In this study, to examine the possibilities and issues of comprehensive food waste learning, we proposed a cross-curriculum analysis by organizing the descriptions of food waste in elementary school textbooks of all subjects. No direct mention of "food waste" was found in the textbooks analyzed, suggesting that it is difficult to obtain opportunities to consciously teach food waste learning. However, descriptions of food waste were found in textbooks of several subjects. This suggests that if teachers and learners are aware of food waste as a part of a systematic curriculum, they may be able to practice multifaceted and continuous learning.

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This study focuses on digital citizenship education in the area of proactive consumer development, which is necessary in an information society, to examine the significance and issues of digital citizenship education in consumer education based on overseas efforts and discussions in Japan. Digital citizenship education is close to consumer education, and we discuss the significance of conducting it as a consumer education program. We also present the components of consumer behavior based on core digital citizenship competence.

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This study proposed a methodology for training university students to become enactors of consumer education in a consumer citizen society. The methodology was based on a diagram of consumer civil society education informed by the collaborative approach of three organizations. The study explored the possibility of developing proactive behavior in students who practice consumer education volunteer activities by analyzing their participation in the Okayama Prefecture Consumer Affairs Center project. The results showed the students in the group who developed changed their behavior in terms of improving their own consumer life, actively communicating information to others, and passing on their behaviors. This suggests that university students who engage in consumer education activities may become "enactors" of this mindset.

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This research aims to examine factors that influence junior high school students’ awareness of e-money to advance financial and economic education in the cashless era. The author analyzed questionnaire responses and interviewed teachers. Positive factors that influenced students’ desire to use e-money were knowledge of consumer life, and experience of success and failure. Negative factors were the fact that their experience managing money was predominantly through cash, and exposure to information on the disadvantages of e-money. The author found that, to ensure students learn the advantages and challenges of using e-money, it may be effective to extend information on e-money across subjects and areas based on the popularity of e-money in each region, and provide necessary information to students’ families.

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This study aims to examine the challenges in consumer education by confirming independence level of young consumers and classifying them into groups. An online survey was conducted on women university students through door to society and independence check. The results found that students have high independence levels barring two items on contract. Exploratory factor analysis identified six factors of independence, namely, independent living skills, economic and social interests, life management skills, family budget management skills, planning ability and thoughtfulness, and social nature. Clustering led to four groups of young consumers, namely, extrovert with poor home management skills, optimistic, dependent with good home management skills, and independent. The third group exhibited the lowest percentage of correct answers on contracts.

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The ultimate goal of this study is to develop personal finance materials for college students based on the Lifetime Wage Model. In this report, we created a Lifetime Wage Model, calculated the Non-Living Expenditure and the individual-type defined contribution pension plan (iDeCo) tax shield based on it, and confirmed the model’s validity. Assuming that university graduates begin employment in April of the year they turn 22 years old, that they retire in March of the year they turn 60 years old, and that their length of service is 38 years, the Lifetime Wage was about 265.67 million yen for male university graduates, and about 209.91 million yen for female university graduates. The total Non-Living Expenditure for this was 68.33 million yen for men, and 48.69 million yen for women. Additionally, if an individual has an iDeCo of 23,000 yen per month from immediately after employment until they are under 60 years old, the cumulative lifetime principal for both men and women is about 10.42 million yen, and the tax shield is about 2.74 million yen for men and about 2.25 million yen for women.

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Using the concept of consumer citizenship and with a view to sustainability, we examined how consumer education can respond to new problems arising in the sharing economy that transcend the traditional framework. In order to examine the possibility of consumer education regarding problems of interpersonal transactions (C to C) and the issues created by the duality of the sharing economy, we extracted three ideas related to the sharing economy from literature on the formation of consumer citizens. As a result, we were able to clarify the relationship between the sustainability of the sharing economy and the theoretical framework of consumer education, and reveal new possibilities for consumer education.

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This study aims to develop and verify instructional effects of coordinated problem-solving performance tasks in consumer education on junior high school home economics. Performance tasks were developed using a knowledge-based constructive jigsaw method involving role- plays wherein a group of four students engage in family planning to purchase home appliances. Analysis of classroom implementation indicated that students could resolve issues by utilizing the acquired knowledge and skills, leading to deeper understanding and actual empathy. Students also contributed to the family’s purchase plan. Thus, these tasks proved effective in consumers’ decision- making process.

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With reference to the global report released by UN in 2019, we propose a future-oriented consumption education plan that creates new values through the creation of a curriculum for technology and home economics in junior high school. First, the concept of SDGs was organized into six entry points; second, annual curricula for technology and home economics were created. As a result, the entry points were: (1) Human well-being and capabilities, (2) Sustainable and just economies, (3) Food systems and nutrition patterns, (4) Energy decarbonization and universal access, (5) Urban and peri-urban development, and (6) Global environmental commons. In all entry points, we were able to find relevance to consumption.

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A new curriculum that emphasizes the development of competencies has started in Japan. In this paper, we focus on the skills for social progress (the power of social and emotional skills , humanity) and consider how to educate consumers to concern themselves with the formation of a fair and sustainable consumer civil society and develop qualities and abilities that enable them to ambitiously achieve goals in cooperation with colleagues. Specifically, while referring to Korean humanity education (Character Education), which emphasizes the development of competencies, and CCE (Character and Citizenship Education) in Singapore, we propose a model of consumer citizens, values, competencies, and other qualities that we aim to nurture in consumer citizenship education.

