The Japanese Professor
An Ethnography of a University Faculty
Foreword by Roger Goodman, University of Oxford
Gregory S. Poole
University of Tsukuba, Japan
This monograph is a substantial contribution to our knowledge of the internal
workings of a Japanese university, focussing on the world view of the professor. In this
anthropological case study of a private university in urban Tokyo conducted through
extended participant observation, Gregory Poole, at once both an insider and outsider,
tells an ethnographic story that explicates a professoriate’s working world.
The author addresses one basic problem—how do Japanese professors confi gure their
working world? In answering this research question, he demonstrates how the present
climate of competition and restructuring means that faculty members in Japan are
faced with the challenge of culturally translating largely western concepts of the
university while steadfastly preserving their own local culture of higher education. This
book describes the resulting cultural debates and competing discourses that surround
the key concepts in the work-life of Japanese professors. It is of special interest to
scholars in the fi elds of comparative education, Japanese Studies, and sociocultural
anthropology as well as academic and administrative staff employed at universities in
Japan and abroad.
“There have been few anthropological analyses of the lives and work of university
professors in Japan, or for that matter, anywhere else. Poole is able to give satisfactory
explanations perhaps for the fi rst time in the English literature as to why Japanese
universities function in the ways that they do, ways that sometimes seem bizarre and
counter-productive to the western observer.”
J.S. Eades, Professor of Anthropology and Dean of the School of Asia Pacifi c Studies,
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacifi c University.
Gregory S. Poole is Professor of Anthropology in the Graduate School of Humanities
and Social Sciences at the University of Tsukuba. His area of research includes the
anthropology of education, language, and Japan and his publications include Higher
Education in East Asia: Neoliberalism and the Professoriate (2009), co-edited with
Ya-chen Chen, and “The Japanese University in Crisis” (2005), coauthored with Ikuo
Amano (Higher Education).
The Japanese Pr
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fessor
Gr
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ory S. P
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S e n s e P u b l i s h e r s
DIVS
The Japanese Professor
An Ethnography of a University
Faculty
Foreword by Roger Goodman, University of Oxford
Gregory S. Poole
S e n s e
P u b l i s h e r s
The Japanese Professor
An Ethnography of a University Faculty
By
Gregory S. Poole
University of Tsukuba, Japan
SENSE PUBLISHERS
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ISBN 978-84-6091-166-8 (e-book)
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v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
vii
Preface
xi
Introduction
1
Chapter 1
Japanese Tertiary Education
13
Chapter 2
Reform of Japanese
Higher Education
45
Chapter 3 Discourses of Reform and Tradition: The Multivocality 69
of
Daigaku
Chapter 4
Building Cultural Capital at Work: “Good” Sensei/ “Bad”
Sensei
105
Chapter 5
Cultural Performance: Uchimuki and Sotomuki Career
Paths
127
Chapter 6 Conclusion
137
Appendix EUC Organizational Chart
149
Notes
151
Glossary
157
References
165
Index
183