination had been eliminated in textbooks, it found that not a great deal had changed over the previous ten years. For example, while more males were likely to be depicted in texts used in home economics classes, they were more likely to be pictured in the role of “overseer,” examining or inspecting the work of others, in contrast to females, who were pictured actually doing the laundry or cooking. Thus, while the fact that males are appearing in such textbooks represents a step forward, the ways in which they are depicted only serves to further buttress existing ideas regarding gender roles.

Recently, many teachers have begun to question the sexism and gender- stereotyping found in textbooks and other teaching materials and to seek changes. Many other teachers, however, are not aware of these issues, due in part to the fact that no attention is paid to gender issues in the training of teachers.

Sex differentiation in the formal curriculum

We mentioned above that educational reforms instituted following World War I1 mandated that all students pursue a common, uniform curriculum and program of study. As part of this policy, home economics was made a mandatory subject for both girls and boys at the elementary level; in lower secondary school students were offered a choice between taking home economics or industrial arts. What happened over the years was that most girls took home economics while most boys went into industrial arts. In 1973 course requirements were altered, making the study of home economics in upper secondary school mandatory for girls only. Since then, various women’s groups as well as organizations comprised of teachers, including the Women’s Action Group (Kodo suru onnatachi no kai) and the Association for the Promotion of the Study of Homemaking by Both Sexes (Kateika no danio kyoshu o susumeru kai) campaigned vigorously to bring about a change in this requirement. After Japan signed the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1980, the government was forced to take up this issue as part of the task of establishing a uniform curriculum for males and females, as called for in article 10 of the convention. Finally, under the new Course of Study for Upper Sccondary Schools announced by the Ministry Women’s Education and Gender Roles 8 55 of Education in 1989, home economics was made a required subject for both girls and boys starting in the 1994 academic year. In addition, changes were made in the field of physical education enabling girls and boys to take either martial arts (judo and kendo, or Japanese-style fencing) or dance.

Sexism and gender stereotyping in classroom practices and school rituals

A close look at various practices that go on in the daily life of the school or classroom also reveals a common and almost universal tendency to place priority on males. These practices are not something that are set by any institutional regulation but are rather done as a matter of custom. Repeated over and over again in the course of daily school life, however, these customary practices, which make up the hidden curriculum, often function to reinforce certain attitudes and assumptions about the sexes and their respective positions and roles in society.

DIFFERENTIATING THE SEXES: CALLING THE ROLL.

One of the pervasive features of Japanese schools, and of Japanese society as a whole, is the tendency to distinguish the two sexes in one way or another. The school bags carried by elementary school pupils are almost invariably black in the case of boys and red in the case of girls. Paint boxes, which are usually purchased through the school, are blue for boys and red for girls. Likewise, in some cases boys are given black or blue library cards while girls get a red or pink. Boys and girls are lined up separately, and boys are paired with boys and girls with girls, for a variety of activities. Also, girls and boys are often placed in separate teams for sports and other competitive activities.

One such practice that is almost universally followed by Japanese teachers in classrooms at all levels and one that has become a subject of controversy in recent years, is that of having separate registers for boys and girls and consistently calling the boys’ roll first. The same order is often followed when returning test results, giving out report cards, or reading students’ names at school entrance and graduation ceremonies. A survey of elementary schools in the Tokyo metropolitan area showed that a mere 0.5 percent of the schools followed the practice of mixing girls’ and boys’ names.” A group of Japanese women who attended the International Women’s Conference in Nairobi in 1985 conducted an informal survey of representatives from nine countries to find out whether such a practice was followed elsewhere. What they found was that apart from Japan and India, the usual practice was to list girls and boys together according to alphabetical order. Upon their return to Japan, these women began to bring this matter to the attention of the mass media, and in recent years it has attracted growing attention. Various schools have started to experiment with alternatives that do not entail separating girls and boys, for example, mixing the sexes and calling the roll by alphabetical order or, in some elementary schools, according to the children’s date of birth. The issue is currently under consideration by school boards and city councils through­ out the country. In the city of Sakai, near Osaka, a decision was made by the city council in 1990 to institute mixed-sex listing of students’ and teachers’ names, from kindergarten through lower secondary school. Councilwoman Ayako Yamaguchi was instrumental in pushing through this reform.

