The purpose of this paper is to discuss what“justice”is for education, especially for local education administration. In the first half of the paper, the basic ideas of justice of education are discussed, and in the second half, the current state of the theory of“justice of education”in Germany is considered, and in particular, the policies of the Hanseatic city Hamburg, Germany, are examined as concrete examples.

Justice is subject to various discussions. In political science, some argue that it is impossible to prove the correctness of a concept of justice, so they focus on only the“decision process”of what seems to be“justice”. On the other hand, there are people who continue to argue for tentatively agreed justice, even if the final correctness is uncertain. From the standpoint of the latter, this paper discusses justice for local educational administration from some limited perspectives.

The theory of educational justice is generally discussed as distributive justice of education. The popular positions in discussions are egalitarianism, priority theory, sufficiency theory, and meritocratic conception. Aside from these individual-based approaches, it is also important for educational administration to take into consideration individual school or school districts as a subject, on which the compensative measurements are offered. When ensuring equal educational conditions for each school district or school, it is necessary to carefully consider how to handle the differences that actually exist. Guarantees of formally equal conditions often lead to unequal results. Therefore, in order to guarantee substantial equality of education, it is necessary to“make the difference stand out”in advance.

In Japan, the substantial guarantee of educational conditions has been achieved fairly well since the Second World War. However, in recent years, there has been an increasing tendency to directly compare the educational achievements of individual schools. Each school is, however, located in a diverse social environment. The backgrounds of students' parents are diverse and disparate, too. Including these points, there is an increasing need for educational administration to provide support on an individual school basis. In other words, there is a growing necessity to discuss the justice of education for individual schools or school districts.

In Germany, many people have been discussing“educational justice” since the PISA survey. In Germany, the word“Chancengleichheit” (equal opportunity) is rejected as a formal concept. Instead, the word “Bildungsgerechtigkeit” (educational justice) is preferred to express these concepts. Educational justice is defined as“the condition in which a decision to go to secondary school is determined independently of the student's social background.”Regarding this definition, there are criticisms that the principle of sufficiency should be considered more strongly, and that the recognition of individual moral autonomy should be emphasized.

Hamburg, as a federal state, is advancing school reform with the aim of realizing“educational justice.”There, school system reforms (two-pillar model) were introduced to reduce restrictions on educational career paths at the time of progressing to secondary education, and administrative support has been provided based on the“social index”of individual schools. In addition, the moral autonomy of individuals is approved by guaranteeing the parent's right of school choice. These measures are intended to improve the level of“educational justice”.

It is concluded by this half theoretical and half case-based discussion that when discussing justice from the perspective of educational administration, it is better to analyze a concrete educational policy based on the particular notion of justice appropriate to it, rather than to theoretically and comprehensively discuss the concept of justice.

This paper asks the following questions:

First: What impact has the policy package of“regional revitalization” had on local government educational administration? Second: What are the problems of regional revitalization for local educational administration? This paper examines this issue theoretically through an analysis of the ideological and institutional frameworks of regional revitalization.

The conclusions of this paper are as follows: First, educational policies in regional revitalization are conducted as extensions of the existing policy. In general, regional revitalization was mandated by the local government to include the enactment of a comprehensive strategy for local governments. Local governments are reluctant to implement changes:“We do not want to do it, but we are forced to do it by the national government.”Compared to the formulation of a comprehensive strategy, there is some room for local governments to make choices about their educational policies. On the other hand, school closures, which are necessary for a declining population, are often“forced.”This is a unique (but crucial) policy in education.

Second, the problem of regional revitalization for the local educational administration concerns the issue of what to aim for in local education. “Value”is assigned extrinsically by the national government (in this case, “the national government”means the Prime Minister's Office rather than the Ministry of Education). The main goal of regional revitalization is to prevent population decline; however, economic growth is prioritized in specific policies. Due to the fact that the value and purpose of local educational policy are determined by the national government, education is necessarily positioned as a means to achieve the national government's values and policy goals. If such values and policy goals are endorsed by both the local government and the local residents, there is no conflict. However, education solely as a means of economic growth, population growth, or population maintenance is problematic. Therefore, regional revitalization presents a problem because it neglects the actual values and norms of the local educational administration.

