The awareness of consumers in Japan has progressed with support from business, government and education. However, the teachers in various educational areas are now in a trialand-error stage. We, in the field of clothing science studied the ”trouble in washing” problem and comprehended as follows; 1) The students we teach proved to have limited awareness of consumer behavior because of not having responsibilities for clothing expenses. 2) In the lectures, we showed the students guidelines to washing, using audi-visual equipment, such as videos and slides, which made them aware of their lack of knowledge or experiences in washing. 3) None of the students who had experiences in having trroubles in washing said that they had reported the cases to the authorities. The ”trouble in washing” problem is likely to increase because variety of clothing designs and new materials of clothing which will be added in the future. In addition, there are some other problems of consumers, such as storage systems and so-called ”Rental Boutique”.

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Educational improvement is now promoted in Japan. Japanese education is expected to reconstruct as a consumer living in a modern economic society from an international view point Sound judgment for every thing and how to select goods should be cultivated in every day's life. This investigation is how to introduce those facts in the school education. As a result, the consciousness as a consumer of senior high school student is weak, so it was made clear to need that they have to learn the knowledge and technique as a consumer.

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Consumer issues arise when a self-sufficient economy collapses and people start buying goods produced by others.Since further polarization of roles between the producer and the consumer are to be expected, the consumer issues will be a bigger concern in our society. Therefore, consumer training should become an important part of the home economics education. We are now in dire need of new curriculums which cultivate the eye toward better products, nip consumer trouble in the bud, and concentrate on training consumers to become more enlightened. For that purpose, I have carried out various tests to encourage pupils to experience the producer role rather than that of the consumer. What I am discussing here are the curriculum, teaching materials, and teaching methods of elementary home economics as a consumer education. Our fifth graders participated in the project titled ”Let's make salad dressing” with enthusiasm and, as a result, were mostly satisfied with their achievements.

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As the rapid change of social education, it is reqired to have more knowledge about consumer life than ever. So it is an urgent problem to give students more detailed and suitable knowledge about it. I would like to present an idea to reconsider and complete the system of the consumer education in school.

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Japanese households are rapidly changing in their management of household finance. Like other industrially developed countries, Japan is fast becoming a cashless society. The nature of financial products and services available to households is changing singificantly. This change in the society is bound to affect financial management practices of Japanese households. To learn specifically about various aspects of financial practices of Japanese a survey was conducted in the fall of 1986 in three districts of Japan: Kinki (Hanshin, Nara, Wakayama), Tokai (Inazawa), and Hokuriku (Toyama). A majority (80%) of households specifically identified several financial goals, however almost none had any specific plans to achieve those financial goals. For example, ’to accumulate funds for retirement planning’ was a goal mentioned by a majority of respondents, but about only two-thirds did not have even rough estimates regarding their retiremeht needs. It was also evident from data that many households had not made any adjustments in their spending and saving practices to achieve their financial goals. Several family events, for which accumulation of funds was identified as a goal, were refiective of Japanese culture. Those included children's wedding, gifts for relatives and friends for specific occasions. This is reflective of the importance of human relationships and networking. It was noted that households with well developed financial plans to meet their childrens, need were also the ones that had specific financial plans to meet the needs of other family members. Level of satisfaction with various aspects of household finances was sigificantly related to household's ability to develop specific plans to achieve family financial goals. In most Japanese households, spending plans were developed by wives. However, financial decisions were either made by husband or jointly by husband and wife. Most of the communication regarding family finances occurred between husband and wife only. Occasionally, children or couple's parents were also involved in such interaction. None of the respondents indicated consulting with a professional money manager or specialist. The role of money management specialist may become important in the future, as it is seen presently in U.S. and Canada. Approximately 40% of the respondents indicated they may consider getting some advice from a specialist in the future. However, majority indicated that they will never seek advice from a money management specialist because household finances are a private matter, and they know their own finances better than anyone else. Occasional disagreements between husband and wife on household finances were indicated by majority of respondents. Most of these disagreements were resolved by one spouse agreeing with the other (mostly wife agreeing with husband) or arriving at a compromise in some cases.

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It is our purpose to review some aspects of children's consumer socialization and to show the outcome of our research of children's purchase requests. In 1985 I interviewed 84 mothers, who lived in Furukawa in the north part of Miyagi Prefecture, about their attitudes about children's purchase requests. Also in 1987, I interviewed 75 pairs of sixth-grade pupils and their mothers in Hakodate Primary School about children's purchase requests and their mothers' attitudes toward them. The following are our findings 1) Japanese chldren in general request less than American children. 2) Variables relevant to frequency of children's purchase requests are the buying attitudes of their mothers, mothers' attitudes toward children's purchase requests, and discipline in consumption situations. 3) The more yielding to children's purchase requests their mothers' attitudes are, the more frequently children make requests. The less yielding to children's purchase requests their mothers' attitudes are, the less frequently children make requests. 4) Mothers' attitudes toward children's requests are also a good indicater of interraction between mothers and children.

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The aim of this article is to find a way of resolving the problems occurring from school expenses that oppress the Japanese family budget nowadays. The author has, in referring to the studies that the Japanese Ministry of Education conducted in this regard, tried to observe how other nations manage the school education of their children on their limited family budgets.

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How have you been dealing with consumer problems? Such a question will fundamentally last forever in the history of consumption life. But the time will come when, to the first question, the following will be added ―”How have you, as a specialist in the field of consumer education, dealt with consumers' concerns, that is, needs which men and women, young and old want to satisfy about high‐ fashin goods and high‐sense image in an affluent society?” Projecting color slides on the screen about some articles for daily use, I'd like tO express my thoughts of contemporary consumers' concerns fOr mOre sophisticated times to come.

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With today's social changes, we need new various fields of education, one of which is consumer education. However, there is little room for such a new subject in the education system which has been established and continued since the Meiji era. Accordingly, it is important to unite Consumer Education with the required subjects. Thus, I would give you examples of Consumer Education in high school math class: interest calculation, index number of price and insurance premium.

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Complaints received by consumer adviser office are thought to reflect consumer problems raised at times. The recent tendency is showing a noticeable increase of complaints from youngsters. This report details several actual affairs dealt with by the Shiga Prefectual Consumer Advisor Office and the actions taken to enlighten the consumers as well.

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Recently, the consumer's role has been playing a great part in the social and economical community. However, education for the consumers between family and society seems to be not sufficient. Here I will introduce an example of consumer education using picture stories in West-Germany. In particular, I will show consumer education to the lower grade children at school. The school children are able to learn consumer behavior through pictures. The main points of the lesson are as follows: 1. Before going shopping, careful planning is needed. 2. In shopping, compare the goods, price, quality and quantity with others carefully. 3. Be careful not to be deceived by much unnecessary propaganda. We are consumers by birth. But very few people are concious of it. Therefore it is necessary for the children to be taught consumer behavior in the early stages of life. If they are interested in the learning method. they will continue researching by themselves. From this point of view, the teaching method for children using picture stories in West-Germany should be appreciated.

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