PARTICIPATION IN STUDENT COUNCILS AND CLUB ACTIVITIES.

As in many countries, each Japanese school has a self-governing student council or association that makes decisions regarding such matters as rules of student conduct and budgets for club activities. The chair, vice-chair, treasurer, and secretary are elected from among those standing for office by the student body. Theoretically, any student can run for office, but there seems to be a common understanding that while it is all right for girls to run for vice-chair, treasurer, or secretary, the top office should be occupied by a boy. Some schools have a regulation stipulating that the student council chair must be a boy, and this has become an issue. Even in the absence of such formal regulations, a girl who seeks the top position is likely to be accused by boys of “trying to put on airs” or “lacking in feminine appeal.”

The view that the leader or group representative ought to be a male is, of course, reflected in adult society, where men clearly dominate the top positions in politics and business. Even community volunteer groups and parent- teacher associations are often headed by men, in spite of the fact that most often women do the actual work within these organizations. Some teachers have proposed that student council offices be shared equally by girls and boys.

Sexual differentiation in school-sponsored club activities is another issue. To take one example, baseball clubs are very popular in Japanese high schools and are given considerable support by schools, both in terms of financial resources and time devoted to training. Nationwide competitions among high schools are held twice a year and these attract considerable media coverage. Membership in baseball clubs includes girls, but they participate not as players but as “managers,”whose role is to put away the baseball equipment, wash the uniforms, and prepare meals and snacks for the players. In short, they perform a supporting role for the male players. Girls are, moreover, prohibited from entering the grounds at the national competitions.

Even if the formal setting of schoolsand classrooms is coeducational, as at the elementary and lower secondary school level, daily exposure to the kinds of customs and practices described above instills in many youngsters a consciousness of gender differences and male superiority. This is not to say that sex-role socialization is always or necessarily “successful.”As has been shown in other societies, there are many girls (and boys) who resist the dominant messages regarding appropriate sex-role attitudes and behaviors, and there are also teachers at all levels who strive to convey very different kinds of messages to their students. Thus, both authors have encountered women in our college classes who resisted efforts by their parents or high school teachers to discourage them from applying to college or who possessed the critical capacity to question such taken-for-granted practices and regulations as that which requires girls in lower and upper secondary school to wear skirts to school and girls, but not boys, in upper secondary school to study domestic science.”

Gender-based tracking

Earlier in this essay we noted that females are less likely than males to enter the most competitive high schools as well as four-year universities. One influencing factor we mentioned was the lower level of aspirations parents have for daughters’as opposed to sons’ education. There is also evidence suggesting that teachers and guidance counselors in many instances tend to “cool down” the aspirations of female students and steer them to less competitive high schools and colleges while encouraging male students to aim for the leading institu­tions. Some of the college women we teach have reported being advised by the teachers in junior or senior high school to aim for a junior college rather than a four-year university. The usual argument given is that “it’s a waste of both time and money for a girl to go to a university, since you‘re going to get married soon.”

One of the reasons teachers tend to track female students into less competitive schools is that, as recent evidence have shown, some public high schools practice discrimination in their admission procedures. In Tokyo, for example, it has been revealed that the top public high schools, which were formerly boys’ middle schools, require a higher score on the entrance examinations for girls and maintain admission quotas for girls. In addition, there have been reports from other parts of Japan of administrators at coeducational high schools urging their counterparts in lower secondary schools to discourage female students from applying to their schools and to send more boys.

While the scope of such discriminatory practices has yet to be ascertained, such practices frequently reveal the notion that while girls may score high on high school entrance examinations, once they are admitted they don’t work as hard as boys to get into the top universities, thereby reducing the number of successful applicants to such universities and causing the reputation of the high school to decline.

While many issues remain to be tackled, a promising development is that through the efforts mainly of various women’s groups, we are at last witnessing a growing awareness and public discussions of the various practices that embody and perpetuate sexism and gender stereotyping in education. And as the above discussion has pointed out, this awareness has given rise to some efforts at change and reform.

GENDER INEQUALITIES IN THE TEACHING PROFESSION

Conspicuous gender differences characterize the teaching profession at all levels, and these have important implications for female education in terms of providing role models for students, reinforcing stereotypes regarding gender roles in the larger society, and limiting professional opportunities for women who pursue graduate training.

