A Comparative Study on Educational Aspirations

Abstract

This paper focuses on the changes in peoples perception over education overtime in South Korea and Japan and explores the reasons behind the changes. Firstly, the structural factors which affect the educational aspirations are examined. Chapter 1 showed the concentration degree of political, economical and cultural functions on the capital area was much higher in South Korea than in Japan. As the difference in educational systems, Chapter 2 showed that the state controls for entrance exams and school education systems were much stronger in South Korea than in Japan. In Chapter 3, the functions of academic credentials were examined and it signified that the value of college diploma has dropped significantly in both countries in the past 20 years. Then in Chapter 4, how peoples views on education have changed in South Korea and Japan in the context of this environmental change. In Japan, judging from the change in educational spending and the time spent in out-side school, the overall educational aspiration has remained steady or even decreased for the past 20 years. In contrast, the educational aspiration in South Korea has increased extensively since the 1990s. Secondly, the article examined how and why these changes occurred in Chapter 5. Many previous studies point out the cultural difference between these countries such as Confucius values. South Korean parents tend to commit much more in their childrens education than Japanese parents do and the peoples views over occupations are influenced more by Confucius values in South Korea. In addition to the cultural difference, this thesis raised the difference in the existence of regional difference and in the economic and social development stage as a factor of the changes in educational aspiration that occurred in these countries. The change in advance rates to universities from 1990 to 2010 shows that the regional gap has reduced in South Korea, while the gap has maintained in Japan. Furthermore, the economic and social situations are significantly different between South Korea and Japan as the population pyramid shows. The Japanese society has already reached the matured education society where the education levels of parents and its children are almost the same. However, South Korea is still in the stage of rising education level and the education levels of parents and children have not yet reached the same level. The factors presented in Chapter 5 remain a matter of speculation and a further empirical research should be done.