Education, beliefs about educational credentialism and the feeling of fairness

What is the underlying process of people's judgment on whether the status attainment process in the society is fair or not? Two hypotheses are proposed. One is the justification of self interest. The other is the impartial or disinterested evaluation, and the hypothesis which postulates the enlightenment effect of higher education is a variant of this. From each of the hypotheses, predictions on the relation between education, beliefs about educational credentialism, and the feeling of fairness are deduced. Data from a survey of Japanese high school students and their parents is used for the verification of these predictions. The diagramed contingency tables and the results of logit analysis with the conditional effect design reveal that the hypothesis of the justification of self interest is supported only for the fathers, and that of enlightenment is supported for the mothers.