The Emerging Social Consciousness of Competition in the School Career

Abstract

The emerging social consciousness which we find in Japanese education at present manifests itself as a spirit of intense competition during the school career.
It is competition not only in having a brilliant academic career but also in cultivating various non-academic attributes. It emerges because the social status of university graduates has decreased with the expansion of higher education. After-hours schools for practice on musical instruments and individual sports, etc., (Okeiko-Juku) show the magnitude of this extreme competitiveness.
Alternately, this new type of competition is the tangible expression that parents are unsatisfied with social standardization in modes of modern life, and the lengths they will go to attempt higher social status for their children.