In Indonesia, recently there are remarkable numbers of child offenders who violate the Child Protection Act and end up in prison, even though child protection reform has been vigorously promoted since 1998. The purpose of this article is to discuss the process of dispute resolution related to juvenile sexual behavior, regarding the manner in which problems are dealt with; that is, whether they are solved conventionally through musyawarah, a customary way of consensus decision making to reach unanimity, or legally by applying national statute law.

  Along with the process of democratization since the Suharto regime collapsed in 1998, reforms in the child protection system have been promoted in Indonesia, including the establishment of the Child Protection Act in 2002 (Law No.23). In this reform, one of the main issues has been the protection of children in conflict with the law (Anak yang Berhadapan dengan Hukum), which consists of those who are suspected or accused of committing an offence (child offender), those who are damaged by a crime (child victim), or those who provide testimonial evidence related to a crime (child witness). Especially among these, important reforms regarding child offenders have been achieved under the Juvenile Justice System Act (Law No.11/2012), which introduced a “Diversion” policy aimed to direct children away from judicial proceedings and towards community-based solutions. On the other hand, since the mid-2000s, there has been a new problematic situation: remarkable numbers of child offenders are being accused and convicted of “violating” the Child Protection Act. According to data offered by the Directorate General of Corrections, 11.3% of child offenders incarcerated in prison throughout Indonesia are violators of the Child Protection Act (as of 1 July, 2017). This is the third most common crime after robbery (25.8%) and illegal drug use (17.2%). So, the question is; why has such a situation arisen?

  In order to answer the question, I firstly discuss Indonesian child protection policy and its legal framework, and then analyze interview results conducted in several juvenile prisons located in Java. For detailed analysis, two cases of Child Protection Act violation are taken as examples. One is a case in which a 16-year-old boy was sentenced to 2.2-year imprisonment after having an overnight affair with a 15-year-old girl; the other is a case in which a 16-year-old boy was sentenced to one-year’s imprisonment for having a constant sexual relationship with his girlfriend, resulting in her pregnancy.

  The findings are as follows:

  (1)  From the analysis of Indonesian child protection policy and its legal framework, it was revealed that for child victims, reforms have been done through the establishment of the Child Protection Act and its subsequent revisions, aiming to give more stringent punishment to sex offenders against children and for child offenders, through the implementation of the Juvenile Justice System Act based on diversion policy.

  (2)  There are many examples of child offenders accused of violating the Child Protection Act then going to prison, with most found guilty for having a sexual relationship with their girlfriends or making them pregnant.

  (3)  One factor in such situations is that there is a certain way of thinking among parents, community members, and law enforcement officials that girls are the absolute subject of protection, while boys are often regarded as deserving of punishment when they “damage” girls and disturb the harmony of the community. Even cruel violence against boys is approved of in some cases.

  (4)  Another aspect related to culture is that it has been commonly observed that the problem of premarital sex and pregnancy between minors is solved between (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

  In Lao People's Democratic Republic (Laos), the educational gap is widening between urban and rural areas, in terms of learning outcomes and internal efficiency in primary education. However, as commonly observed in other developing countries, monetary factors are not the leading cause behind Lao parents’ decision to stop their children’s schooling and learning. Looking at the educational situation of Laos from previous research and the household survey data, it is inferred that parents lack full understanding of the benefits, importance and necessity for sending children to school. In other words, it can be said that the educational gap is created mainly by varying degrees of parents' ideas, values, orientations, attitude towards education in school, which collectively form “educational consciousness”.

  Up to date, previous research on educational gap in industrialized countries have discussed the differences between “high – low” expectation for educational level, by asking “which educational level would you like your child to receive?” prescribed by the socioeconomic background. The differences in expectation are discussed in the framework of creating educational gaps. Previous research on such educational gap is built on the premise that academic ability and studying habits are most important. Kataoka (2018) pointed out that such a premise is “bad habitus of researcher sunk into the psyche of them”.

  Therefore, this research attempted to understand educational consciousness not only as “academic ability” and “progression to further education” but also more pluralistically by using social consciousness theory. According to Kikkawa (2014), social consciousness theory is a field dedicated to elucidate the influence that the social structure exerts on social consciousness. The definition of social consciousness is “consciousness shared among members of the social group”. Applying the social consciousness to this research, educational consciousness can be understood in the framework that is shared in the social group to which each parent belongs, while at the same time it is subjective thinking and values from parents' school education.

