In this paper, the educational policies of contemporary Japanese society are examined from a child's point of view. The following two themes are examined. (1) The characteristics of contemporary Japanese society as "changing society" are explained and those problems caused by social changes affecting children and educational policies are examined. This theme is examined from four perspectives. The first perspective is concerning the change in the roles of the state. Second is the development of mass information society and the change in the roles of school. Third is regarding the intensifying generational gap and changes in the relationship among children, teachers, and parents. The fourth discusses the issues concerning declining number of youth and aging society. (2) The feasibility and conditions for "child-based educational policies" in educational policies in response to changing society are examined. The four perspectives presented are: first, concerning the paradox of child-based educational policies; second, concerning the realization of educational systems guaranteeing children's participation; third, concerning the realization of educational systems guaranteeing the child's choice at various stages in his education; and fourth, concerning the decentralization of the government sector and the increased role played by the non-profit sector. A particular emphasis is given to the theoretical and practical significance of the roles fulfilled by non-profit organizations in educational policies.

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This paper discusses the present trend in Japan of the declining number of children and the issues which will surface as a result of this trend. The structure of the paper is as follows: Preface I. The Phenomena of Declining Number of Children II. The Effects of the Trend on Education A. The Immediate Effects 1. The Effects on School Education (a) The Difficulties of Maintaining Standardized School and Class Sizes (b) The Unbalanced Recruitment of Teachers (c) The Competition Among Schools to Increase Pupils 2. The Effects on Home Education (a) Home Education in the Framework of "Modern Civilization" (b) Excessive Parental Protection and Interference Over Children (c) Lack of Constructive Sibling Interaction (d) Increase in Divorce 3. The Effects on Informal Education (a) Prosperity of Industries Targetting Children (b) Disappearence of Gang-Age (c) Decline of Children's Activities in the Community B. The Long-term Effects III. Policy Measures for Increasing Birth Rate IV. Educational Policy Measures for the Promotion of Merits and Overcoming Demerits Concluding Remarks

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Generally speaking, in Europe and the United States, when an employer recruits new and young employees without a higher educational background, they hardly think much of their academic achievement. By contrast, in Japan, even in occupational selection for blue-collar workers, an employer puts emphasis on academic background and achievement, regardless of knowledge and skills related to a certain job. So why, only in Japan, is meritocratic occupational selection strictly applied to all occupational stratification including blue-collar workers? The reason is to be found in the peculiar usage of the labour force in Japanese enterprises. One is deskilling of labour. In factories, as a result of pursuing profit from the division of labour, the skilled manual labour process has been divided to numerous simple units. Now labour in factories is made up of many simple jobs that everyone can do, and at any time any other employee can take over the job of his predecessor. Therefore, a new high school graduate isn't required to have any particular skill. In the labour market, there are no circumstances where a new graduate with vocational education or training in school can enjoy an advantage. He also is mainly evaluated on the basis of his academic achievement. The other is the necessity of Japanese enterprises to secure some core workers as foremen who can adjust themselves to frequent changes caused by technological innovation and to a variety of requirements from the enterprise. They adopt ability-oriented personnel management where a great number of employees are recruited each year, and then within a short term the majority who don't have perseverance to do hard and monotonous work are excluded from the enterprise. Moreover, only the minority of workers who have high flexibility is left as core workers and promoted from rank in the shop. High potentiality and broad trainability is regarded as important traits for personnel management. In order to secure candidates to be core workers in advance, therefore, Japanese enterprises need to adopt strict meritocratic occupational selection when they recruit new employees. These circumstances of Japanese enterprises have strengthened the schools' function in the selection and allocation of manpower, and to establish the system of meritocratic competition in schools.

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The local communities of Japan changed drastically after the period of high economic growth in the 1960's. Accordingly the daily life of Japanese children changed dramatically as well. One of the prominent characteristics of these changes is the decline of the various types of relationship in the child's environment, resulting in the weakening of the child's subculture, i.e., the child's environment encompassing all aspects of his daily life. In the wake of 1970's, a movement was begun to restrengthen this culture. Part of the movement was educational policy focusing on the educational process outside the realm of formal education, or "out of school education", but a more comprehensive approach was promoted by citizens groups which included education, welfare, and culture. Therefore, comprehensive educational policy that does not limit its vision to "out of school education" should be sought for upon planning policies in the future.

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The purpose of this study is to explicate the role of ombudsman in dealing with complaints pertaining to the education issues, by analyzing cases of the Citizen's Ombudsman of Kawasaki City since it was established. The Citizen's Ombudsman of Kawasaki City is the one designed as a general ombudsman. The general ombudsman system is valued for its immediate and prompt response to the complainants. There are the following characteristics in the complaint or the problem affecting the education that this system has treated up to present. First, the complaint was made a dispute. Second, prompt and flexible process must be necessary for its solution. Third, the problem must be influenced by the structure of the society or originated in the situation of a complex and structural education. Accordingly, this system as a general ombudsman may be suitable for dealing with the problem affecting the education in a prompt process. However, it is not appropriate enough correspondence in the point that this system finds the problem before the complaint is made a dispute, and in the point that it solves the problem in a complex education situation. Therefore, it is desirable to constitute an organization that can daily inspect the situation of the education in a proper region; that is, a special ombudsman system that regularly treats education issues only, apart from handling other general issues.

