School Socioeconomic Context and Teacher Job Satisfaction in Japanese Compulsory Education

Abstract

Sociologists in education have pointed out disparities associated with socioeconomic status (SES) in the Japanese compulsory education system that was once regarded as egalitarian. In addition to disparities between individual students, prior studies have empirically shown SES-based disparities among schools on important indicators such as academic performance. This study extends the literature on the disparities among schools in compulsory education by focusing on one critical but inadequately explored factor: teachers.