  From this background, this research raises fundamental questions as to what kind of factors the educational consciousness in Laos is composed of and how it is different between urban and rural areas. By answering these questions, this research aims to clarify the characteristics of parents' educational consciousness in Laos, focusing on the differences in regionality between urban and rural areas. The significance of this research is that it analyzes the educational consciousness categorized by different social groups, most importantly urban and rural areas, as opposed to focusing exclusively on economic situation and the social status of families and individuals, so as to reveal the actual situation of regional disparity in Laos.

  The data of this study is collected from interviews conducted with 96 parents residing in Vientiane Capital, whose children are in the fifth grade in primary education. This study focused on the educational consciousness accumulated from their actual experiences regarding how to interpret school education in Laos. For the interview method, semi-structured interviews incorporating laddering techniques were used. By using laddering techniques, it is possible to understand sensuous value by asking the basic question "why do you send your children to school?", abstract values by asking" why is your answer to the first question important?”, and concrete values by asking " what are the prerequisites to achieve your answers to question 1 and 2?".

  The research found that the constituent factors of educational consciousness in Laos ranged from answers that are commonly reported in other highly (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

  This study focuses on the characteristics of the Area-Based Initiatives in Korea, named the Education Welfare Priority Project (EWPP). The term “Area-Based Initiatives (ABIs)” has been used by policymakers in the EU and other country contexts to denote special social, cultural and economic interventions targeted at schools and disadvantaged areas. Examples of ABIs include EAZ/EiC (England), ZEP (France) and the Harlem Children’s Zone (US). Under the influence of EAZ and ZEP, EWPP in Korea came into effect by government actions starting in 2003. This project selects educationally and culturally poor places in low-income areas and aims to improve the quality of educational, cultural and welfare services through a cooperation of the government, school and local community.

  Firstly, Section 1 outlines the historical development of educational welfare policies since the 1990s and describes the current state of the problems with them in recent years. The author identifies an element that helped lead to a sudden increase in education welfare policies: increasing involvement of politicians, followed by the adoption of “universal” (i.e. made available to everyone) social benefits, such as free school meals and childcare. In addition, it reveals that the term “education welfare” has also not been defined clearly in Korea, which has caused confusion in school settings.

  Section 2 examines how the EWPP has evolved over time and analyzes the impact of the local-governance autonomy in education. In 2011, the transfer of the decision-making authority, resources and responsibilities of EWPP from central to local governments took place. This policy shift enabled expansion of the EWPP nationwide and increased autonomy and accountability in local governments. Critics, however, point out that the transfer has created disparities in the goals and the resources between the regions.

  In the next section, two regions (Seoul City and Kangwondo Province) were selected to explore the reality, and the author comparatively investigates the differences between the two regions in terms of aims and aspirations, the contents of the programs. In-depth interviews with the social workers and teachers were also conducted to find out how the schools have been changed by the operation of the EWPP.

  In the case of Seoul City, programs in five categories (tutorial/cultural/counseling/health/support) were provided, and closing the gap in educational attainment was also considered important. In Kangwondo Province, in contrast, emphasis was placed more on targeted student interventions, which focused on enhancing the functioning of socio-economically disadvantaged students, particularly by providing additional resources. The school’s annual budgets were also different: ₩9,609,000~64,826,000 for Seoul City and ₩9,000,000~20,000,000 for Kangwondo Province (as of 2018).

  Despite these differences, a new place named the “Education Welfare Room” and a new type of social worker named the “Education Welfare Worker” were introduced in both regions. In addition, welfare services such as a breakfast and medical services have been implemented. Most importantly, school-based networking has been successfully formed both inside and outside of school.

  In Section 4, the author clarifies three characteristics of the EWPP. First, there was a tendency to provide child welfare services in the EWPP. While the term “education” was used for the EAZ (Education Action Zones) and the ZEP (Zones’Education Prioritaires), the EWPP (Educational Welfare Priority Project) in Korea used the word “education welfare”. As new OECD data shows in 2016, the ratio of South Korea’s GDP to its public expenditure on social welfare was the lowest among members of the OECD. Under this circumstance, the area-based initiative for the educational (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)