This paper revisits the correspondence principle of Bowles and Gintis (1976) – which refers to the mutual mimicking of the capitalist hierarchy in the workplace and the school. The Bowles-Gintis model still appears to be working in the context of schooling in Japan. In the international comparative educational assessment called PISA (Program for International Student Assessment), created by OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the association of advanced democratic nations), Japanese students achieve better results than most countries. Japanese students excel in PISA performance, especially in mathematics. Such excellence, however, has negative correlations with students’ creativity, positive attitudes, and independence. The PISA performance shows positive correlations with patience, rigor, and the attitude of ‘belonging to school’. Furthermore, Japanese students do not establish good relationships with their teachers. Based on these findings, this paper discusses critically the impact of decades-long Japanese recession on school-going young generations of Japanese. In general, it appears that – in Japan – the instilling and mimicking of strict hierarchy continues in the schools, and in workplaces
