1. Wataru Nakazawa Osaka University, JAPAN
Impact of High School Tracking on Educational Choices: A Quantitative Analysis of Japanese Data
Wataru Nakazawa
Osaka University, JAPAN

2. Type of Tracking
Japan
Between-school streams based on curricular differentiation or academic performance at the senior high school level.
Movement between streams is not permitted in principle.
(LeTendre et al., 2003; Kariya and Rosenbaum, 1999; Lucas, 1999)
◆Tracking effects (Gamoran, 1986; Pallas et al. 1994; Chmielewski et al. 2013)
1. The instructional aspect
2. The social aspect
3. The institutional aspect

3. The Japanese Context of Tracking
Junior High School
(Compulsory)
High School Entrance
Exam
15-year-olds
High School
Academic(General) Course
Schools are ranked based on students’ academic performance.
Higher Education
University
Junior College
Specialized Training College
High School
Vocational Course
Labor Market

4. SES, Tracking, and Academic Grades
Most Japanese believe that entrance examinations are meritocratic. They tend to disregard the effect of SES.
Of course, like other industrialized societies, students’ SES affects their academic performance in Japan.
→Students from high socioeconomic backgrounds tend to enter the prestigious academic high schools (Matsuoka, 2013; Ono, 2001).
Students from high socioeconomic backgrounds have an advantage in going on to university (Ishida, 2007).

5. Changes in the Population of 18-year-olds and in the Number of High School Graduates Source: Statistics Bureau in Japan

6. Changes in the Advancement Rate to Tertiary Educational Institutions Source: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology

7. Changes in the Advancement Rate to 4-year Universities Source: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology

8. “Real” Tracking Effect or Selection?
High School Entrance Examinations
Academic performance is the most significant factor.
Junior high school students take practice examination multiple times, and they understand their academic performance.
They choose their high schools on the basis of their practice examination scores (Kariya and Rosenbaum, 1999; 1989).
High schools are ranked based on how many graduates passed entrance examinations of elite universities.
→Applicants who are able to pass entrance examinations for elite universities are concentrated in specific high schools.
Does it mean that these high schools provide an effective education, or they selected efficient students in advance?

9. Hypotheses(1)
High school tracking has a real effect on advancement to (elite) university.
The real effect of high school tracking on advancement to (elite) university cannot be determined.

10. Hypotheses(2)
Students from high socioeconomic backgrounds originally tend to go on to university On the other hand, those from low socioeconomic backgrounds may have larger effects on advancement to university.
For men, the advancement to university is not rare. While the effect of tracking in advancement to all universities may be negligible, tracking may have an effect in advancement to elite universities.
For women, advancing to all universities do not yet constitute 50%, and the number of female elite university students is still small. While tracking may have an effect in advancement to all universities, tracking may have a negligible effect on advancement to elite universities.

11. Data and Variables Japanese Life Course Panel Survey (JLPS)
Institute of Social Sciences, the University of Tokyo.
Started in 2007, followed up annually.
Original sample size = 4,800 men and women born between 1966 and National representatives based on multistage sampling.
Detailed information about education included in the 2008 survey.
The “real” effect of tracking － propensity score matching (Guo and Fraser, 2010)
When respondents indicated that most people in their classroom went on to universities, respondents were considered to have graduated from “academic high schools.” (=1)
Other respondents were defined as “not academic high schools.” (=0)
Elite universities include Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hokkaido, Tohoku, Nagoya, Kyushu, Hitotsubashi, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tsukuba, Hiroshima, Chiba, Yokohama National, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Kobe, Waseda, Keio, ICU, Sophia, Meiji, Aoyama, Rikkyo, Chuo, Hosei, Tokyo University of Science, Doshisha, Kwansei Gakuin, Kansai, and Ritsumeikan.