From the view of public administration, the main issue for regional revitalization is the relationship between national and local governments. In addition, from the view of the local educational administration, there are difficult issues concerning how to share values and norms to reach consensus. One of those issues is whether the values and norms of the general administration should be considered separately from those of the educational administration.

This paper focuses on Akashi City's children's measures as a case where“justice”of the administration is embodied in the direction of realizing an inclusive society.

Mr. Fusaho Izumi took office as the mayor of Akashi in 2011 and formulated the Fifth Long-Term Comprehensive Plan (2011-2020). It has made children the pillars of the city's government in order to realize an inclusive society in which no one is left behind.

There is a wide range of measures for children being implemented. They can be classified into three categories: 1) reducing the economic burden of child-rearing, 2) enhancing social upbringing, and 3) improving the educational environment. How is the justice of“no one left behind” carried out in these measures to help children?

The purpose of this paper is to grasp how to carry out the justice of “no one left behind”in these measures to help children through analyzing 1) the principle, 2) the actual situation regarding the organization, budget, and human arrangement to implement children's measures, 3) Mayor Izumi's background, and 4) the opinion of the citizens.

The findings of this paper are as follows. The first revealed that Akashi City's children's measures are based on the principles of universal and seamlessness. The universal principle for all children is applied so that no one is left behind. No income cap is set for child-rearing support. Also, the way of establishing a safety net to ensure that no one is left behind is comprehensive and seamless. Akashi city has implemented comprehensive support measures for children to enhance their social upbringing such as the establishment of a child welfare center.

Second, the budget for implementing measures to help children doubled and the number of personnel tripled between 2011 and 2019, and the budget and the allocation of personnel showed how to do justice.

Third, Mayor Izumi's basic perspective, which puts inclusion as a policy principle, was obtained from on-site recognition backed by the experience when he was a child and a lawyer.

Finally, Izumi City government is supported by citizens who wish to create a city that is friendly to children and people with disabilities, and their support is obtained only because it is a city government that responded to their wish.

Akashi City's children's measures for all children have had ripple effects such as overcoming population decline and improving the local economy, and have achieved inclusive growth. This case is very suggestive in considering the“justice”of the administration, while pursuing justice that no one is left behind based on universal and seamless principles.

In Japan, there are two interpretations of how to promote inclusive education. One is that children with and without disabilities should study together in regular classrooms, and the other is that there should be a variety of learning settings to respond to individual educational needs. Until now, many boards of education have prioritized the latter. However, we need to consider the risk that preparing a variety of learning settings can lead to the segregation of children with and without disabilities. The purpose of this article is to obtain a suggestion about the role of boards of education in order to expand the practice that children with and without disabilities study together in regular classrooms.

The first task is to clarify the reality of inclusive education in Japan. Boards of education take measures for the children with disabilities to study at the regular schools near their residence. One measure is to make it easier to use the resource room in which children with disabilities receive individual instruction for 1 to 8 class hours a week. For example, in Tokyo, specialized teachers go around resource rooms at each school instead of establishing resource rooms only in some schools. As a result, the proportion of children who use the resource room increased to the second highest level among 47 prefectures. Another measure is to set up special support classes in most schools. In Osaka, 98.2% of public elementary schools have special support classes. Therefore, 6.02% of children are enrolled in special support classes, which is the highest in 47 prefectures, and some of them study in regular classrooms by using interactive and collaborative learning systems. Boards of education are trying to increase the number of teachers who respond to the individual educational needs of children with disabilities by setting up resource rooms and special support classes.

