Constructed aspirations: Decision-making processes in Japanese educational selection

This article contends that individual educational decisions are constructed using the "rationalized myths" of specific institutions. An analysis of decision making in Japanese middle schools revealed that students' decisions are highly affected by the process of placement counseling. Although entrance into high school is based on meritocratic means of selection, placement counseling provides middle school students with information on high schools, defines their set of choices, inculcates values, and offers sets of rationales that students use to account for their decisions, thereby allowing significant inegalitarian effects to enter the overall process of educational attainment.