3 「学習資本主義」と教育格差 : 社会政策としての教育政策(I 共通論題=「格差社会」のゆくえ)

抄録

A number of advanced countries, including Japan, are conducting neo-liberal education reforms such as the decentralization and devolution of control over education, privatization, school choice, and national testing. In addition, economic globalization and the rise of the "knowledge-based" economy may make education an important arena of socio-economic policy as governments seek to enhance human capital and individuals' employability, and to provide equal opportunity in life chances. In this paper, I argue that those changes promote a shift of human capital formation toward the rise of "learning capitalism". In Japan, especially, this shift coincides with the transformation from the "Japanese Mode of Credential Society" to the "Learning Capitalist Society", where learning skills and competences become core mechanisms to form, accumulate, and arrange human capital. Previously, under the Japanese mode of credential society, career paths were seen as simple and straightforward. Success in entrance examinations was thought to be the main route to enter good schools and universities, then to get into good workplaces and lead happy lives. Being good at memorizing school knowledge was seen a key factor for this success story. Upon getting into good jobs, which usually meant working for large companies, employees from prestigious universities were given more opportunities to pursue advancement. Their learning skills, sometimes called "trainability", might have played an important role behind the scenes, but their importance was not clearly recognized. The Japanese mode of credential society changed and declined during the 1990s. This transformation was caused by changes in labor markets and in education. Acquiring learning skills and competences took the place of memorizing knowledge. Now both in the workplace and in school, people are expected to master advanced learning skills and competences to keep up with rapid changes in technology and society. People are also required to pursue lifelong learning. In addition, they are expected to become 'clever' investors in choosing what, how, and when they should learn in order to maximize their human capital. In other words, learning skills and competences have become "capital" in this society. However, the distribution of learning skills and competences among students is not equal. In the paper, using survey results, I show that they are unequally distributed among children from different family backgrounds. I then argue that the recent decentralization of education funding and neo-liberal education reforms such as the introduction of voucher systems will increase inequality in learning capital accumulation.