Teaching at the elementary or secondary school level was the most common profession among women in prewar Japanese society. There were very few women professors apart from those teaching at women’s higher normal schools or at women’s colleges. For a variety of reasons teaching is still a popular occupation among women, particularly those who aspire to lifelong careers. There is no overt sex discrimination, for example in pay or retirement age. In addition there is a system of maternity and child-care leave. Nevertheless, as in the past, the proportion of women declines as one moves up the educational ladder, and women are likely to be found teaching subjects traditionally considered feminine, such as home economics, literature, and art. Few women are found in administrative positions.

Kindergartens are staffed almost exclusively by women (94 percent), yet only 49 percent of kindergarten principals are women. In elementary schools, women account for 58 percent of the teachers-up from 45 percent in 1960­ but just 4 percent of the principals. Women comprise about 36 percent of the teachers and a mere 0.7 percent of the principals in lower secondary schools, and the corresponding figures at the upper secondary school level are 20.5 percent and 2.4 percent.I5Women’s low representation in administrative posts at these levels attests in part to the difficulties women teachers, like other working women, face in trying to advance in their career while at the same time having to bear the major part of household responsibilities. Also, when both the wife and husband are teachers there is an unwritten regulation in some places that only one of them can be made a principal. There is still a widely held prejudice against women being placed in the position of principal or head teacher based on the preconception that women lack the necessary qualities of leadership and toughness. An acquaintance who recently took and passed the written examination qualifying her to become a head teacher at the elementary level was repeatedly questioned during the subsequent oral examination about her ability to fulfill all of the necessary responsibilities, including dealing with other teachers, especially men.

At the college level, more women teach in junior colleges than in universities. Women make up 38 percent of all faculty members in junior colleges, 9.2 percent of four-year university faculty, and just 4 percent of graduate-level faculty. The higher the professional rank, the smaller is the representation of females: Women comprise just 5 percent of full professors at universities and 25 percent of those at junior colleges, and 4 percent of university and 13 percent of junior college presidents.l6 Moreover, within universities, women’s representation on faculties is higher at the private than at the national universities, at all-female than at coeducational universities, and at the more recently established ones than at the older, more prestigious institutions. As of 1982, women represented a mere 1.1 percent of the faculty at the former imperial universities, which include Tokyo and Kyoto universities, the most prestigious universities in the country. To take another example, at Waseda University, which is one of the oldest and most prestigious private coeducational universities, in 1991 there were forty full-time female faculty members
at the instructor/assistant professor level and above (compared to twenty-nine in 1980), representing just 4 percent of the total. Women employed as assistants and adjuncts accounted for 11 percent of the total, up from 7 percent in 1980.

Women’s underrepresentation in college and university faculties is a manifestation of the highly rigid and closed organizational nature of Japanese universities, particularly the national universities. Positions are rarely announced publicly, so that women do not have an opportunity to compete openly for a university teaching or research position. Faculty members and research staff tend to be recruited from particular networks through a patronage system, and women are generally excluded from those networks. There are few networks, however, that function as a source of recruitment for women. Moreover, there are no affirmative action programs designed to promote the hiring of women and to redress gender imbalances. As a consequence, fewer women than men are able to obtain employment following completion of master’s and doctor’s degree programs. In 1990, 3,578 women completed the master’s degree program (compared to 22, 226 males); 18 percent of these women (and IS percent of the men) went on for further study, while less than 50 percent (compared to 77 percent of the men) obtained employment. Of the 696 women (compared to 5,116 men) who completed the doctor’s degree program the same year, just 48 percent found employment, in contrast to 67 percent of the men.18Many women continue teaching as adjuncts on a yearly contract basis at two or three institutions without ever obtaining a full-time position. A factor that further aggravates this problem is that job transfers are very common within Japanese companies, so that an academic woman married to a businessman faces the prospect of having to give up a position in order to accompany her husband to another location. The various forms of discrimination that exist in academia are likely to prove much more difficult to attack than those found in business and industry.

RECENT TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENTS IN WOMEN’S EDUCATION

There are several recent trends and developmentsthat have important implications for women’s education. One has been the growth since the mid 1970s of women’s studies within higher education. Another is the declining popularity of junior colleges and women’s universities and the growing popularity of coeducational universities among young women, accompanied by a shift away from traditionally female fields of study to hitherto male-dominated fields. A third development has been the growing presence of nontraditional students, particularly older women, in universities.

