As we look into the future of Japan from the viewpoint of education policy, one critical issue is the changing composition of the country's population. The advent of an aging society combined with a low birthrate has had a prolonged and serious impact on Japan's entire education system. This paper, based on a full reflection on the history of the reorganization of school districts carried out throughout Japan in the postwar period, aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between education policy and the population issue. The main body of this paper consists of the following parts. The first, introduces the background of the study. The second depicts changes in the school-age population and projections into the future. The three phases of the reorganization of school districts, namely the municipal reorganization chosongappei phase, the phase of extreme population decline kasoka and the low birthrate phase, are described, and detailed analyses are conducted regarding these three phases.
　　　Based on the analyses, the following conclusions are drawn. The school institution, as one of the most popular and high-quality forms of social capital, has since the Meiji era become a symbol connecting individual residents living in local communities. However, many school districts have been destroyed during the process of reorganization and the only criteria for closing a particular school is the lack of financial efficiency. The education policy and population issue are closely interrelated, and the decision to close schools has caused great damage to local communities.

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　　　This paper examines the topic of entry into farming by discussing the conflict between new farmers and the agricultural corporations they will be joining. The research object of this paper is company A which manages lotus root agricultural production and, Mr. B who found a job at it.
　　　Most of the previous studies on entry into farming have been from the perspective of new farmers, and studies have seldom been conducted from the perspective of agricultural corporations. Thus, this paper attempts to approach the issue of entry into farming from the perspective of agricultural corporations. Specifically, this paper discusses the discrepancy in“views on farming”of agricultural corporations and new farmers, a source of conflict between the two, from the perspective of agricultural corporations.
　　　Accordingly, this paper discusses“views on farming”of the two groups and the context for those views and this paper compares the two views. Agricultural corporations have“views on farming”based on a concept of “farming as an industry”that has developed over years of practice. In contrast, new farmers have“views on farming”based on an idyllic view touted by the mass media.

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　In modern society, the acceptance of migrant workers occurs alongside mass movements of people across the world. The nature of the paths migrant workers take represents the transformation of agriculture, communities, and nations.
　However, in Japan, the expansion in size of the average farm together with the acceptance of migrant workers has not been so rapid. From the beginning of the Meiji Restoration, the hiring of foreign people, except for some professional jobs, was strictly prohibited. The one exception applied to people from the areas that Japan occupied at that time. Although the numbers were small, they were important. Previous studies have made clear that there was an increase in the number of agricultural workers in 1920s. It needs to be clarified how each farm household employed its migrant workers.
　For this purpose, I have conducted a case-study from the data of the farm household survey（農家経済調査簿）in inter-war Japan. This study focuses, in particular, on the nature of the labor involved, workers’ages, their wages, and their working hours, and Japanese farm management.
　In this paper, we show a large firm in Nara Prefecture that hired some agricultural workers as indentured servants（in Japanese, Nenko【年雇】）. In spite of the name‘indentured servants’, in practice, these people worked as day laborers. The Korean workers lived as more modern subjects than did traditional Japanese indentured servants in Japan’s rural villages.
　This is not a complete survey of Korean agricultural workers in Japan; it only discusses some kinds of farming households, but it makes it possible for us to think about diversity in agricultural history and to revise the myth of the exclusionary character of the Japanese village and its non-linear modernity.

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　　　This paper aims to clarify the characteristics of urban to rural migration in South Korea and discuss the perspectives on studies of rural migration.
　　　In Korea, after economic crisis in 1997, many urban residents, especially young workers moved rural areas.This phenomenon was called“kwinong”, meaning return to nature.
　　　The kwinong movement has experienced another increase since 2005, mainly occupied by people over the age of 40, including retirees and those taking early retirement.
　　　Previous studies that discussed rural migration in developed countries focused on the rurality of inmigrants because their behavior in rural life is supposed to depend on their rurality. So rural migration has been explained under the context of Post-Productivism, that consumptive gaze at rural space prompts urban residents to move to rural area.
　　　Analyzing 33 individual cases, people over the age of 50, rural migration is motivated by a search for well-being life that resembles that depicted in the literature.
　　　But for those in their 40’s, their motivations deeply reflect an excessive competitive society that rapidly formed after the economic crisis in 1997. The labor system force many employees to retire from their companies while in their 40’s and continue to work overtime, while their children are suffered from more competitive educational environment.
　　　The urban to rural migration in recent Korea may be best described as resulting from a direct urban push factor than a rural pull factor.
　　　Simply analyzing this case from a Post-Productivist perspect would omit the impact that changes in social conditions under rapid Neo-liberal policy implementation have upon rural migration.
　　　To better understand rural migration, it is important to properly examine the socio-economic conditions generating rural migration.

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　　　Yao people have been self-sufficient through the cultivation of terraces for over 600 years in Dazhai village Guangxi Prefecture of China. As the village assigns tracts of forests to households, it regards water sources and the forest plots as part of a contract responsibility system, and manages the land resources as collectively owned. This paper discusses the following two issues: First, to study the traditional values and regulations that sustain the system of customary law over forest water sources in Dazhai village; second, to investigate the village commons that manages natural resources in the modern life of Dazhai village.

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