2022 Volume 48 Pages 4-22
In this paper, we have examined the "crisis" in the midst of the new corona pandemic concerning children and adolescents, and have shown that it stems from the underdevelopment or absence of the welfare state social security system, and that neoliberal reforms to further dismantle and reduce the social security system are being introduced in various administrative areas in the midst of the corona crisis in Japan. This will cause "future uncertainty" for children and adolescents, and will further aggravate the "crisis of lives".
The structural crisis of the welfare state is accompanied by a crisis of democracy. In Japan, the refusal to appoint members to the Science Council of Japan, for example, has undermined the legitimacy of democratic decision-making, and there is a widespread view that it is acceptable to deviate from the principles because of the exceptional status of the new coronary pandemic. The neoliberal propaganda of fiscal crisis and municipal extinction crisis (a "fictional crisis theory," so to speak) has intentionally created a state of deviation from the principle and made democratic decision-making difficult.
In the case of the climate crisis, while the natural science of its mechanism is being investigated, studies and movements are also emerging that question why the contemporary political system is unable to take effective countermeasures adequately, and that squarely address the issue of how democratic decision-making should be, but the emphasis in each case is on decision-making by the "youth. The emphasis in each case is on decision-making by "young people". From the standpoint of education and educational administration, this means that the rights of children (including children who are still at a developmental stage where it is difficult for them to legitimately express their opinions) to express their opinions should also be questioned.
In Europe and the United States, the "Anti-Austerity New Deal," a reform concept and reform plan that attempts to solve problems across both fiscal crises = austerity and climate crisis, has also been proposed. Here, it is shown that the "crisis" of our time may be recognized as an integral part of the very "structural crisis".
