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Transfers and the Private Lives of Teachers TRANSFERS AND THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PUBLIC SERVANTS IN JAPAN: TEACHERS IN NAGASAKI’S OUTER ISLANDS by Blaine Phillip Connor B. A. in Philosophy, Dartmouth College, 1992 M. A. in English, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1994 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of PhD in Anthropology University of Pittsburgh 2010 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Blaine Phillip Connor It was defended on December 2, 2009 and approved by L. Keith Brown, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Anthropology Richard Scaglion, PhD, Professor, Anthropology Joseph S. Alter, PhD, Professor, Anthropology Akiko Hashimoto, PhD, Associate Professor, Sociology John W. Traphagan, PhD, Associate Professor, Religious Studies (U. T. Austin) Dissertation Advisor: L. Keith Brown, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Anthropology ii Copyright © by Blaine Phillip Connor 2010 iii TRANSFERS AND THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PUBLIC SERVANTS IN JAPAN: TEACHERS IN NAGASAKI’S OUTER ISLANDS Blaine Phillip Connor, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2010 Women’s workforce participation has been rising in advanced capitalist countries over the past decades, leading to a question about whether concepts of gender and work are changing. Answering the question is important, because that rise has been associated with a drop in marriage and birth rates, worrying governments concerned about who will pay into social security, replace retirees, do military service, etc. The theory linking these trends is that “traditional” gender concepts (e.g., women as the primary homemakers) hamper women’s ability to succeed at work. To address this question I researched public school teachers in Nagasaki, Japan. Men and women teachers work under equal conditions, including the obligation to accept relocations several times during their careers. Relocations challenge teachers’ work and family arrangements. Studying how teachers have dealt with them should reveal changes in concepts of work and gender. Through ethnographic fieldwork (2003-2006) in Nagasaki’s outer islands and archival research, I find that even though men and women teachers have long been asked to perform the same duties in terms of teaching courses, leading homerooms, serving on committees, interacting with parents, and accepting transfers and relocations, they respond to this “on-paper” gender-blind work environment in a way which reflects “traditional” gender concepts. Although both choose to iv relocate alone rather than disrupt a child's education or a parent’s elder care, women feel their absence from the home is a burden on others, so tend to race home often, whereas men feel their presence in the home is disruptive to others, so tend to “tough it out” without returning much. And if the family is threatened by the parents' absence from home due to work, the woman is the one expected to quit. “Gender-blind” policies permit men and women to combine work and family, but men’s and women’s gender concepts continue to shape how they balance these sometimes competing commitments and goals. These findings show that equalizing workforce participation does not lead to changes in concepts of work and gender, nor to a diminishment of gender’s significance, even when work policies are “gender-blind.” Culture can persist despite social and legal changes. v Dedication To my wife, Sachiyo; my daughter, Gwendolyn Miki; my son, Spencer Eitatsu; and the other women and men in my life who have helped me get this far. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS List of figures .......................................................................................................................... xii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... xiii Notes on Language and Common Abbreviations ................................................................ xvii Part I: Introduction and Overview ............................................................................................ 1 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 2 1.1 The relationship between the rise in women working and population decline ............ 3 1.2 Nagasaki public school teacher transfers as case study ................................................... 4 1.3 Research questions and methods ........................................................................................ 9 1.4 Findings ................................................................................................................................ 10 1.5 Chapter overview ................................................................................................................ 10 2. Transferring in Japan: An Overview ........................................................................ 16 2.1 Transferring as a common practice and major cultural force in Japan ....................... 19 2.2 Transferring and family separation ................................................................................... 21 Part II: Creating and Naturalizing the Compulsory Transfer System (1955-1984) ................. 27 3. Compulsory Transfers as a Part of the Recentralization of the Education System 28 3.1 The post-war decentralization of the education system ................................................ 29 3.2 Re-centralizing the education system ............................................................................... 33 3.3 Strong unions protected teachers’ rights ......................................................................... 35 3.4 Conservative rise leads to greater administrative control and weaker unions ............ 38 vii 3.5 “Normalizing” personnel transfers by forcing teachers to accept them ..................... 44 4. The Creation of Nagasaki’s Compulsory Wide Area Exchange Transfer System . 48 4.1 Chronic staffing problems in Nagasaki’s outer islands .................................................. 48 4.2 Failed attempts that respected the principle of voluntary transfers, 1952-1975 ........ 50 4.3 Considering compulsory solutions to the staffing problems, 1965-1975 ................... 56 4.4 “Normalization” and Wide Area Exchange Transfers, 1974-1977 .............................. 61 4.5 Dealing with the consent issue: the Request Form ........................................................ 68 4.6 Strikes, demonstrations, and protests – but no union victory ...................................... 70 4.7 Why Nagasaki’s unions could not muster enough opposition ..................................... 71 5. Responses to Compulsory Transfers, 1977-84: Self-Sacrifice, Enthusiasm, and Apathy .............................................................................................................................. 76 5.1 The unions: “mechanical” transfers erode teachers’ ability to be involved ................ 77 5.2 The Pref. BOE: correct values and professionalism lead to involvement .................. 83 5.3 What to make of these stories of heroism and sacrifice? .............................................. 91 Part III: Accommodating and Embracing the Compulsory Transfer System (1994-2005) .... 96 6. Transfers and Professional Development: The Problem of Stagnation ................. 97 6.1 Becoming adapted to a career of transferring .............................................................. 102 6.2 Accepting transfers as part of one’s professional identity .......................................... 112 6.3 The problem of teaching the “same” students ............................................................ 115 6.4 Ririko: different places have different types of parents .............................................. 116 6.5 Seiji: transferring can reveal the limitations of one’s approach ................................. 117 6.6 The problem of working with the same staff ............................................................... 122 6.7 Yukiko: the pressure on teachers to fit in rather than innovate ................................ 129 6.8 Summary ............................................................................................................................ 138 viii 7. Transfers Alleviate Social Conflicts and Limits to Growth ................................... 140 7.1 Transferring makes it easier to maturely handle interpersonal conflict ................... 141 7.2 Escaping inhospitable social environments .................................................................. 145 7.3 Unable to escape a reputation or adopt a new identity .............................................. 148 7.4 Life as a “public person” ................................................................................................. 151 7.5 Botchan ................................................................................................................................ 154 7.6 Hiroko: “hemmed in” by her rural neighbors .............................................................. 160 7.7 Movement is healthy, and other metaphoric understandings .................................... 165 7.8 Summary ............................................................................................................................ 168 8. Sacrificing (For) Family: Filial Piety, Children’s Needs, and Life Plans ............. 170 8.1 The stem family ...............................................................................................................
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