The emergence of women’s studies

The growth of women’s studies in the United States had an important influence on the development of such studies in Japan in the years just preceding International Women’s Year (1975). A number of colleges and universities, particularly women’s institutions, began to set up courses in women’s studies. Between 1983, when the National Women’s Education Centre began conducting its annual surveys, and 1990 the number of colleges and universities offering courses in women’s studies at the undergraduate level more than tripled, to 251 or about 23 percent of all such institutions. Of the 251, 155 are women’s junior colleges and universities. Many women’s colleges have set up courses in women’s studies as one way of trying to attract applicants in the face of a growing trend away from women’s colleges. The number of course offerings has increased fivefold, to 463,20and while in the past courses with such titles as “Women’s History” or “Women and Literature” were most common, today we find a much greater diversity of courses, such as “Theory of Motherhood,” “Feminism,” “Sociology of Women,” “Women and the Law,”“Women and Welfare,” and “Women’s Labor.”

While these are encouraging signs, several things need to be pointed out. Although women’s courses are offered at more than one out of five colleges and universities, in most cases only one or two courses are taught. Moreover, the number of students enrolled in such courses in 1990 amounted to roughly 39,000, or a mere 1.5 percent of all students enrolled in higher institutions. And of the 39,000 students, just 5,500 were male.2’A major problem is that there is no institution that has a women’s studies department or faculty and awards a degree in this field. Were an institution to set up such a program, it would have to be approved by the Ministry of Education. An underlying factor is that women’s studies has yet to be fully recognized and accepted as a legitimate academic discipline within Japanese higher education. Time and again we hear colleagues raise such questions as “What is women’s studies?” and “If we’re going to have a course in ‘Women and Psychology,’ why not also have one in ‘Men and Psychology?’

A trend away from women’s colleges

“Women’s Colleges Struggle to Adapt,” “The Rise and Fall of Six Women’s Universities,‘’ “Desperate for Survival-Women’s Universities”: Such headlines, which are frequently seen in newspapers and magazines, attest to a continuing decline in the popularity of women’s junior colleges and universities since about the mid 1980s. Their struggle for survival is expected to become increasingly acute with the eighteen-year-old population expected to decrease by nearly one-half million from 1992 to 2000.

Financial problems and changes in the job market account for the decline in the popularity of junior colleges (of which about 60 percent enroll women exclusively) and women’s universities (which numbered 91 in 1991, or around 18 percent of all four-year universities). In the past, many women preferred to go to junior colleges because employment opportunitiesfor women graduating from junior colleges were much better than those available to university graduates. While companies welcomed junior college graduates as “OW or “office ladies,” who performed routine clerical work, they were reluctant to take on university graduates for such positions because they were more expensive and also presumably had fewer years remaining until they left their jobs to get married. At the same time, university-educated women were usually denied access to jobs of similar status as those available to male graduates. Many companies have had a policy of not recruiting female university graduates at all.

Several recent developments have opened up employment opportunities for female university graduates. One is the passage of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act in 1985. Even more significant has been the acute labor shortage, which has forced companies to turn to a hitherto untapped source of talent and skills to fill positions formerly reserved for male graduates. Many major companies, most notably financial institutions and trading companies, now offer university-educated women a choice between traditional women’s work (i.e., support-level clerical work) and the career path (sogoshoh), traditionally reserved for male university graduates. Employment rates among female university graduates went up from between 55 percent to 70 percent in the years prior to 1985 to more than 80 percent in the early 1990s, a figure comparable to that among male university graduates, though still lower than the figure for female junior college graduates. The downturn in the Japanese economy in the early 1990s has unquestionably hurt women university graduates in the marketplace. It is difficult to foresee what the future trend will be, but university-educated women have definitely made significant inroads into jobs and positions hitherto closed to them, and many employers have come to recognize their capabilities.