The second task is to identify the barriers present when children with and without disabilities study together. The fieldwork at an elementary school, in which the teachers actively engage in interactive and collaborative learning systems, reveals that it is not so easy to integrate individual support and group guidance. If the teachers in charge of individual support and the teachers in charge of group guidance do not communicate effectively, the relationship between children with disabilities and children without disabilities will worsen. Although increasing the number of highly specialized teachers to respond to individual educational needs is certainly an important role for the Board of Education to play, regular classroom teachers may become less responsible for the learning of children with disabilities. Therefore, it is important to think about how reasonable accommodation should be provided in regular classrooms. The Boards of Education must take the initiative in improving the basic environment of regular classrooms so that reasonable accommodation can be provided.

In this paper, I examined what “justice” is in educational administration that can be seen through the education of foreign children. I also considered why each local government implement the education of foreign children“in that form and contents”, and explored the intention of local governments behind the implementation and selection of the education as an expression of“justice”.

Education of foreign children is not provided by national wide law in Japan. So, if see local governments policies we are able to find“justice”of local governments in education of foreign children. Therefore, in the case of“doing”, in order to clarify the basis of this, I searched for the information posted on the website of all the prefectures from the following three perspectives - explanation of the basic plan of education promotion and of the general education outline, policies under the jurisdiction of the board of education and under the jurisdiction other than the board of education - to find out if there is a direct reference to the education of foreign children.

With regard to perspective 1, I found concrete measures were described in 29 prefectures. As for the context of the policy, a total of nine contexts were confirmed, such as promotion of international understanding education, development of a safety net for learning, and multicultural coexistence.

With regard to perspective 2, I surveyed the development of guidelines and policies for the education of foreign children. As a result, I was able to confirmed the establishment of three types of guidelines: policies of education for foreigners, basic policies of human rights education, and basic policies of bullying prevention. Among them, the local governments that have established guidelines and policies of education for foreigners position the education of foreign children as a response to the problems that emerged in foreigners, that turns out that there is a strong intention to solve social problems, that is, to change the way of society with foreigners, rather than giving back to individuals to meet“special educational needs”.

With regard to perspective 3, it was confirmed that the four groups of policies, which have different backgrounds, referred to the education of foreign children. These are multicultural coexistence measures (securing labor forces), multicultural coexistence measures (promotion of regional internationalization), human rights measures (multicultural coexistence), and global human resource development measures.

Education of foreign children is more affected by the financial situation of local governments, so regarding where to allocate humans, goods, and money from the limited financial resources, it is necessary to have valid justification. However, I think it is also indispensable to verify how“justice”is fulfilled by reconsidering to realize that education cannot be guaranteed unless some reason as a basis for justification is given itself. By looking at the policies for education of foreign children, it can be seen that the substance of“justice”is involved in not only the distribution of resources but also the creation of social value. The process of implementation needs to be analyzed not only from the perspective of what kind of existing value is used to justify measures for maintaining social order, but also from the perspective of creating new values to justify those measures.

In South Korea, the Act on the Establishment and Operation of Teachers' Union (Educational Workers Labor Union Act) was enacted to partially recognize teachers' rights to work and to legalize the Korean Teachers and Educational Workers' Union (KTU).

This paper aims to reveal the reason why the Educational Workers Labor Union Act was enacted as a“special law”of the Labor Union Act, not of the Civil Servants' Law or education-related law. I analyzed the process of enacting the Act, focusing on the internal discussions of KTU and the changes in the view of the teaching profession by the Ministry of Education and the Korean Federation of Teachers' Association (KFTA). The main results of this paper are as follows.

First, the KTU and the KFTA have influenced each other. When the KTU was being formed as an outsider union, the KFTA tried to break away from its image as a “government service association” by reorganizing its internal organization, pushing for collective bargaining with educational administration. The KTU was influenced by KFTA's legislation on the advancement of teachers, and had tried to create a politically favorable situation for legalization.

Secondly, there were not only changes in discussions within the KTU, but also changes in the view of the teaching profession held by the Ministry of Education and the KFTA. The Ministry of Education expressed opposition to the establishment of teachers' unions, emphasizing teachers' law-abiding spirit, but began to recognize a part of teachers' right to work in the late 1990s to meet international standards. The KFTA insisted on obtaining the rights to collective bargaining, while claiming that it is a professional teachers' association.