12. Analytical Strategy
A binary logistic regression analysis was estimated to predict the propensity score of attending academic high school.
Respondents’ birth cohort, their parents’ educational backgrounds, their father’s occupational class, the region they lived at age 15, their number of siblings, the number of books they had at age 15, their household standard of living at age 15, whether they had their own room at age 15, and their position in their class based on academic grade in the third year of junior high school were included in this model.
Propensity scores were divided into five quintiles.
I matched the samples of actual academic high school graduates and non-academic high school graduates on the basis of their same nearest neighbors within a caliper of a quarter of the standard deviation of propensity scores.
I compared the real advancement rates to all universities and to elite universities between high school tracks for each quantile group.

13. Predicted Probabilities of Advancement Rate to Elite Universities (Men)

14. Predicted Probabilities of Advancement Rate to All Universities (Men)

15. Predicted Probabilities of Advancement Rate to Elite Universities (Women)

16. Predicted Probabilities of Advancement Rate to All Universities (Women)

17. Results
Academic high school tracking effects differs between men and women.
For men, the academic high school tracking has a positive effect on advancement to elite universities.
For women, it has a positive effect on advancement to all universities.
For both genders with low propensity scores, academic high school tracking has positive effects on advancement to elite universities.

18. Implications
For students, including those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, enrolling in a prestigious academic high school can enhance educational aspirations due to increased confidence, because people believe that educational achievement in Japan reflects ability.
Even if high school tracking has a positive effect on students from low socioeconomic backgrounds in the advancement to elite universities, the number of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds who have succeeded in enrolling in academic high schools is limited.
The majority of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds are left behind. Therefore, tracking may still preserve or expand social inequality and economic disparities.
Other kinds of assistance should be provided to lower-track schools.

19. References
Chmielewski, Anna K., Hanna Dumont, and Ulrich Trautwein, 2013, “Tracking Effects Depend on Tracking Type: An International Comparison of Students’ Mathematics Self-Concept,” American Educational Research Journal, 50(5):
LeTendre, Gerald K., Barbara K. Hofer, and Hidetada Shimizu, 2003, “What Is Tracking? Cultural Expectations in the United States, Germany, and Japan,” American Educational Research Journal, 40(1):
Gamoran, Adam, 1986, “Instructional and Institutional Effects of Ability Grouping,” Sociology of Education, 59:
Guo, Shenyang, and Mark W. Fraser, 2010, Propensity Score Analysis: Statistical Methods and Applications, Thousand Oakes: Sage.
Ishida, Hiroshi, 2007, “Japan: Educational Expansion, and Inequality in Access to Higher Education,” Yossi Shavit, Richard Arum, and Adam Gamoran eds. Stratification in Higher Education: A Comparative Study, Stanford: Stanford University Press,
Kariya, Takehiko, James E. Rosenbaum, 1989, “Self-Selection in Japanese Junior High Schools: A Longitudinal Study of Students’ Educational Plans,” Sociology of Education, 60:
――――――――――――――――, 1999, “Blight Flight: Unintended Consequences of Detracking Policy in Japan,” American Journal of Education, 107(3):
Lucas, Samuel R., 1999, Tracking Inequality: Stratification and Mobility in American High Schools, New York: Teachers College Press.
Matsuoka, Ryoji, 2013, “Tracking Effect on Tenth Grade Students’ Self-learning Hours in Japan,” Sociological Theory and Methods, 28(1):
Ono, Hiroshi, 2001, “Who Goes to College? Features of Institutional Tracking in Japanese Higher Education,” American Journal of Education, 109(2):
Pallas, Aaron M., Doris R. Entwisle, Karl L. Alexander, and M. Francis Stluka, 1994, “Ability-Group Effects: Instructional, Social, or Institution+al?” Sociology of Education, 67:

20. Thank you for your attention!
This research was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S)（numbers and ) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). The research support in conducting the panel surveys from the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo and the Outsourcing Company is gratefully acknowledged. The permission to use the panel data is obtained from the Research Planning Committee of the Japanese Life Course Panel Surveys.