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This paper proposes education for the development of employees who promote consumer- oriented management in a company. Training was provided to employees and analyzed using a questionnaire survey. We find that learning that includes the following three elements is effective for the development of employees who promote consumer-oriented management: (1) enhancing awareness pertaining to the connection between one’s work and the outside world (society, consumers, etc.); (2)setting common goals for consumers and businesses, deepening their understanding of their own roles, and of the idea of co-creation toward achieving common goals; (3)reconsidering consumer and corporate activities from the perspective of a consumer, and of what each person can contribute toward this goal.

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Studies have indicated that most consumers do not recognize the “Counter-Display” of advertisements, and even if they do, it does not influence their impression or evaluation of the experiences. Supposedly, believing in experiences involves deceptive cognition. Therefore, in this study, I created a simulated product advertisement and conducted a randomized controlled trial to investigate whether deceptive cognition can be induced. Consequently, the group that was exposed to deceptive cognition had a suppressive evaluation of the advertising product and their memory of the “Counter-Display” was significantly higher than that of the group that was not exposed. Further, only the group that induced deceptive cognition had a difference in the impression evaluation of the product based on the memory of “Counter-Display.”

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The purpose of this study is to examine if the participant students' learning was accomplished as teacher training as well as consumer education when the consumer education lessons with the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), which is a type of active learning method with which students use questions that they formulate on their own, was practiced as a part of their teacher training course. The authors implemented those consumer education lessons with QFT into five student-teacher classes at the university level. By analyzing the data from the post-class questionnaires and the textual data of the students' impressions of the lessons, it was confirmed that the students were able to learn both teaching skills and consumer education skills.

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Japan Consumers’ Association has been offering consumer officer training seminars to those in charge of corporate consumer response departments since 1973. We witnessed a proliferation of the establishment of corporate consumer response departments in the 1970s. This study clarified the significance of the consumer officer training seminars in the 1970s through a literature review and semi-structured interviews with the people involved.

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We investigated the decline of the learning effect by high-school students after consumer education classes were provided. Subjects were given a series of lectures about it by a guest lecturer in the first semester of the first year and were later asked to answer related questionnaires at three separate occasions. It was found that the two representative scores, i.e., consumer awareness and consumer knowledge, significantly (p<0.01) declined by the end of the second year, suggesting that students had forgotten most of the contents of the lectures. It is undesirable given that the national guideline recommends that students should be well educated about the subject in the third year when they become the age of 18.

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The research purpose was to develop an elementary school home economics lesson to facilitate students to consider how they use their spare money on online games, and to examine its effect. We used online learning material with which students can experience a billing system with prepaid cards. After implementing the lesson, as a result of statistical analysis, the ratio of students who used their fictitious spare money as they planned in class was about 40% of a group of students playing online games with billing. It was significantly less than the other groups: non-online game user group and non-billing online game user group. As well, after the lesson, the number of students’ answer, “I don’t know,” to the question “How much money do you want to use to play online games?” decreased significantly, and the number of students saying “I read most rules before I play online games” increased significantly.

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Consumer Education Coordinators (CECs) are expected to play a role in connecting school frontlines with organizations and individuals capable of providing support, but mutual coordination is currently insufficient. In response, CECs conducted a survey, consisting of a written questionnaire and interviews with four ordinance-designated cities and six prefectures in the Kinki region, to understand how consumer support groups and local consumer administrations are coordinating with school education frontlines, and propose measures for improvement. The survey was carried out from October 2020 to February 2021. The survey identified issues needing to be addressed by national and local governments. These issues can be categorized broadly as a need to strengthen the activities and coordination functions of CECs.

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In 2022, the new subject "public" will be introduced and the age of legal adulthood will be lowered to 18 from 20. At first, the author investigates the consciousness on consumption behavior of high school students and analyzes it. Then, based on the research analysis, some items on consumer education in the textbook of the subject "public" are analyzed. Finally, the author clarifies some issues for the improvement of consumer education and describes future prospects.

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In this study, we conducted six lessons on consumer education for three types of high schools. The purpose is to clarify the appropriation of contents of lessons. We analyzed the lessons by students’ understanding of contents, self-evaluation, and the development of human beings. The results indicated that the number of class hours differed depending on the types of high schools. At high-level school, students’ comprehension and knowledge were deepened but reaching a high level of development of human being was delayed. General-level and professional high schools showed high awareness on the contents which are closely related to real-life, but additional hours were taken to understand the social system. Working with “public” and continuous practices are essential to enhance consumer education.

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In school education, "contracts" are taught from the fifth grade of elementary school, when home economics education begins. However, children experience making contracts earlier by buying snacks or getting on a local bus, etc., whether or not they are aware of it. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop and verify a consumer education program, for first to fourth grade elementary school students, to learn "contracts" and "responsibility of consumers". A self-written questionnaire survey was conducted before and after the program. A total of 41 children participated in the survey at three after-school children's clubs. The effectiveness of the developed program was proved by improving the participants' knowledge, awareness, and attitudes toward contracts and their responsibility as consumers.

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The purpose of this study was to clarify the characteristics of lesson support for consumer education and life planning by analyzing the teaching materials for school education posted on the MoneySmart website. The 55 teaching resources are examined from the perspective of the overall structure, teaching methods, and evaluation criteria. The relationship between subjects and general-purpose skills are revealed in all the teaching materials. They can be employed in a variety of environments for schools. Teachers’ instruction books contain the assessment rubrics that show the relationship between the learners’ goals and the activities and worksheets. A website that specializes in consumer education practice is imperative in order to centralize the utilization of teaching materials, teaching methods, and evaluations.

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In this study, we constructed a three-year lesson design for junior high school technology and home economics (home economics) based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), practiced a part of the lesson (first-year junior high school students), and verified the results. As a result, many of the students who changed their eating habits through the class took actions related to ethical consumption. Students who developed an interest in the SDGs through the class and those who understood and acted on the SDGs correctly, maintained their eating habits four months after the class.

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