Progressive in rhetoric,conservative in practice: A structural critique of English education reform in Japan

Abstract

This paper critically examines the disjunction between reformist rhetoric and institutional practice in Japanese English education. While policy discourse increasingly invokes progressive ideals such as “learner autonomy,” “dialogic learning,” and “global competence,” the actual implementation of reform remains deeply embedded within conservative institutional structures. Drawing on critical sociological perspectives, including the work of Bourdieu, Freire, and meritocracy theory, this study argues that progressive educational concepts have been selectively appropriated and stripped of their emancipatory potential. Rather than functioning as tools of democratic transformation, these concepts are redeployed as reform vocabularies that stabilize existing institutional arrangements. The analysis traces how English proficiency, redefined as human capital, functions as a form of institutionalized cultural capital tied to socioeconomic status in Japan. Access to high-stakes English learning opportunities is unevenly distributed, and these disparities are subsequently legitimated through meritocratic discourse within admissions and evaluation systems. By interrogating the structural logics that underpin contemporary English education reform, this paper exposes how equity-oriented language can coexist with, and even reinforce, exclusionary practice. It calls for a critical reexamination of how educational ideals are mobilized within policy frameworks and argues for a more structurally transformative approach to reform—one that confronts, rather than conceals, systemic inequality.