With the opening up of the job market, women have begun to choose more marketable fields of study, such as law, commerce, economics, political science, international relations, engineering, and psychology (see Table 3-4). While the number of females entering four-year universities has increased by 2.4 times over the past twenty years (from 62,000 in 1970 to 148,000 in 1990), those going into the social sciences has increased by four-and fivefold, while those going into engineering has increased by tenfold. Because such courses are generally not offered at women’s universities, where the focus has been on such fields as English literature and home economics, many women have begun to turn toward coeducational universities. At the same time, many young women are attracted to coeducational universities simply because they want to study and participatc in various extracurricular activities with men.

Consequently, the number of applicants to women’s colleges and universities has steadily declined since the mid 1980s. Tsuda College, Japan’s oldest and certainly one of thc most prestigious colleges for women, experienced a 22 percent drop in applications between 1985 and 1990, while Japan Women’s University, another well-established institution, saw a 26 percent decline between 1986 and 1989. Compounding the problem is the fact that in recent years it has become much more difficult for Japanese universities to obtain sufficient resources from either public or private sources. In Tsuda’s case, whereas in 1982 it received aid from the government to cover 32 percent of its annual budget, in 1990 the figure was cut to 15 percent. The figure for those enrolled in women’s universities as a percentage of females enrolled in all four-year universities has declined from close to 30 percent in 1965 to 25 percent in 1991.

In response to this trend, women’s universities have adopted various survival strategies. One strategy has been to redesign or add faculties and programs that are more professionally oriented. For example, in 1990, Japan Women’s University added a major in Integrated Arts and Social Science-a combination of sociology, psychology, and education. Others have added programs in management and science. Women’s universities have attempted to attract students by emphasizing their unique strengths as women’s institutions, for example, by setting up courses in women’s studies. Another strategy has been to go coed; those adopting this strategy have attempted to expand enrollment by adding faculties designed to attract male students, such as economics and international relations.

Junior colleges, which have tended to be regarded as “bride-training schools,” are suffering even more than women’s universities. Between 1980 and 1990, the proportion of female college entrants going into junior colleges as opposed to four-year universities decreased from 63 percent to 59 percent. A combination of factors contributed to this trend: the growing affluence of the Japanese people, a decline in the birthrate, and the fact that as college attendance has become more and more a common practice the prestige of a junior college education has declined. With fewer children and more money available, more parents can and want to send daughters, as well as sons, to college, and increasingly to a four-year university, thereby providing their daughters with an edge, both in terms of employment and marriage prospects.

As a consequence, a number of junior colleges have closed down in recent years. Others have adopted various strategies, some similar to those undertaken by women’s universities, in order to survive, such as transforming themselves into four-year women’s universities, becoming coed, and adding more specialized, professionally oriented programs to their curriculum, such as communications and business.

The growing presence of nontraditional students

Unlike the United States, Canada, Australia, and many European countries, where people aged twenty-five and older comprise a substantial proportion of students in institutions of higher education, in Japan 90 percent of college enrollments are drawn from the eighteen-to twenty-two-year-old population. Most japanese tend to view higher education as something restricted to people within a certain age group, which is to be pursued on a full-time basis. It was not until 1978 that older students were first admitted to universities, and then only in the evening division and on the basis of special recommendations. In 1979 the law faculty of Rikkyo University in Tokyo became the first university to admit nontraditional students through a system of special entrance examinations. In 1989, nineteen national universities, eight public universities, and over sixty private universities were admitting such students. So far, however, the number of students admitted has been limited. For example, the number of “adult students” admitted to the law faculty at Rikkyo is restricted to roughly 5 percent of the total.

Given the anticipated decline in the college-age population, colleges will increasingly be forced to try to attract not only traditional full-time students but also nontraditional part-time students in order to survive. A substantial proportion of these nontraditional college students are likely to be women housewives in their thirties and forties who want to return to school now that their children are older and employed women who wish to acquire or upgrade knowledge and skills required for their current jobs or to make a career change. One way for women’s colleges and universities to try to survive the coming years is to begin to emphasize and strengthen their functions as institutions for women’s lifelong or recurrent education. Similarly, junior colleges, which have until now functioned mainly as the “women’s track in higher education, might become more like American community colleges. As Kitamura emphasizes, the influx of large numbers of nontraditional students into Japanese colleges and universities will inevitably pose a serious challenge to traditional Japanese higher education, forcing them to reexamine many of their existing assumptions and practices, including curricula and teachingmethods. As this process unfolds, its impact on the education of Japanese women will be watched with interest by many.

