Why Are Christian Schools Popular in Japan Despite the Small Number of Christians? : A Case Study of a Catholic Girls’ Junior and Senior High School

1. Introduction

According to the Religious Yearbook (2024 edition) (Agency for Cultural Affairs, 2024) published by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the religious affiliation of the Japanese population is as follows: 47.1% identify with Buddhism, 48.4% with Shinto, and only 0.7% with Christianity. Thus, the number of Christians in Japan is relatively small. Nevertheless, Christian-affiliated schools are numerous and continue to attract many students. Among Catholic institutions, there are 148 elementary, junior high, and high schools affiliated with the Federation of Catholic Schools in Japan, and 29 universities and junior colleges under the Catholic University Association (Japan Federation of Catholic Schools, 2025a,b,c). For Protestant institutions, 102 educational corporations are affiliated with the Federation of Christian Schools in Japan, many of which manage multiple schools (Association of Christian Schools in Japan, 2025). With the exception of theological seminaries and a few other institutions that train clergy, Christian belief is not a requirement for admission; nor is conversion to Christianity expected during enrollment.

Japan’s education system comprises six years of elementary school, three years each of junior and senior high school, and four years of higher education. Elementary and junior high school education is compulsory, and public schools at these levels are generally tuition-free. While public senior high schools and universities maintain relatively low tuition fees, Christian-affiliated schools are private. Private schools typically require higher fees. Despite this cost, Christian schools remain popular. In the Tokyo metropolitan area—including Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa—many students take competitive entrance exams to enroll in Christian-affiliated integrated junior and senior high schools, even though admission to municipal junior high schools, which offer compulsory education, is non-selective.

This paper focuses on an all-girls Christian-affiliated junior and senior high school in Japan. Through interviews with graduates of this institution, the study explores why Christian schools enjoy such popularity despite the low number of Christians in the country. As existing literature suggests, Christian schools are frequently perceived through the lens of an idealized ojō-sama (refined daughter from a good family), particularly among young women, and are often associated with admiration and a positive social images, which are thought to be one of the reasons for their popularity. Meanwhile, in this study, we analyze one case, an all-girls Christian-affiliated junior and senior high school in Japan to investigate how the appeal of Christian education may be linked to the acquisition of cultural capital, based on Bourdieu’s theoretical framework, thereby examining the reasons for the popularity of Christian schools.

2. Previous research

Prior research includes An Empirical Study of Religious Education in Contemporary Japan (1998–1999), a study funded by the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research, with Nobutaka Inoue as principal investigator. The report (Inoue et al., 2001) includes ten essays, but many of the discussions focus only on non-religious schools or compare religious and non-religious schools in general. Even when religious schools are examined, Christian schools constitute only a part of the target schools. Religion and Education (Inoue et al., 1997), edited by Nobutaka Inoue, includes a chapter based on a questionnaire survey of students at religiously affiliated universities and high schools. However, this too does not focus on Christian schools.

Yasuko Sato’s work (Sato, 2006) focuses directly on Christian schools. The book investigates how Christian schools are perceived and how such perceptions relate to the male gaze toward the idealized “destined woman (femme fatale).” Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of class reproduction, Sato argues that mission schools that aim to produce “good wives and wise mothers” have historically provided female graduates with the opportunity to attain higher social class through marriage. However, the study mainly analyzes past media content, such as novels, magazines, and comic books, rather than empirically examining people’s actual attitudes.

Why Are There So Many Beautiful Women in Mission Schools? (Inoue et al., 2018), with Shoichi Inoue as the lead author, is another significant prior study. Among its four chapters, Inoue’s “Foreword” and Chapter 1, Protestant Schools Should Not Be Underestimated, take an essayistic approach, while the rest of the book maintains a scholarly tone. These include Chapter 2, “The Success Story of Mission Universities” (by Guo Nan Yan), Chapter 3, “The Changing Christian Image” (by Shinzo Kawamura), and Chapter 4, “Catholicism That Created ‘Ojōsama’ Schools”. However, the book largely focuses on women at Christian universities, relying mostly on statistical and bibliographic data. There has been no detailed research into the image that contemporary individuals have of it.

Hana Krieg’s 2017 article (Krieg, 2017), The Role of Christian Schools and Their Educational Significance, is also worth noting. This study discusses Christian schools as spaces where specific values are acquired and embodied, using the example of a prestigious Protestant girls’ Christian middle and high school in Kanagawa Prefecture. However, it is essentially based on literature and does not include any actual investigation of public attitudes. Moreover, neither Krieg’s study nor the literature it reviews addresses the relationship between Christian education and cultural capital.

