1979年　東京大学教育学部教育学科（教育社会学コース）卒業
1981年　東京大学大学院教育学研究科修士課程修了（教育社会学専攻）、教育学修士修了
1988年　ノースウェスタン大学大学院修了　Ph.D.（社会学）

1986年　ノースウェスタン大学都市問題・都市政策研究所研究助手
1988年　放送教育開発センター研究開発部助手
1988年　放送教育開発センター研究開発部助教授
1989年　ノースウェスタン大学教育学大学院客員講師
1991年　東京大学教育学部専任講師
1992年　ウォーリック大学教育開発評価研究センター客員研究員
1993年　東京大学教育学部助教授
1995年　東京大学大学院教育学研究科助教授
1997年　ノースウェスタン大学政策研究所客員研究員（安倍フェロー）
2000年～2009年9月　東京大学大学院教育学研究科教授
2005年　オックスフォード大学セント・アントニーズ・カレッジ、ニッサンインスティテュート・客員研究員
2008年10月～2024年９月　オックスフォード大学社会学科およびニッサン現代日本研究所教授、セント・アントニーズ・カレッジ・フェロー
2024年4月〜　京都大学社会と人の未来研究院　特任教授
2024年10月～　上智大学　特任教授
2024年10月～　オックスフォード大学　名誉教授

Education Reform and Social Class in Japan, (2013), Routledge.
Education, Equality, and Meritocracy in a Global Age: the Japanese Approach (2020), Teachers College Press, Columbia University (co-authored with Jeremy Rappleye, the first author).

Challenges to Japanese Education: Economics, Reforms, and Human Rights , co-edited with June Gordon, Hidenori Fujita, and Gerald LeTender, Teachers College Press, 2010.
The State and Higher Education, co-edited with Roger Goodman, John Taylor, 2013, Symposium Books.

"Self-Selection in Japanese Junior High Schools" (the first author, co-authored with James E. Rosenbaum), Sociology of Education Vol. 60, No.3, 1987.
"From High School to Work: Market and Institutional Mechanisms in Japan," (the second author, co-authored with James E. Rosenbaum), American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 94, No.6, 1989.
"Market and Network Theories of the Transition from High School to Work: Their Application to Industrialized Societies," (the second author, co-authored with James E. Rosenbaum, Rick Settersten, and Tony Maier), Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 16, 1990.
"Do School Achievements Affect the Early Jobs of High School Graduates? Results from the High School and Beyond Surveys in the US and Japan" (the second author, co-authored with James E. Rosenbaum), Sociology of Education, Vol.64, No.2, 1991.
"Institutional Linkages between Education and Work as Quasi-Internal Labor Market" (the first author, co-authored with James E. Rosenbaum), Research in Social Stratification and Social Mobility, 1995, vol. 14, pp.99-134.
"Bright Flight: Unintended Consequences of Detracking Policy in Japan, (the first author, co-authored with James E. Rosenbaum), "American Journal of Education, vol. 107. No.3, pp.210-230, 1999.
“The Twisted, Unintended Impacts of Globalization on Japanese Education,” (the first author, co-authored with Jeremy Rappleye), in Research in Sociology of Education, Volume 17, pp. 17–63, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2010.
“Credential Inflation and Employment in ‘Universal’ Higher Education: Enrolment, Expansion, and (In)Equity via Privatization in Japan”, Journal of Education and Work, Vol.24 No.1-2, pp.69-94, Routledge, 2010.
“Japanese solutions to the equity and efficiency dilemma? Secondary schools, inequity and the arrival of ‘universal’ higher education”, Oxford Review of Education Vol. 37, No. 2, April 2011, pp. 241–266.
“Is everyone capable of becoming a ‘good citizen’ in Japanese society? Inequality and the Realization of the ‘Good Citizen’ education”, Multicultural Education Review, vo.4 No.1, April 2012, pp.119-146.
“Credential Inflation and Decredentialization: Re-examining the Mechanism of the Devaluation of Degrees”, European Sociological Review, Volume 38, Issue 6, December 2022 (Co-authored with Satoshi Araki)

