Japanese Education and the Cram School Business: Functions, Challenges and Perspectives of the Juku (review)

The term juku appears in the index of almost every English-language book on education in Japan. The fact that so many authors have decided to retain the Japanese word rather than use an English equivalent may indicate a widespread impression that the juku phenomenon is special to Japan. In many books, the concept of juku appears in a section that lists the problems of the Japanese education system. Juku are seen as either a symptom or a cause of the high-pressure school system with its intense competition and its emphasis on getting ahead by passing difficult entrance exams.

In spite of the important role ascribed by so many to juku, and in spite of their controversial nature, there has not been up until now a book-length study devoted entirely to this phenomenon. Marie Roesgaard therefore pro-vides a very important service by making such a study. Some readers may be disappointed by Roesgaard's decision to spend the bulk of the book describing juku organizations from the perspective of owners, managers, public relations people, and others rather than taking a more critical line. I would have liked to have seen more information from the perspective of consumers: parents and especially children. However, the juku phenomenon cannot be understood without looking at how the juku schools themselves account for their success (and business is booming in this sector—in spite of a steady reduction in the population of potential customers). I must add that I felt a certain frustration, however, that Roesgaard does not do more in the final section of the book to analyze the place of the juku in the broader Japanese education system. The author writes at the start that a "central aim of the book is to describe the relation between juku, regular schools and Monbushō" (p. 22). In fact, readers looking for deep insights into these relations will be disappointed. Those who are content with a nuanced and detailed understanding of the juku organizations themselves, however, will be satisfied.

The book is organized into three parts preceded by a separate introductory chapter. Part I is concerned with mapping a typology of juku. Part II is the heart of the book and is longer than parts I and III put together. It covers the juku case studies and is divided into four chapters. The case studies are five organizations that the author defines as shingaku juku (Kawai Juku, Nichinōken, Yotsuya Otsuka, Sundai Rindenskuuru, and SAPIX), two ho-shū juku (NPS Gakuin and Tanaka Eisu Juku), and two doriru [drill] juku (Kumon and Benesse). Research mostly takes the form of visits to the juku and interviews with juku representatives. The fourth chapter in this section is a summary of these case studies. Part III relates this research to wider debates concerning education in Japan such as education reform, the problem of demographic change, and inequality.

When scholars, journalists, or other authors writing about Japan use the word juku without a modifier, they are usually referring to private after-school academies whose main aim is to help students prepare for school entrance exams. It would be more correct to refer to this type of school as one variety of gakushū juku, i.e., juku that supplement the regular school curriculum (including the informal "curriculum" dictated by entrance ex-ams). Roesgaard is concerned with this kind of juku and sensibly avoids discussing other types of schools that might use juku in their names but that are concerned with nonacademic activities such as piano lessons.

Even the term gakushū juku, however, encompasses a wide variety of institutions. One of the major contributions of the book, therefore, is to start a proper debate about what would best serve as a typology for the gakushū juku. Roesgaard opts for the method of placing existing institutions on "a continuum...