Another relevant work is Popular Image of Students Enrolled in Christian Schools and the Founding Purpose of Christian Schools – A Study Based on a Survey of Youth Living in Tokyo/Kanagawa Prefectures (Goto et al., 2025). This paper analyzes a web-monitoring survey conducted in 2020 with 700 individuals aged 15–29 residing in Tokyo and Kanagawa. The study offers three reasons why the popularity of Christian schools is not contradictory to the small number of Christians in Japan. First, stakeholders interpret the founding purpose of Christian schools not in a narrow missionary sense, but in a broader sense of fulfilling a God-given mission. Second, many see the significance of Christian schools in pragmatic terms—such as the acquisition of foreign languages and cultures. Third, Christian education is seen as supportive of a flexible idea of “triple-layered faithⁱ.” However, merely 39.4% of the respondents had affiliation with Christian schools. Among these, only 15.4% had actually attended or were currently attending a Christian school. Although supplemental interviews were also conducted, they were not designed as in-depth qualitative studies. As such, little is known about how individuals who actually attended Christian schools understand the founding purposes of these institutions.

3. Research objectives and methodology

This study builds upon the prior research by Goto et al. (2025), with a particular focus on one of their key topics: the founding purposes of Christian schools. Our objective is to explore in greater detail how individuals who attended Christian-affiliated schools perceive the foundational intentions behind these institutions. To achieve this, we conducted a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with graduates of a Catholic all-girls junior and senior high school (hereafter referred to as “School X”), which is widely regarded as one of the competitive schools in Saitama City, Japan. This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Institute of Library, Information and Media Science, University of Tsukuba (Approval No. 23-140). All participants provided written consent to be part of the research. In addition, all participants were 18 years of age or older and therefore did not fall under the definition of minors as stipulated by the Committee.

Our goal is to assess whether the stated founding purpose of the Christian-affiliated school aligns with the criteria these graduates used when selecting the school. Through this inquiry, we aim to offer insights into why Christian schools continue to be popular in a country with a relatively small Christian population. Inspired by Sato’s earlier work, we also examine the image of Christian schools as perceived by female graduates—particularly in relation to the acquisition of cultural capital and the possibility of attaining higher social status through that capital. In contrast to earlier eras, when Christian education for women was associated with upward mobility via marriage and the cultivation of the “good wife and wise mother” ideal, contemporary young women may view Christian schools as a space where they can independently acquire cultural capital and chart their own paths toward elevated social positions. We pay close attention to this shift in the context of contemporary gender politics.

When students perceive the founding mission of the school to be aligned with their own reasons for choosing it, and believe that this alignment supports the acquisition of cultural capital and upward mobility through personal effort, such coherence may be key. This may help explain the enduring popularity of Christian schools in Japan.

To understand current perceptions, and in light of Goto et al.’s (2025) focus on youth, we conducted interviews with recent graduates of School X who were in their first year of university at the time of the study. The interviews were conducted online in February 2024, in the format of a group interview. Five university students (all aged 18 or older), who had graduated from School X within the previous year, participated in a semi-structured group discussion. Notably, one of the five participants was a baptized Catholic who had received infant baptism (According to what they said, of the 160-170 students in each grade, there are only two or three Christians in each grade, and in some years there are none at all.).

We chose to focus on those who graduated from a Christian secondary school rather than those who are currently attending Christian universities because Goto et al. (2025) also found that awareness of school culture tends to decline at the university level in comparison to junior and senior high school levelsⁱⁱ. All interview participants were close friends with one another. The conversation lasted approximately three hours. We analyzed the data using the KJ methodⁱⁱⁱ, which is well-suited for uncovering themes in qualitative research.

4. Cultural capital, economic capital, social capital, and symbolic capital

In this study, we adopt the concept of cultural capital as theorized by Pierre Bourdieu ( Bourdieu, 1990a,b; Bourdieu, 1992) in order to analyze how graduates of a Christian-affiliated girls’ junior and senior high school perceive the value of their school experience and the social advantages it may confer. Cultural capital refers to the cultural elements that contribute to the reproduction of social inequality in a given society (Iso, 2022). Alongside cultural capital, Bourdieu identifies economic capital and social capital as additional dimensions of social stratification. The former consists of financial assets, while the latter includes networks, relationships, and social connections.

In addition to these three, Bourdieu introduces the notion of symbolic capital, which encompasses honor, prestige, and authority as socially recognized forms of value. Symbolic capital may overlap with cultural, economic, or social capital, depending on the field (champ (French)) in which it is deployed. For example, academic credentials may be perceived as cultural capital in one context and as symbolic capital in another.