"From High School and College to Work in Japan: Meritocracy through Institutional and Semi-Institutional Linkages," in Yossi Shavit and Walter Mueller edited. From School to Work: A comparative Study of Educational Qualifications and Occupational Destinations, Clarendon Press Oxford, 1998, pp.311-336.
“Japan’s Postwar Experience in Education and Labor Market : Rapidity of Social Changes and Institutional Arrangement in Youth Labor Market” International Research Center for Japanese Studies，Japan in a Comparative Perspective INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM 12，1998，pp.203-222.
"Institutional Embeddedness in Japanese Labor Markets", (the second author, co-authored with Mary C. Brinton), edited. by Brinton, M C. and Nee, V., The New Institutionalism in Sociology，Russell Sage Foundation, 1998.
“Transition from School to Work and Career Formation of Japanese High School Students” edited by David Stern and Daniel A. Wagner, International Perspectives on the School to Work Transition, Hampton Press, 1999.
“Stratified Incentives and Life Course Behaviors”, (the first author, co-authored with James E. Rosenbaum), edited. by Jeylan T. Mortimer, Michael J. Shanahan) Handbook of the Life Course Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers pp.51-78 2003.
“Japan at the Meritocracy Frontier: From Here, Where?”(the first author, co-authored with Ronald Dore), The Rise and Rise of Meritocracy, edited by Geoff Dench, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, pp.134-156, 2006
“From Credential Society to ‘Learning Capital’ Society: A Rearticulation of Class Formation in Japanese Education and Society,” in Social Class in Contemporary Japan, edited by Hiroshi Ishida and David H. Slater, Routledge, 2009.
“The End of Egalitarian Education in Japan?: The Effect of Policy Changes in Resource Distribution on Compulsory Education,” in Challenges to Japanese Education: Economics, Reform, and Human Rights, Edited by June A. Gordon, Hidenori Fujita, Takehiko Kariya, and Gerald K. LeTendre, Teachers College Press, 2010.
“Reimagining Self/Other: ‘catch-up across Japan’s three great education reforms”, Co-authored with Jeremy Rappleye (the second author), in Reimagining Japanese Education, edited by David Blake Willis and Jeremy Rappleye, Symposium Books, pp.51-83, 2011.
“The State’s Role and Quasi-market in Higher Education: Japan’s Trilemma” in The State and Higher Education, edited by Goodman, R., Kariya. T., and Taylor, J., , Symposium Books, pp.217-214, 2013.
“Resource allocation, historical background of egalitarian education and its changes in Japan: A silent revolution and its unintended results”, in Education in East Asia (Series Education around the world) edited by Pei-Tseng Jenny Hsieh, Continuum Books, 2013.
“The two lost decades in education: the failure of reform”, in Examining Japan's Lost Decades, edited by Yoichi Funabashi and Barak Kushner, Routledge, 2015.
“Understanding structural changes in inequality in Japanese education: from selection to choice,” in Social Inequality in Post-growth Japan, edited by David Chiavacci and Carola Hommerich, Routledge, 2017.
“Education and Social Disparities in Japan.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Ed. George Noblit. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
“Inequality and Realizing the Education of a ‘Good Citizen’” in Handbook of Multicultural Education Research in Asia Pacific, edited by Yun-Kyung Cha, Seung-Hwan Ham, and Moosung Lee, Routledge, 2018.
“Meritocracy, Modernity, and the Completion of Catch-up: Problems and Paradoxes” In Japanese Education in a Global Age - Sociological Reflections and Future Directors. Edited by Yonezawa, A., Kitamura, Y., Yamamoto, B., and Tokunaga, T. Springer, 2018.
“Japan’s Post Catch-up Modernity: Educational Transformation and its Unintended Consequences”, in Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Japan, Edited by Hiroko Taketa and Mark Williams, Routledge, 2021.

『追いついた近代　消えた近代』（岩波書店、毎日出版文化賞）
『教育と平等』（中公新書）
『学力と階層　教育の綻びをどう修正するか』（朝日新聞出版）
『教育の世紀』（弘文堂=ちくま学芸文庫増補版、サントリー学芸賞）
『教育改革の幻想』（ちくま新書）
『階級化日本と教育危機』（有信堂高文社、大佛次郎論壇賞奨励賞）
『大衆教育社会のゆくえ』（中公新書）
『学校・職業・選抜の社会学--高卒就職の日本的メカニズム』（東京大学出版会）
『学校・職安と労働市場』（石田浩・菅山真次と共編、 東京大学出版会、労働関係図書優秀賞）

フルブライト奨学金　大学院留学プログラム、1984-1986
論文年間奨学金、ノースウェスタン大学、1986-1987
リサーチフェローシップ、ノースウェスタン大学都市問題・都市政策研究所、1986-1987
安倍フェローシップ、社会科学研究評議会1997-1998
労働関係図書優秀賞、独立行政法人労働政策研究・研修機構、2000
大佛次郎論壇賞奨励賞受賞、2002
サントリー学芸賞受賞、2005
紫綬褒章受章、2023