Abstract
Cultural reproduction theory, which was suggested by P. Bourdieu and J-C. Passeron (1970), S. Bowles and H. Gintis (1976) or B. Bernstein (1971) has been imported to Japan for more than twenty years. Studies of social mobility are inevitably related to it. However there are not so many empirical studies discussing the relationship between these two fields. This paper examines the validity and the extent of cultural reproduction theory in relation to the status attainment process in contemporary Japan.
H. Fujita, T. Miyajima and their colleagues conducted two surveys in order to replicate Bourdieu and Passeron's work in Japan. They invented some Japanese original variables to measure cultural capital. One of them is a vocabulary test as an index of linguistic ability. We also applied it to our own research on 1990s' Japanese junior high and high school students and their parents (686 families). The research design allows me to analyze the relationship between social class and linguistic ability of adult men (fathers) , and the relationships among that of students and their parents.
The conclusions are the following. Social class does have a meaningful effect on parental linguistic ability. However, there are significant but small magnitude of parent-child relationships of linguistic abilities. Then there is no longer a significant relationship between social class and students' linguistic ability. These conclusions indicate that it is not appropriate to apply cultural reproduction theory to all Japanese social strata. This also implies that the effect of school education will be more important than that of cultural capital when we explain status attainment process in contemporary Japan.