CONCLUSION
In many respects, the way education has been and continues to be perceived with respect to women by educators, educational institutions, society in general, parents,and young women themselves is out of tune with the reality of women’s lives today and in the years to come. There has not been a full recognition of the related ways in which women’s lives have changed and are changing, nor a serious appraisal of the ways in which education ought to adapt to the changing needs of women. What is now required is for those involved in the educational process to take into account the entire life span of women, to look at education as serving women in the many roles they will perform and to prepare them for new realities and opportunitiesin their lives.

At the same time serious attention must be directed toward eradicating sexism and gender inequality throughout the entire educational system, from the bottom up. As Fujieda has noted, in a centralized system of education such as Japan’s, the Ministry of Education exercises both direct and indirect power and authority over the conduct of education, from determining curricula to inspecting textbooks prior to publication. Yet, it has not sought to exercise that authority toward realizing gender equality in education. Of all the various recommendations and proposals for educational reform that have been set forth by Ministry of Education appointed and cabinet-level advisory bodies, such as the Central Council for Education, the Ad Hoc Council on Education, and the University Council, none has dealt with any of the many serious gender issues we have discussed here.

Various grass-roots women’s organizations as well as teacher and parent groups have led the way in this respect. The Women’sAction Group, founded in 1975and made up chiefly of female activists and teachers, has taken up several issues, including sexism in textbooks and classroom practices, and played a leading role in pressing the Ministry of Education to make the study of home economics in high school mandatory for both sexes. It has also appealed to the Ministry of Education to allocate more funds, which at the present are very limited, toward the promotion of gender equality in education. The League of Japanese Lawyers has sought to investigate and publicize sex discriminationin textbooks. In addition, several feminist educators and researchers have begun to work with local school boards to produce teaching materials and textbooks aimed at promoting nonsexist perspectives among youngsters. The Yokohama Board of Education is one such example. The board of education, teachers, and parents of Kunitachi City in Tokyo have for many years endeavored to promote gender equality in their schools. Recently, recognizing that change must begin with the teachers, the board produced a guide designed to bring to the attention of elementary teachers various aspects of gender inequality and discrimination in schools.

Thus, here and there, mostly on the local level, we see important and promising initiatives and developments. What is clearly needed at this point, however, is for these and other efforts to be carried forth in a systematic manner at all levels and in all aspects of education, beginning with teacher training. A heightened consciousness and acceptance on the part of both women and men in japanese society of gender equality as a social and educational goal, coupled with a commitment and resolve on the part of leaders in government and education to realize this goal, are imperative. Whether progress will be made in the near future is questionable, given the priorities that continue to dominate Japanese education. The emphasis on competition, efficiency, and control and the subordination of education to the demands of the marketplace are in many respects at odds with the goals genuine equality of educational opportunity and valuing and nurturing the potential of each individual, regardless of social class, ethnicity, regional background-or sex.

