Hidenori Fujita is a Professor at International Christian University (ICU) in Tokyo. He received a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1978. Before moving to ICU, he had been a Professor at the University of Tokyo for 17 years and Dean of the School of Education there from 2000 to 2003. He is member of the Science Council of Japan. He was president of the Japanese Association of Educational Sociology from 2000 to 2003, member of National Commission on Education Reform in 2000, senior program officer of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science from 2004 to 2007, and a member of the Central Council for Education in 2005. His major publications include Child, School and Society: Irony of an Affluent Society; Education Reform; Culture and Society: Distinction, Structuration and Reproduction; Sociology of Education; Civic Society and Education; Family and Gender; Reappraisal of Compulsory Education; Whither Education Reform: Differentiated Society or Kyosei Society?; and For Whom Is “Education Rebuilding”?