My research has been mainly on Japanese education and social policy, but I have made forays into comparative work on South Korea and the UK.
Current research project:
From October 2023, I am embarking on a new research project on family-run medical institutions (同族経営医療法人) in Japan.
I have been involved in area studies in Oxford continuously for almost forty years. I embarked on a doctorate in the social anthropology of Japan at St Antony’s College in 1982; I then held a Junior Research Fellowship between 1985-88 at the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies; I spent a year at the Humanities Department at Imperial College, London and just over three years as a Reader at the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex, before returning to Oxford as the first University Lecturer in the Social Anthropology of Japan in 1993. I took up the Nissan Chair of Modern Japanese Studies in 2003. In 2004, I became the head of the newly-established Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA) which brought together many of the social scientists in Oxford working on Africa, China, Japan, Latin America, Russia and Eastern Europe. In 2008, I became Head of Oxford’s Social Sciences Division which, with 14 departments (including OSGA) and over 900 academic staff, is one of the largest groups of social scientists anywhere in the world. In 2017, I took up the Wardenship of St. Antony’s College along with the Nissan Professorship. I was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2013 and was President and Chair of the Academy’s Council between 2015 to 2021.
Monographs:
2020. (with Jeremy Breaden), Family-run universities in Japan: Sources of inbuilt resilience in the face of demographic pressure, 1992-2030, Oxford University Press. Published in Japanese as: 日本の私立大学はなぜ生き残るのか: 人口減少社会と同族経営：1992-2030 (translated by Ishikawa Asako), 中央公論, 2021.
2000. Children of the Japanese State: The Changing Role of Child Protection Institutions in Contemporary Japan, Oxford University Press. Published in Japanese as: 日本の児童養護：児童養護学への招待 (translated by Tsuzaki Tetsuo), 明石書店, 2006.
1990. Japan’s ‘International Youth’: The Emergence of a New Class of Schoolchildren, Oxford University Press. Published in Japanese as 帰国子女：新しい特権層の出現 (translated by Nagashima Nobuhiro and Shimizu Satomi), 岩波書店. 1992.
Joint-authored and edited volumes:
2012: A Sociology of Japanese Youth: From Returnees to NEETs, edited by Roger Goodman, Yuki Imoto and Tuukka Toivonen, Routledge. Published in Japanese as: 若者問題の社会学：視線と射程 (translated by Imoto Yuki) 明石書店 2013.
2012: Higher Education and the State: Changing Relationships in Europe and East Asia, edited by Roger Goodman, Takehiko Kariya and John Taylor, Symposium Books, Oxford.
2007: Ageing in Asia: Asia’s Position in the New Global Demography, edited by Roger Goodman and & Sarah Harper, Routledge: London.
2005: The ‘Big Bang’ in Japanese Higher Education: The 2004 Reforms and the Dynamics of Change, edited by Jerry Eades, Roger Goodman, and Hada Yumiko, Transpacific Press.
2003. Global Japan: The Experience of Japan’s New Minorities and Overseas, Communities, edited by Roger Goodman, Ceri Peach, Takenaka Ayumi and Paul White, RoutledgeCurzon. Published in Japanese as: 海外における日本人、日本の中の外国人(translated by Yui Kiyomitsu), Shōwadō.
2003. Can the Japanese Reform Their Education System? Edited by Roger Goodman and David Phillips, (Oxford Studies in Comparative Education) Symposium Books.
2002. Family and Social Policy in Japan: Anthropological Approaches, edited by Roger Goodman, Cambridge University Press.
2001. Higher Education Reform in East Asia: A Comparative Perspective, Roger Goodman, (Guest Editor) [Special Issue of Ritsumeikan Journal of Asia Pacific Studies], Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University Press.
1998. The East Asian Welfare Model: Welfare Orientalism and the State, edited by Roger Goodman, Gordon White, and Kwon Huck-ju, Routledge.
1996. Case Studies on Human Rights in Japan, edited by Roger Goodman and Ian Neary, Curzon Press.
1992. Ideology and Practice in Modern Japan, edited by Roger Goodman and Kirsten Refsing, Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies Series.
