Takehiko Kariya is Professor of the Sociology of Japanese Society at the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies and the Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, UK.

"This English translation provides access to a centrally important, classic study on education and social class in Japan" -Barbara G. Holthus, Universty of Vienna, Vienna Austria, Pacific Affairs: Volume 87, No. 3 – September 2014.

• Introduction: The complex of class and education in a changing society 1. Education and social mobility in post-war Japan 2. The age of meritocracy 3. Meritocracy, ability orientation and ‘discrimination’ 3.1. The irony of egalitarianism in post-war Japan 3.2. A double standard of inequality and ‘meritocratic discrimination’ 4. Education Reform and Elite Education 5. Inequality of effort under the meritocracy 6. Pitfalls of the ‘self-responsible society’ – Is opportunity equal? 7. The structure of self-confidence – Educational inequality and self-esteem 8. The incentive divide - Selecting the society of the future 9. Afterword

Takehiko Kariya is Professor of the Sociology of Japanese Society at the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies and the Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, UK.

"This English translation provides access to a centrally important, classic study on education and social class in Japan" -Barbara G. Holthus, Universty of Vienna, Vienna Austria, Pacific Affairs: Volume 87, No. 3 – September 2014.

• Introduction: The complex of class and education in a changing society 1. Education and social mobility in post-war Japan 2. The age of meritocracy 3. Meritocracy, ability orientation and ‘discrimination’ 3.1. The irony of egalitarianism in post-war Japan 3.2. A double standard of inequality and ‘meritocratic discrimination’ 4. Education Reform and Elite Education 5. Inequality of effort under the meritocracy 6. Pitfalls of the ‘self-responsible society’ – Is opportunity equal? 7. The structure of self-confidence – Educational inequality and self-esteem 8. The incentive divide - Selecting the society of the future 9. Afterword

Takehiko Kariya is Professor of the Sociology of Japanese Society at the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies and the Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, UK.

"This English translation provides access to a centrally important, classic study on education and social class in Japan" -Barbara G. Holthus, Universty of Vienna, Vienna Austria, Pacific Affairs: Volume 87, No. 3 – September 2014.

• Introduction: The complex of class and education in a changing society 1. Education and social mobility in post-war Japan 2. The age of meritocracy 3. Meritocracy, ability orientation and ‘discrimination’ 3.1. The irony of egalitarianism in post-war Japan 3.2. A double standard of inequality and ‘meritocratic discrimination’ 4. Education Reform and Elite Education 5. Inequality of effort under the meritocracy 6. Pitfalls of the ‘self-responsible society’ – Is opportunity equal? 7. The structure of self-confidence – Educational inequality and self-esteem 8. The incentive divide - Selecting the society of the future 9. Afterword