This study examines the problem of film education. Little attention has been given to the fact that the Film Law (1939), known as the first cultural law in Japan, had the features of a “film-educational law.” What is more important is that this law has been evalued differently according to the standpoint of the evaluator. Those who promoted social education admired the Law, while those who emphasized school education made the opposite evaluation. Particularly, the latter said that the film for school education was excluded by the Law.

  But these views are unsatisfactory. The purpose of this study is to consider film as “national-educational media,” rather than limiting the area to school education. From this point of view, it is clear that the law intended to improve the position of educational films. That is to say, despite the “time-lag” before the effects of the Film Law became apparent, the Law had a positive influence on both social education and school education.

  I will expand this argument to look at present media policies and cultural policies. The important point to note is the unification of “entertainment and education” which those who promoted social education intended to realize.

  The aim of this article is to clarify the formation and development of the Association for the Cultivation of Young Commercial and Industrial Workers founded in 1922 as a social education work under the joint auspices of the Tokyo Municipality, the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Association of Business Guilds of Tokyo. Studies of this in the past have tended to focus on the aspects of political training but this paper problematizes the use of public holidays by employees of small- and medium-sized companies in the large metropolitan area in the period between two world wars.

  The objective of the project was social training, the enhancement of dignity and the cultivation of commercial and industrial knowledge of young city employees.The growth of the project resulted from the effective use of elementary schools and the establishment of social regulations after the Great Earthquake. The main participants were youths who lived together with their employers and were ambitious for success in their respective businesses. Meeting their vocational demands and cooperating with related organizations the Tokyo Municipality developed the curriculum that supplied a model for the education of young commercial and industrial employees. The flexible conduct was a driving force of the service and it was revived in 1954 for the next generation.

  This paper considers how the temporary child care services provided locally influence the learning of the parents who use them. Firstly, the paper considers parents who use welfare services to be subjects of adult learning and explores the correlation between these experiences and parental development. This correlation is shown clearly in table 11-2, which shows “Parental Experiences” against “Parents' Development.” Rather than argue that an increase in the ease of use of welfare services leads to a decline in parents' child care attitudes, this emphasizes the importance of the availability of effective learning opportunities for parents provided by local residents. Especially important are “experience of learning how to build relationships with children,” “experience of learning how to manage a household and child care,” “experience of learning one's connection with the local community.”

  The studies on history of social education have paid attention to the new middle class in cities in the Taisho and the early Showa era, especially to the positive attitudes of the class toward cultural activities, or thought and practices of social education aimed at the class. I insist that the prototypes of these ideas and practices were formed in the late Meiji era. As examples of those prototypes, I describe in this paper Toshihiko Sakai's thoughts and practice on the improvement of society and home in the 1900s.

  Sakai presented “proposals for improvement of customs” in Yorozu-Choho. These proposals were written to enlighten the “chuto-shakai” (the middle class). He insisted that a “sound middle class” was the motivational force for social development. It was not uncommon in that era to insist that the “middle class” played a leading role of social development, but Sakai's thinking had originality because he linked enlightenment for the “middle class” and improvement of daily customs.

  On the other hand, Sakai presented “improvement of home” in Katei-no-Shinfumi(The New Taste of Home), and Katei-Zasshi(The Journal for Home), based on the family model in which a housewife should do all the housework. His idea of “improvement of home” was a prototype of the movement for improvement of living which aimed at the new middle class in cities in the Taisho and early Showa era.

  In the case of adults who arbitrarily participate in education, an inequality with regard to the participation in education has been observed. This is one of the obstacles that prevent the realization of a lifelong learning society in Japan. In this concern, this paper aims to clarify the change in the difference of adult participation in education and the social factors that determine it from the past to present. As a method, I analyzed the adult schooling rates in all 47 prefectures, using the data of 1985, 1995, and 2005.

  The findings are as follows: (1) regional differences in the rate of adult schooling have increased. (2) The relationship between the adult schooling rate and the socio-economic indexes of each prefecture is becoming clearer. (3) The factors that determine the adult schooling rate strongly differ according to age groups. Among young people (30~44 years), the adult schooling rate is based on the number of educational institutions such as colleges; among middle-aged people (45~59 years), the prefectural income; and among older people (over 60 years), the high education qualification. On the basis of these findings, I discuss proposals for policy-making to facilitate the equality of adult participation in education.