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One of the important challenges toward smooth implementation of the "Five-Day School Week" is to seek the understanding of the public. Many parents think that Saturdays as school holidays should not be increased. This study analyses the determinants of attitudes of parents to the "Five-Day School Week". An analysis of the educational consciousness of parents in relation to attitudes to the "Five-Day School Week" shows that there are significant differences on many items. These items are classified into seven factors: "orientation to family interaction", "respect for students' individuality", "attaching importance to the role of family and community in discipline", "positive attitude to the new educational challenges", "positive attitude to social education", "dependence on external agent about moral education", and "old concept of scholastic ability and its evaluation". In addition to the above factors, three items ("sex of parents", "views on children's free time", "wishes for introduction in step with the spread of the 'five-day working week'") are thought to be important to analyse the determinants of attitudes of parents to the "Five-Day School Week". According to the analysis of the determinants of attitudes of parents to the "Five-Day School Week", the most influential factor is the "orientation to family interaction", followed by the "wishes for introduction in step with the spread of the 'five-day working week'", and "dependence on external agent about moral education". The coefficient of determination is. 173. Analysis of the determinants by grade of children shows that some factors are not so influential among parents that have children attending secondary school. These analyses suggest that education policy is needed to promote the recognition of importance of home education, especially to the parents of primary school children. As for the parents of secondary school children, supports and improvement of social facilities and its activities, and provision of information about them seem to be important. And, as for the parents of high school students, enhancement of positive attitude to social education seems to be effective. So far as school education is concerned, it is important to make positive attitude to the new educational challenges and the new concept of scholastic ability among parents. However, the grade of the children needs to be considered. And, an integration of the parents' and teachers' view may be important to link the understanding of the "Five-Day School Week", with the cooperation among schools, families, and communities. It is necessary to analyse the teachers' view as well as the parents' attitude.

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The Executive of the Japan Teachers' Union (hereafter referred to as JTU) advocated the People's Education Theory with the "Self-Reliant Composition of Curriculum Movement" as a strategic idea in 1950's. This idea opposed the anti-reformed policy of the Government at the time. The purpose of this study is to research the teachers' educational consciousness and examine an adequacy of the strategic idea. It also aims to clarify the risks in that idea. The writer focuses on why the Executive and Central Lecturers of JTU had established some sectional meetings, according to each school subject at the Conference of the 4th Education Research Meeting. As a matter of fact, it had definitely controlled the direction of the People's Education Theory subsequently. The followings are findings in this study: The 4th Education Research Meeting divided into each school subject. It was decided upon the understanding of the Education Research Movement that JTU would authorize. Ichitaro Kokubun and Hiraku Toyama, the members of the Central Lectures of JTU, played an important role to serve for making those understandings and its idea. They had insisted in promotion of the studies of curriculums and teaching methods in the early period of the Education Research Movement. They emphasized on the ground of that; (1) People want to have teaching 3R's and other modern subjects to children carefully. (2) the relationship between teachers and the nation would strengthen the People's Education Movement. (3) teaching 3R's and other modern subjects to children carefully make them a new nation with peace and democracy. As a result, the Executive and the Central Lectures accepted such an idea. They judged that it was politically effective that JTU adopted the idea and advanced the popularization of the education research activity. However, it could not be driven just as the Executive and the Central Lecturers had expected. The teachers' educational consciousness and their understandings of Education Research Movement made that strategic idea "worm-eaten". At the same time, that idea involved risks in the framework of "Education for Peace" of JTU.

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The purpose of this study is to define the socialistic characteristics in the teacher training system in RSFSR, focusing on the public power intervened in teacher education. As the first step, this paper tries to consider the process of the teacher training policy, to point out the stage when the principle of the "Big October Revolution" was most reflected in 1917-1920's and to show the characteristics of the policy in this stage. The process of the teacher training policy in RSFSR in 1917-1920's may be divided into the following three stages: 1) the stage when was succeeded to the reform plan of the teacher training system, under the Provisional Government (1917-1921) 2) the stage when was formed the teaching training policy, under the leadership of GUS (1921-1927) 3) the stage when the centralization of teacher training was intended (after 1927) In the 1st stage and the 2nd stage, the Soviet Government had expected each institution of teacher training to make its own curriculum that reflected the characteristics of its area. It is clear that this policy of the Soviet Government was based on the principle of the "Big October Revolution." And, this policy caused the Soviet Government to admit the reform plan of the teacher training system made by the liberalist teaching staffs in the 1st stage. The 3rd stage, the Soviet Government started making the standard curricula. At last the first "Common Curricula" were published under legal control in 1933. The principle of the Big October Revolution was most reflected in the teacher training policy in RSFSR in the 2nd stage. This paper provide an argument against old interpretations in this period. The characteristics in this stage are follows: (1) to cooperate with various local organizations in training teachers (2) to put stress on social science in order to improve political education (3) to gain scientific knowledge that is related to productive activities (4) to intend to train teachers scientifically based on pedagogical subjects As the major premise of these characteristics, we should notice that every teacher training institution must be related with inhabitant, schools, facilities and so on its area. And the Soviet Government generalized practices in each institution and formed the teacher training policy in RSFSR in this stage.

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