The purpose of this study is to examine whether how much a student studies at home is determined by one’s family background, and if so, what is the pathway that explains the relationship between family background and student’s study hours at home. Students’ study hours at home is important, because it has been shown to have a positive effect on student achievement. “After-school study hours” has been used as a measure of “effort” in the field of sociology of education in Japan, and empirical studies have shown that after-school study hours in high school is determined by students’ family background. In this study, I bring a new perspective to the issue of after-school study hours by: (1) framing study hours as a measurement of “habit” rather than “effort”, (2) focusing on children at younger age, (3) distinguishing and highlighting the association between study hours at home and in shadow education, and (4) adding a comparative perspective.

  I use the 6^th grade data of urban areas in Japan Education Longitudinal Study (JELS) 2009 and its comparative data collected in urban areas of Hong Kong and Shanghai. I employ a multilevel SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) mediation analysis. I hypothesize that parents with higher educational level and income are more likely to invest in shadow education, which in turn, increase students’ study hours at home. I also hypothesize that students’ participation in shadow education positively affects their attitude toward studying, because students may learn effective learning strategies and gain more experiences of solving challenging problems in shadow education, which in turn, increase students’ study hours at home. I explore to what extent and how the mechanism of inequity in study habits by family background in urban Japan differs from those in urban Hong Kong and Shanghai.

  My findings are as follows: (1) In urban Japan, family background has a strong effect on students’ study hours at home, with this effect being large compared to urban Shanghai. In urban Hong Kong, surprisingly, family background has no association with students’ study habits at home. (2) The effect of family background on students’ study hours at home is largely mediated by students’ participation in shadow education. This pathway is unique to urban Japan. Students from lower family background are double-disadvantaged in that they are less likely to study in shadow education and at home. In contrast, in urban Hong Kong and Shanghai, the association between participation in shadow education and study habits is low; i.e., students study at home, regardless of whether they participate in shadow education or not. (3) In urban Japan, the effect of participation in shadow education on students’ study hours at home is partly mediated by students’ attitudes toward studying. However, in urban Hong Kong and Shanghai, students’ attitudes toward studying has no association with family background or shadow education participation.

  I conclude with a discussion on possible meso and macro factors that explain the unique mechanism found in urban Japan of how primary school students acquire study habits. In urban Japan, 6^th grade students’ study habits are largely acquired through participation in shadow education, whereas in urban Hong Kong and Shanghai, it may be formulated primarily at school. In Hong Kong and Shanghai, schools may provide more homework and assignments that have clearer roles and are exposed to more rigid evaluation, which in turn, may contribute to forming students’ study habits. In other words, when focusing on the formulation of study habits, shadow education may indeed be the “shadow” in urban Hong Kong and Shanghai, but it may be more the “light” in the case of urban Japan. Secondly, in urban Japan, the sense of necessity to study and the belief in the effect of education may (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

  In this paper, recent higher education reforms in Korea, in particular, reforms for regional universities, are discussed. What policies have been applied for regional universities in the 21st century? What efforts have regional universities made for the sake of their survival? What issues did the reforms for regional universities create? What policies and reforms have been established under the strong initiative of the Korean government for lifelong higher education?

  To answer the above questions, the Honorary Student System that Kyungpook National University, a regional national university in South Korea, has carried on since 1995 is analyzed as a case study. The Honorary Student System comes under the university extension program for elderly students. Post 1990, due to rapid changes such as localization, globalization, and movement toward a more open society, the demand for new knowledge and values has increased. The system intends to provide opportunities for local people to satisfy their intellectual desires, and to strengthen ties between the university and the local community. The current research is based on observational surveys and interviews conducted by the author. In November-December of 2016, the author visited all those universities (five national institutions, including Kyungpook University and two private universities) that follow the Honorary Student System.

  This paper aims to answer the following three research questions: (1) What were the direct reasons and circumstances for Kyungpook National University’s implementation of the Honorary Student System? (2) How is the Honorary Student System different from conventional university extension programs held in South Korea?, and (3) What changes did the university undergo by accepting elderly students, who are non-traditional learners? Furthermore, what impacts did this have on the community?

  Higher education in South Korea reached its unprecedented quantitative expansion from the 1980s to the 1990s. However, since the 2000s, due to the declining birth rate in the country, the traditional college-age population has been depleted. The Korean Ministry of Education, in its Plan for Restructuring Universities and Colleges, has projected that the Ministry will reduce the number of students from the present 560,000 to 400,000 in the year 2023. The Plan has also introduced a five-grade evaluation system for the quality of higher education in order to determine the ‘reduction rate’ of enrollment. On the one hand, this plan was the government’s policy for building ‘world class universities.’ On the other hand, those specified as ‘improper universities’ were forced to close their doors.

  Korean universities and colleges, particularly many regional ones, have not been able to reach maximum student enrollment. Simultaneously, several issues have cropped up, such as criticism of the decline in the quality of higher education, an increase in the number of highly-educated yet unemployed individuals, intensified competition among higher education institutions, and universities’ financial difficulties. Therefore, a nation-wide higher education reform has been initiated.

  Higher education in South Korea also witnessed a historical education act that requires all universities to establish a “university extension center for lifelong learners” on their campuses. Under the revised 1980 Constitution, “The government is responsible for promoting lifelong education.” The Lifelong Education Law, established in August 1999 under the Social Education Promotion Law, provided strong support for related educational institutes including universities and colleges. According to the Korean government, institutions such as civic schools, civic high schools, industry-attached schools (middle and high), evening classes offered at schools (middle and high), open high (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

  The purpose of this article is to reveal the practices of treatment of children in conflict with the law in Indonesia, focusing on the conflict resolution process through customary practices of consensus decision making (musyawarah) and the role of the community for achieving it.