Third, as mentioned above, the KTU and the KFTA had a similar view of teachers' rights to work, while there was a difference in their perception of rights to collective bargaining. The KTU interpreted the right to bargain collectively as guaranteeing teachers' independent union rights without legal restrictions. They recognized that as long as the education law restricts them, it is not a negotiation held in the equal relationship with the educational administration. This is the reason why the KTU rejected the special law that applies only to teachers and based its establishment on the Labor Union Act.

The KTU regarded teachers in collective bargaining as equivalent to educational administration staff. That differs from the perspective of the KFTA, which emphasizes the duty of political neutrality of teachers as just“government employees”. The“dualization”of collective bargaining, which has been criticized in previous studies, is due to the difference in views of both institutions regarding the teaching profession.

This study aims to elucidate the legal process to establish an objective measure of children's actual circumstances and the difficulties faced by communities in remote areas that would capture the characteristics of remote areas, and to elucidate its limitation as a standard for the provision of educational conditions in the 1950s. Therefore, this study examined and summarized the process through which the Enforcement Regulations of the Act for the Promotion of Education in Remote Areas, which are the criteria for designating schools in remote areas, were established. In addition, we set out to clarify the meaning of remoteness in the Act for the Promotion of Education in Remote Areas, which was established in the 1950s.

The following points were established through this study.

The promotion of education in remote areas in the 1950s aimed to provide educational conditions, including the provision of teaching tools, materials, and facilities to remote areas that are characterized by transportation difficulties due to natural conditions, poverty, and cultural delay. Based on this idea, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology carried out a detailed survey in which the actual circumstances of children and cultural characteristics of remote areas were also considered. The survey revealed that the criteria for designating schools in remote areas did not sufficiently reflect these aspects. In other words, although the criteria for designating schools in remote areas have been used for the provision of a remote area allowance and have contributed, to some extent, to securing teachers in remote areas, they were not constructed as an objective measure based on the actual circumstances of children and the cultural context in remote areas; and there is currently a demand for such objective measures. The provision of educational conditions from the perspective of social inclusion is a common modern issue, and needs to be re-examined.

The Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) in the U.S. federal government has subsidized projects aimed at educational improvement and development of higher education since its inception in 1972. On the other hand, there is no previous research on the framework for analyzing FIPSE from the viewpoint of educational finance.

However, there is some research which considers part of the analytical framework. This research has a problem focusing only on the distribution side of educational finance. FIPSE also has the role of disseminating model projects to other higher education institutions in addition to distributing the federal grant.

Furthermore, much of the federal grant at the elementary and secondary level is subsidized for projects aimed at educational improvement and development. In addition, applicants who want to get a federal grant should check the list of federal grants, create documents, and submit their application documents to the federal government. Based on these points, the elements extracted by the analytical framework set in this study could be seen in elementary and secondary education in addition to higher education. Nevertheless, previous research on elementary and secondary education and previous examination of higher education have been made under the different concern.

Therefore, this study aims to examine the following three themes. First, the author considers the characteristics of distribution elements and monitoring elements at FIPSE based on previous research and related regulations and then creates a framework for analyzing FIPSE from the viewpoint of educational finance. Second, the author analyzes the previous research on educational finance at the elementary and secondary level from the viewpoint of the analytical framework set in this study. Third, the author considers whether the elements extracted by the analytical framework set in this study could be seen in the federal grants at the elementary and secondary level, with the case of the Fund for Improvement and Reform of Schools and Teaching (FIRST). The obtained results are as follows;

1.The framework for analyzing FIPSE from the viewpoint of educational finance was not seen in previous research on educational finance at the elementary and secondary level, and consisted of continued elements, such as grant distribution, grant management, accountability, and dissemination of model projects.

2.The elements extracted by the analytical framework set in this study could be seen in the federal grants at the elementary and secondary level.

Based on these findings, it could be possible to consider the new role of federal government to assure achievement of educational outcome for all children from the perspective of both continuity of educational finance and entirety of school education.