South Korea is noted for hard-fought competition in university admission exams, which are widely believed to determine one’s prospects and shape their takers’ entire lives. Long after graduation, do admissions exams still influence social circumstances? In this book, Shin Arita validates this belief with vast amounts of sociological data. He traces the mechanisms that show the test’s role in the formation of social strata.
Price: $120.00
Pages: 304
Publisher: University of Tokyo Press
Imprint: University of Tokyo Press
Publication Date:
26 December 2028
Trim Size: 7.80 X 5.20 in
ISBN: 9784130572019
Format: Hardcover
East Asia is a hot spot where people’s educational enthusiasm is realized in rigorous competition for academic credentials; an outcome of which is students’ higher academic performances in international comparisons. South Korea is a country with a well-known intensive academic meritocracy. Does the academic meritocracy, however, accurately reflect the reality of the society? How is an ‘objective’ condition of the effect of academic credentials on one’s socioeconomic status converted into a ‘subjective’ condition of the effect of one’s academic credentials? Shin Arita, a comparative sociologist, renders cogent answers to these questions though his comprehensive quantitative analyses, which uncover accurate figures of Korean meritocracy. Readers can learn from Arita’s thorough investigations what roles education plays in shaping social stratification in a rapidly modernized society. This is a must-read book for those who are interested in the evolution of meritocracy.
Shin Arita is a professor at the Unversity of Tokyo.
Introduction
Part I. Theory, Structure, and System
Chapter 1. Theoretical Consideration of Academic Credential and Distribution of Position/Remuneration
Chapter 2. Social Hierarchical Structure and Industrialization in South Korea
Chapter 3. School Education Systems and Selection Systems of South Korea
Part II. Economic Remuneration, Occupational Rank, and Social Mobility
Chapter 4. Effect of Academic Credentials on Wage Level and Its Change
Chapter 5. Effect of Academic Credentials on Determination of Occupational Positions and Its Change: Analyzing the Job Engagement Process of New Graduates
Chapter 6. Educational Achievement, and Social Stratification / Stratification Mobility
Epilogue. Impression of Academic Credential-Based Society and the South Korean Society: The Academic Credential Effect, Education System, and Distribution Issue