Applying this framework to the context of Christian schooling, we argue that students may internalize the religious knowledge and cultural expectation embedded in such schools and, through this process, acquire resources that can provide them with advantages in their future social and professional lives. In this sense, Christian schools may serve as institutions that not only transmit religious and moral values but also enable the accumulation of cultural capital, foster social capital through alumni networks, and grant symbolic capital via the school’s institutional reputation.

Bourdieu further conceptualizes capital in relation to two interdependent constructs: field (champ) and habitus. A field refers to a social arena in which actors engage in competition over specific forms of capital. Each field operates according to its own logic, values, and stakes, and to succeed in a field, one must understand and conform to its internal rules. Field thus functions as a site of struggle for dominance and legitimacy, and capital can be considered the currency by which actors compete (Bourdieu,1990a,b; Bourdieu, 1992).

Habitus is defined as a system of durable, transposable dispositions—dispositions being internalized patterns of perception, evaluation, and action. Habitus is produced by the trajectory (trajectoire) of an individual’s life as shaped by their position within and across multiple fields. At the same time, habitus also actively reproduces and reshapes the structure of those fields and the distribution of capital within them. It thus functions as what Bourdieu calls a “structure-generating structure” (Bourdieu,1990a,b; Bourdieu, 1992).

The relative position of an individual within a given field depends not only on the quantity and type of capital they possess but also on how their habitus allows them to mobilize and deploy these forms of capital. Importantly, Bourdieu’s introduction of habitus enables a non-deterministic understanding of social action, incorporating a degree of fluidity into the otherwise rigid logic of structural positioning. In this view, the strategies actors adopt in the field—their practices, aspirations, and calculations—are shaped by their habitus, which itself is formed through historical participation in particular social environments.

Reconsidering the notion of capital through the interrelations among capital, field, and habitus leads to an important theoretical insight: the same resource may take on different meanings depending on the field. A luxury car, for example, may function as cultural capital in a field where taste and lifestyle are emphasized, while in another it may be read as a straightforward expression of economic capital. In short, whether a given resource operates as cultural, economic, social, or symbolic capital can only be determined through analysis of the triadic relationship among the resource, the field in which it is situated, and the habitus of the actor who uses it. Consequently, Bourdieu argues that there is no such thing as a universally valid medium of capital—economic, social, cultural, or symbolic—that functions in the same way across all fields. Capital is always field-dependent and socially constructed.

In this study, when we refer to “cultural capital, social capital, or symbolic capital acquired through Christian schooling,” we mean those forms of capital that graduates are able to recognize, activate, and utilize in the various fields they enter after graduation. Cultural capital, in this context, includes knowledge, skills, and internalized values; social capital is embodied in relationships and networks such as alumnae associations; and symbolic capital is found in the external recognition and prestige associated with the school’s name and tradition.

Moreover, we argue that the graduates’ ways of engaging in social competition within these fields are shaped by their habitus—dispositions formed and reinforced through the values and experiences of their Christian education. Habitus not only informs their actions but may also serve as a guiding principle that enables them to imagine and enact alternatives to existing social hierarchies. While the pursuit of higher social status may in earlier generations have occurred through marriage, contemporary graduates may instead envision self-determined pathways that involve the strategic deployment of capital accumulated through education.

In what follows, we examine how graduates of School X recognize and activate the various forms of capital they acquired during their schooling, and how these capitals function in the social fields they now inhabit. We also analyze the role of habitus—formed through Christian schooling—as both an embodied legacy of their educational experience and a generative principle for further acquisition of cultural capital throughout the life course.

5. Capital acquired through schooling

6. Attitudes toward freedom in school

The interviews revealed that the respondents understood the climate of X School as one that embraces freedom. The term “freedom (within the school’s climate)” appeared in the comments of Students B, D, C, and E. For instance, Student C described freedom as “being in a space where you can live without reservation.” Although Student E did not explicitly define what she meant by freedom, she referred to it in various ways, saying things like “I felt like they valued me as I was” and “a kind of freedom where things aren’t overly enforced.” In recounting her experience with career guidance, Student D also implied this meaning, stating that “it was very free in the sense that nothing was forced.” In this way, the respondents perceived “freedom (within the school’s climate)” as the ability to live freely without coercion.

They also used the word “freedom” in relation to the perceived flexibility of Catholicism in Japan. Student A, whose twin sister attended a Protestant school, said that the religious education at X School seemed “rather lax” in comparison to that at Protestant schools. Student D, a Catholic, referred to her mother’s view that while Protestantism is “strict” and “rigid,” Catholicism is “relatively free,” and added that compared to the Protestant school her brother had attended, “X School was much freer,” indicating that she shared the same view. Furthermore, D’s account of celebrating traditional milestones such as Shichi-Go-San and Seijin-shiki (Coming-of-Age Day) at church, while also visiting Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples with her family, supports the idea that Catholicism is considered flexible and free in this context. These observations suggest that Student D’s emphasis on “freedom (within the school’s climate)” stems from her perception that X School’s culture reflects the flexibility inherent in her own Catholic denomination.

