The insecurity industry: Supplementary education in Japan

Abstract

Purpose

To understand high demand for juku and yobiko, this chapter reviews the history, institutionalization, areas of innovation, and future of supplementary education in Japan.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Fieldwork in owner-operated supplementary education institutions.

Findings

The Japanese government has long publicly disavowed the existence of a large-scale supplementary education industry (juku and yobiko). Over the past 20 years or so, waves of moral panics regarding education (bullying, breakdown of classroom discipline, decline of academic abilities, school refusal, etc.) have led to a profound sense of insecurity among parents. While supplementary education has its roots in demographic and economic developments of the 1970s, its recent growth and further institutionalization into a mature business sector has been built on parents’ insecurity. This institutionalization marks Japanese supplementary education as a high-intensity system.

Originality/Value

Juku is particularly interesting in comparative perspective since Japan contains a highly institutionalized form of “hyper-education.”

Citation

Dierkes, J. (2013), "The insecurity industry: Supplementary education in Japan", Out of the Shadows: The Global Intensification of Supplementary Education (International Perspectives on Education and Society, Vol. 22), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 3-21. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3679(2013)0000022003