The aim of this research was to examine the effectiveness of "Experience in Early Childhood Education and Care" (ECEC) through Junior high school student's interaction with early elemental school students. The narratives written by junior high school students after ECEC were analyzed, and were classified into several categories. These categories were then compared with those of the descriptions written by high school students on the impression about ECEC with preschool children. The results were as follows; ・From ECEC with early elemental school students, these junior high school students learned several important features about children including ECEC with preschool children. ・These junior high school students' social self-efficacy increased as a result of their interaction with the early elementary school as well as preschool children. These results suggest that ECEC with early elementary school students can be used interchangeably with ECEC with preschool children.

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The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between junior high school students' studying experiences and their recognition of senior citizens' roles. The results were as follows: Junior high school students' recognition of senior citizens' roles was analyzed using factor analysis. Four factors were extracted including "life perspective role," "life and family succession role," "emotional help role," and "discipline and socialization role." A significant difference was found between students who studied senior citizens' roles and those who did not. Students who studied showed significantly higher scores concerning their recognition of senior citizens' roles than those who did not. Studying experiences that significantly increased the scores concerning all four of students' recognitions of senior citizens' roles were "lectures on knowledge," and "examination study about senior citizens." These were the studies in which students had no direct contacts with senior citizens. These results were different from the previous research that similarly focused on high school students.

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The aim of this paper is to develop teacher training program that enables students understanding characteristics and fundamental structures of home economics education lesson. This program is designed based on the following four perspectives; responding societal changes, linking between contents and real life, setting purpose of practical activity, and writing a lesson plan to evaluate student's comprehension. The reflection reports and lesson plans that students wrote in their learning were used to evaluate the degree of understanding essential points in home economics education lesson. Four indicators were used for evaluation. Results summarized as follows; 1 Students roughly understood the importance and necessity of both characteristic contents and fundamental structures in home economics education lesson. 2 It seemed, however, that the degree of understanding about the relationship between the contents and real life was lower than those of other three perspectives. This lower degree of understanding is due to students' lacking in ability for writing up lesson plan and attributing learning activity to real life situations.

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The purpose of this study is to examine the consumer educational teaching methods of home economics education. In January 2007, two teaching practices dealing with a mail order were conducted for the second-year junior high school students. One was a participatory lesson and the other was a lecture lesson. Teaching materials of both lessons contained the same goals, and used mail order advertisements. The participatory lesson was conducted from the perspective of a vicious mail order contractor. The lecture lesson introduced the examples of a vicious mail order contractor. The participatory lesson was effective because it dealt with the knowledge in everyday life. However, a support is necessary for students to be able to relate to their lived experiences. In addition, a support is needed to conduct a participatory lesson through cooperative activities. In contrast, the lecture lesson efficiently transmitted the knowledge. However, the knowledge in everyday life could not be well understood using this method, thus a support for relating this knowledge to everyday life is necessary.

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