The “freedom” they attribute to the school’s culture fundamentally refers to freedom from coercion. However, both Student A and D whose sibling attended a Protestant school expressed that Catholicism is not only non-coercive but also flexible, and they identified this flexibility as a form of freedom as well. —They viewed the spirit of X School as situated along this continuum of Catholic flexibility.

7. The founding purpose of the school

X School was established by a religious order based in Canada. The founding purpose of the school was to educate children so that they could discover and live according to the way of life God desires—that is, to find and fulfill their own mission. The education at X School can be understood as carrying the mission of fostering students’ awareness of the importance of living their own mission and of understanding Christian values. While this may potentially lead to evangelization, the school’s official website states clearly that, although students are educated based on a Christian view of humanity, they are not required to convert. The school’s founding purpose and mission, then, can be said to involve promoting Christian values and behaviors that become internalized in students as part of their everyday lives.

8. Reasons why students and parents chose X school for junior high school

What reasons did the students and their parents have for choosing X School at the time of the junior high school entrance exams? While practical reasons such as academic prestige, exam location, and timing were mentioned in the interviews, this section focuses on internal reasons, so those practical factors are not discussed in detail here.

Student D and her parents are Catholics, and she said they encouraged her to attend a Catholic school if she were to go to a Christian school. Other reasons mentioned include favorable impressions from acquaintances who attended the school and positive experiences at school information sessions or cultural festivals. Student C noted that a friend of her brother had been accepted to the school, that it was a girls’ school, and that she knew many students with outgoing personalities. Student E mentioned that she had relatives who attended the school and that she had a good impression of the atmosphere when she visited. Student D said that meeting the principal at a “Christian School Fair” and finding them to be a kind person, as well as the atmosphere at the cultural festival, influenced her decision. Student B decided to take the entrance exam after hearing a senior student’s story at a cram school event the previous year.

From these responses, we can see that the students held a positive image of the school. They referred to acquaintances such as “my brother’s friend,” “relatives,” and “a senior student who passed the exam last year,” as well as the personality of the principal—“I thought the principal was a really nice person” (Student D, also echoed by Students E and C). Additionally, both Students C and A cited the fact that it was a girls’ school as a reason for their choice.

It was also clear that the girls got a feel for the school’s atmosphere by listening to the principal’s story of “Carrot, Radish, and Burdock” at the information session. Student A said that, while other schools emphasize how many students go on to prestigious universities like the University of Tokyo or to medical schools, X School shared stories like that instead, which made her feel the school had a laid-back atmosphere. Student E also felt that this story reflected the school’s acceptance of individuality and described it as “a lovely idea.” Student C commented that, unlike typical school sessions that focused on academic results and university admissions, the speaker from X School did not talk about such matters and that “the principal’s relaxed speaking style was very engaging.” Similarly, Student D noted that while other schools emphasized entrance into prestigious universities, X School uniquely emphasized the value of carrots and such, and her mother—who heard the same story in the waiting room during the entrance exam—said, “I thought it was a very interesting school.” Student B, although not present at the information session, said that after entering the school and hearing the principal’s “Carrot” story, she felt “influenced by the school’s atmosphere.”

Comments such as “laid-back” (Student A), “a nice idea” (Student E), “a relaxed and interesting principal” (Student C), “what a unique school” (Student D), and “influenced by the atmosphere” (Student B) suggest that these students resonated more with the idea of “living as one’s true self” than with discussions focused solely on academic performance or prestige. Additionally, D’s mother’s remark that “it seemed like a very interesting school” suggests that the school’s emphasis on living one’s true self also resonated with parents.

9. The founding mission of the school and the intentions of students and parents

As discussed in the previous chapter, X School clearly presents its educational philosophy during school information sessions and other events: rather than measuring oneself by comparison to others, students are encouraged to accept themselves as they are, respect others, and strive to become their true selves. This philosophy is understood not only by students but also by their parents, who consciously choose to enroll their children in the school with these values in mind.

The educational goal of X School is not to produce students who gain admission to prestigious and highly ranked universities, but rather to guide students toward becoming individuals who accept themselves without comparison to others and who respect those around them as they work toward discovering and becoming their authentic selves. Students who understand this goal perceive the school as a relaxed, liberating, and pleasant space, and they are drawn to it out of a sense of shared values. As expressed by Student D’s mother, who described it as “a very interesting school,” parents too resonate with the school’s educational philosophy as conveyed in information sessions, and choose to send their children to X School based on that alignment.

