2015 Volume 82 Issue 4 Pages 571-582
The purpose of this paper is to locate education in the vast realm of life security. The challenge of education-welfare, by definition, is to secure the connection between life security and education. This paper examines the history of education-welfare in post-war Japan, from the 1950s to this time in the 21st century. It is clear that the connection between life security and education has become weaker and weaker. We think it is possible to redefine the crisis of publicness in education from that perspective.
First, we found that in the 1950s the local public education authorities in Japan invented many devices to combat non-attendance and truancy problems. Among them were the creation of night classes in junior high schools, and the appointment of the Fukushi Kyouin, who were welfare educators dealing with non-attendant and truant students from the Buraku communities in Kochi Prefecture. Some Fukushi Kyouin not only helped students in need but advised local people about productive activities to directly improve their life conditions. But it is also important to note that Fukushi Kyouin did not think it easy to cause life improvement as a result of education.
As time went by, in the 1980s and 1990s, while the problem of student non-attendance attracted much public attention again, the public education sector did little except relying on “free schools” in the private sector. This phase may be called the time of diffusion in education-welfare. It is partly because the capacity of educators and schools to influence productive activities decreased further and further due to urbanization and bureaucratization.
Finally, we point out the “marginalization of education itself,” due to the trends of the aging population and the lower birthrate, as an integral part of the crisis of publicness in education as well. When the priority of education-welfare declined in life security, the possibility of education to contribute to life security also declined.
