Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

The intergenerational reproduction of teachers increased from before WWII through the postwar period. This study examines why teachers desired occupational reproduction for the next generation in the early postwar era. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted using a teacher survey.

Paper long abstract

The social background of teachers has been examined as an important factor in their anticipatory socialization. Research has analyzed the attributions, experiences, and consciousness of the current generation of teachers (i.e., in-service teachers or teacher candidates) and has revealed a tendency toward intergenerational reproduction that increased from before WWII through the postwar period. However, few studies have examined the generation of teachers' parents due to limited available data.

This analysis clarifies why teachers aimed for occupational reproduction in the next generation, focusing on their attributions, experiences, and consciousness. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted using a teacher survey from Miyagi Prefecture in the early postwar era (1951–1952).

A quantitative analysis using logistic regression revealed that teachers' age, positive reasons for applying, and intention to work lifelong influenced their desire for sons to become teachers (in an imaginary scenario).

After qualitatively analyzing the free descriptive answers about the desire for sons to become teachers (n = 98), I classified them into seven categories (including no answer). The most popular reason (n = 34) was "characteristics of teaching positions," citing reasons such as the stability, integrity, social significance, sense of fulfillment, and status of the teaching profession as an intellectual occupation. The second most popular reason (n = 11) was "occupational succession," which included responses expressing a desire to pursue the same occupation as a parent. The data suggest that the respondents have also become teachers like their parents, coming from "teacher families." As intergenerational reproduction among teachers expanded from the prewar period through the postwar era, the findings indicate that a small number of teachers were born into "teacher families" and held an intention, even in the early postwar period.

Finally, this study examines how intergenerational reproduction among teachers changed during the transition from premodern to modern times in Japan.