Although Student D was the only one to explicitly comment from a parental perspective during the interviews, it is important to note that, in Japan, it is extremely rare for elementary school students to attend school information sessions alone; they typically go with their parents. Parents who attend such sessions with their children and hear the school emphasize living as one’s true self over university entrance results are more likely to resonate with that message and choose X School over other schools with similar academic reputations or entrance success rates. Considering these circumstances, it is highly likely that the parents who choose X School for their children are seeking an education that fosters the ability to accept oneself without comparison, to respect others, and to aim to become one’s authentic self.

From the above, we can conclude—at least based on this study—that the founding mission of X School aligns with the intentions and values held by both students and their parents.

10. Discussion

As our analysis has shown, the interviewees were clearly aware that the knowledge, culture, and Christian values they acquired through their schooling—internalized through practice and embodied as habitus—constitute resources that could prove useful in their future lives. In other words, they recognized that they had gained cultural capital. Yet, from an analytical perspective, it seems likely that the education they received at X School will serve them in even more significant ways than they themselves currently realize.

As discussed in Chapter 5, while the concept of “cultural capital” was not explicitly invoked, the graduates nonetheless interpreted their experiences in terms that align closely with the notion. They viewed the acquisition of knowledge and cultural understanding related to Christianity as an asset, particularly in navigating intercultural contexts. Furthermore, a strong sense of belonging to X School was repeatedly expressed, a form of identification that fosters tightly-knit alumni relations—potentially a source of social capital that may benefit them in building future networks. Additionally, because the school is perceived as having symbolic value in wider society, the experience of attending X School may also function as symbolic capital.

Beyond this, students internalized the school’s core values of Sei (righteousness), Jou (purity), and Wa (harmony)—principles that encouraged them to accept themselves without comparison to others, to value authenticity, and to treat others with respect. This moral and relational orientation constitutes a form of habitus that is not only transferable across social contexts, but also productive: it enables the further accumulation of cultural capital in the form of practical life guidance. In this sense, what they have gained through school—knowledge, dispositions, and a set of guiding principles—may support their future career trajectories and social mobility. Particularly, possessing a clear sense of purpose or “life compass” is crucial for sustainable career formation, including during moments of transition.

As Chapter 7 outlined, the foundational mission of X School is to offer students such a compass—encouraging the development of the Sei-Jou-Wa spirit. While students may choose the school for a range of reasons, including pragmatic ones, our interview data (as explored in Chapters 8 and 9) suggest that alignment with the school’s values played a central role in the decision-making process for many of our participants and their families.

Taken together, these findings suggest that X School’s educational model contributes meaningfully to students’ accumulation of cultural capital. This capital is not only instrumental for personal development and social positioning but also serves as a reason why families choose Christian schools like X School. Moreover, the perception of such schools as providers of valuable cultural capital contributes to the production of both social and symbolic capital, reinforcing the school’s reputation. In this way, our analysis of X School graduates points to a strong alignment between the school’s founding ideals and the expectations and values of its students and their families—a convergence that likely helps explain the enduring popularity of X School in a largely non-Christian society like Japan.

11. Conclusion

In this paper, we conducted semi-structured interviews with graduates of a Catholic all-girls junior and senior high school (referred to as “X School”) who were first-year university students at the time of the study. Through this, we examined the relationship between the school’s founding purpose and the criteria by which it is selected as an educational institution. We aimed to clarify, from the perspective of cultural capital, one reason why Christian all-girls schools continue to attract students in Japan, where the Christian population is small.

As a result, we found that in the case of X School, one reason why such Christian schools are highly regarded—despite the small number of Christians in Japan—can be understood through the lens of various forms of capital and habitus, with a particular focus on cultural capital. However, it should be noted that the findings presented here are based on interviews with a specific group of students, and further research is needed to determine whether the results can be generalized to Catholic all-girls schools or Christian mission schools more broadly^iv. Furthermore, in order to expand this to Protestant middle and high schools, it will be necessary to consider the similarities and differences between Catholic mission and Protestant calling, as well as the differences in the flexibility of each toward other religions (Morimoto points out the lack of tolerance within the various denominations of Protestantism (Morimoto, 2018)). From there, we must also consider what Christian middle and high schools have in common.

Moreover, while we inferred and gathered impressions of parents’ perspectives through the graduates’ interview responses, we did not directly investigate the views of the parents themselves. This is another issue that needs to be addressed in future studies.