NOTES
1. For a fuller treatment of this topic, see Kumiko Fujimura-Fanselow, “Women’s Participation in Higher Education in Japan,”in James J. Shields, Jr., ed., JapaneseSchooling:Patterns ofSocialization, Equality, and PoliticalControl (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989).
2. Mombusho (Ministry of Education), Mombu tokei yoran (Summary of educational statistics)(Tokyo:Ministry of Education, 1991).
3. lbid., 54-55,
4. Kiyoshi Takeuchi, “Joshi no seito bunka no tokushitsu” (Special characteristics of female student culture), Kyoiku shakaigaku kenkyu (Research in the Sociology of Education) 40 (1985).
5. In Japan, students apply to a particular faculty within a university, and entrance examinations are prepared by each faculty, although recently more institutions are taking advantage of the examinations prepared by the University Entrance Examination Center.
6. NHK (JapanBroadcasting Corporation), Nihonjin no ishiki chosa (Survey of the consciousness of the Japanese)(Tokyo:NHK, 1988).
7. Takeuchi, “Joshino seito bunka no tokushitsu,” 25.
8. See Yoko Kawaguchi, “Majiriau danio no kotoba” (Mixing of men’s and women’s language), Gengo seikatsu (Linguistic life), no. 429 (July 1987), 34-39. See Women’s Education and Gender Roles 8 67 also Orie Endo, et al., “Dansei no hanashi kotoba” (The spoken language of men), Kotoba (Language) 11 (1990) 1-88, and “Joseino hanashi kotoba” (The spoken language of women), Kotoba (Language) 10 (1989):1-84.
9. Fujin Mondai Konwa-kai, Fujin mondai konwa-kai kaiho, 22-kyokasho
no naka no danio sabetsu (Twenty-second report of the Fujin Mondai Konwa-kai Association: gender discrimination in textbooks) (Tokyo: 1975), and Fujin mondai konwa-kai kaiho, 24-kyokasho wa danio byodo o sodatenai (Twenty-fourth report of the Fujin Mondai Konwa-kai Association: Textbooks do not promote sexual equality) (Tokyo: 1976).
10. Masako Owaki, Kyokasho no naka no danio sabetsu (Sex discrimination in
textbooks) (Tokyo: Meiseki Shoten, 1991).
11. “Yatta!! Danjo Kongo Meibo” (We did it!! Mixed-sexclass rolls), Asahi Shimbun (Asahi newspaper), 23 February 1990.
12. See, for example, Stephen Walker and Len Barton, “Gender, Class, and Education: A Personal View,” in Stephen Walker and Len Barton, eds., Gender, CIass and Education (Barcombe, England: The Falmer Press, 1983), and Kathleen Weiler, Women Teachingfor Change (Westport, Conn.: Bergin and Garvey, 1988).
13. As noted earlier, this latter regulation has been changed, so that from the 1994 academic year domestic science or home economics will be a required subject for both girls and boys.
14. For a description of these efforts, see Atsuko Kameda and Kaoru Tachi, “Gakko ni okeru sexism to danio byodo kyoiku” (Sexism in schools and equal education), in Ioseigaku Koza 4-Onna no Me de Miru (Lectures in women’s studies, vol. 4: From a woman’s perspective) (Tokyo:Keiso Shobo, 1987).
15. Mombusho, Mombu tokei yoran, 43-58.
16. Ibid., 84-85.
17. Yoshirnasa Kano, “Nihon no josei kenkyusha-sono genjo to rekishiteki hendo” (Women researchers in Japan:Their current status and historical changes), in Michiya Shimbori, ed., Daigaku kyojushoku no sogotekikenkyu-academic profession no shakaigaku (A comprehensive study of the college academic profession: Sociology of the academic profession) (Tokyo:Oga Shuppan, 1984), 194, table 7.
18. Mombusho, Mombu tokei yoran, 96-97.
19. For additional discussion of women academics in Japan, see Katsuko Saruhashi and Shobei Shiota, eds., Iosei kenkyusha (Women researchers) (Tokyo:Domesu Shuppan, 1985); Kano, “Nihon no josei kenkyusha”;Takako Michii, “The Chosen Few: Women Academics in Japan”(Ph.D. diss., State University of New York at Buffalo, 1982); and Masako Bando, Michiko Noguchi, and Yoko Shinyama, eds., Josei to gakumon to seikatsu-fujin kenkyusha no raifu suikuru (Women,study, and life: The life cycle of women researchers) (Tokyo:Keiso Shobo, 1981).
20. National Women’s Education Centre, SurveyofCourses on Women’sStudies and Related Subjects in Institutions of Higher Education in lapan (Fiscal 1990) (Saitama, Japan: National Women’s Education Centre, 1991). 8, table 2.
21. Ibid., 9, table 3.
22. “Women’s Colleges Struggle to Adapt,” \awn Times, 8 August 1990.
23. Kazuyuki Kitamura, “The Future of Japanese Higher Education,” in Edward R. Beauchamp, ed., Windows on Iapanese Education (Westport, Conn.: 4 Greenwood Press, 1992).
24. Mioko Fujieda, “Women’sStudies in luapan: Its Past, Present, and Future,” paper delivered at the Asian Women’sConference, Tokyo, 2-5 April 1992. Abortion and V
25. An example is a twenty-four-page booklet titled Doshite wukeruno? (Why do we make distinctions?),which was issued in 1992by the Yokohama City Board of Education under the leadership and guidance of Kaoru Tachi of the Institute for Women’s Studies at Ochanomizu University. The booklet, directed at third-and fourth-graders,
is aimed explicitly at promoting attitudes conducive to gender equality.

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