Bright flight: Unintended consequences of detracking policy in Japan

In many ways,Japan is an embodiment of meritocracy, stressing academic achi evement and disapproving of social class influences. Before 1970, Japan had a strong tradition in which public schools were superior to private ones. However, around that time, a progressive movement succeeded in implementing detracking policies in some prefectures, which also had some unintended co nsequences, the opposite of their egalitarian intentions. This article pres ents case studies and multivariate analyses that find that prefectures with egalitarian detracking reforms had the most flight from public to private schools and the emergence of the most withinschool grouping. We conclude th at when policies tried to get less seperation of students among public scho ols, separation emerged in other ways. The results have implications for th e design of tracking policies.