  In Indonesia, there is a great number of children (estimated 5,000 at any given time) under the age of 18 who have been accused for petty crimes such as theft and who have been sent to prison. Statistics show, however, that since 2014, the number has been drastically decreasing, having halved in the past two years. Concerning the negative impacts on children such as dropping out of school and the stigma caused by both the criminal justice procedure and subsequent incarceration, such a decrease is very significant. One of the important factors for this dramatic change is that the Juvenile Justice System Act (Law No.11/2012) introduced a “Diversion” policy, which aims to divert the settlement of child related cases from the criminal court to the outside of it. As a requirement for Diversion, the law also adopted “Restorative Justice”, which is a way of settling criminal cases by involving all related people in order to find equitable solutions and not mere retaliation. More importantly, such an approach is found in musyawarah, that is, the customary Indonesian practice of consensus decision making to reach unanimity (mufakat).

  In order to examine the process of musyawarah and the realities of community-based treatment of children in conflict with the law under the new Juvenile Justice System Act, interviews and observation were conducted in Correctional Offices (Balai Pemasyarakatan: BAPAS) located in Central Java province during 2015-2016. For implementing Diversion through musyawarah, the role of BAPAS is important. First of all, the officer of BAPAS (Pembimbing Kemasyarakatan, or PK) conducts Social Research (Penelitian Kemasyarakatan: LITMAS) with a child who commits a crime. Reports of LITMAS consist of legal bases, research methods and information sources, details of delinquent behavior, children’s educational backgrounds, family and social conditions, impact on individuals related to the respective criminal act, expectations for the future, and finally analyses and conclusions. Analysis is from many perspectives such as social, educational, psychological, and philosophical points. At the end of each report, recommendations for the best (i.e., most suitable) treatment for the child are presented. While conducting the social research mentioned above, PK cooperates with other law enforcement officials to hold musyawarah and asks for the participation of stakeholders such as offender, victims and their families, and other third parties.

  In this research, two child related cases are discussed in order to understand how musyawarah can reach an agreement, focusing on the coordination process of interested individuals as well as the decision making process regarding treatment of the child. One is (a) a traffic accident case between neighbors, and the other is (b) a petty theft by three boys in a Central Java village. The findings are following;

(1) The role of law enforcement officers in musyawarah

  Law enforcement officers such as police and PK should serve as “neutral” listeners on the one hand, while trying to coordinate both sides’ input for the child’s best interest. For instance, in the case of (a), both the offender’s and victim’s family had distrust of each other from the beginning. PK was eventually able to relieve such tension (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

  In this paper, I study the self-recognition and experience of “non-qualified” teachers after Pol Pot’s regime in Cambodia to analyze elementary school teachers’ life histories in the one of the major provincial capitals. In the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, after Pol Pot’s regime, the new Heng Samlin government faced a difficult situation. The government had to reconstruct a new nation state as a socialist state under the intervention of Vietnamese armies and negative legacies of Pol Pot’s regime. In terms of education reconstruction, education policy was based on mass education; therefore, the problem of a lack of teachers was serious. To tackle this problem, many teachers were appointed with only short-term or no training. These teachers are called “non-qualified” teachers in this paper.

  Today, Cambodian teachers are labeled as “low quality teachers”, as they are perceived to be less educated teachers like “non-qualified” teachers. In many cases, focus was placed on teachers’ educational backgrounds, and teachers were categorized for the target of educational development. Along with teachers’ narratives, I attempt to analyze the following three questions: (1) Which teachers are recognized as being “non-qualified” teachers?; (2) What sort of educational background does each “non-qualified” teacher have?, and (3) What are other common experiences among “non-qualified” teachers? From these three questions, I characterize the self-recognition of being a “non-qualified” teacher and other common experiences.

  First, how are teachers recognized as being “non-qualified” teachers? One teacher said, “Before 1985, when the allocation of new formal teachers started, all teachers were “non-qualified” teachers, including me.” Another teacher said, “Teachers who had a high educational background were also deemed ‘non-qualified’ teachers, because they did not have a formal teacher’s certificate.” The teacher, who already had a teacher’s certification before Pol Pot’s regime, told me that he had also attended the same short-term teacher training alongside less educated, “non-qualified” teachers in the People’s Republic of the Kampuchea era. From teachers’ self-recognition and common identification awareness, “non-qualified” teachers include all the teachers who were appointed in the beginning of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea . Age and educational background were not important for the classification.

  Second, based on teachers’ life histories, in Table 3 I profile 17 “non-qualified” teachers and two teachers who had experienced formal teacher training courses in the People’s Republic of the Kampuchea era. Table 3 provides basic information as of 1979 (birth year, sex and occupation), educational backgrounds, final educational qualifications, years and periods of short-term teacher training, year formal teacher certificates were obtained, and working periods in elementary schools. The data in Table 3 reveals three important points. Firstly, at the beginning of the People’s Republic of the Kampuchea era, teachers with high educational backgrounds worked together in elementary schools as “non-qualified” teachers. Secondly, in 1979 there was no obvious relationship between educational backgrounds and the period of short-term teacher training. Finally, low educational background “non-qualified” teachers could continue to gain more educational experience and advance their careers. Such actual images of “non-qualified” teachers from this discussion is different from teachers’ images labeled as “low quality.”

  Third, what is the common background among “non-qualified” teachers, excepting educational background? Here I focus on three topics: teachers’ motivation, teaching style and content, and secondary employment. Concerning teachers’ motivation, many teachers decided to start working as a teacher, psychologically (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)