The 2008 symposium invited three researchers who have conducted research on parents in Japan exploring the situation of childrearing by parents whose position in the stratification of the economy is accompanied by poverty. Gotou Noriko presented the transformation of the parents' economic situation and their attitude toward childrearing. Kataoka Emi presented the thinking and tactics of upper class parents eager to have their child enter private schools. And Yuzawa Naomi presented the actual conditions of childrearing by parents in poverty.

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During the decade from 1995 to 2005, the annual household income of families with preschool children declined overall, while average monthly educational expenses rose. As income fell and educational expenses rose, educational expenses accounted for an increasingly greater percentage of total household income. Public anxiety over declining scholastic aptitude extended to parents of preschoolers, who increased expenditures for lessons and instructional services for their children. In a comparison of mothers with higher education (hereafter, junior college education or above) and high-school-graduate mothers, the difference in average educational expenses per child by educational background of the mother grew during the same decade. In terms of lesson type, among mothers with higher education, the percentage of children taking English lessons rose. In the high-income and higher-education bracket, where English lessons begin from early childhood as a way to prepare for the future, the percentage of preschoolers taking English lessons increased.

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This study examines the relationship between parental strategies regarding school choice and class closeness, by using data from interviews and questionnaires given to parents with preschool, primary or junior high school children, conducted in Japan in 2006. Examining the data from such points of view as social closure, risk, toleration, cultural capital, and social capital, the analysis included here shows how contemporary families who select private school in Japan segregate or divide themselves relating to family socio-economic status through their school choice. I suggest the following: (1) The higher the mother's educational status, the more likely the children are to go to a private junior-high school or elementary school. (2) Parents who choose a private school show an attitude of intolerance to others. They expect cultural homogeneity and a similar class habitus within the group of parents with children at the same school. School choice by middle class parents relates to class closeness and social exclusion. Class closeness grows stronger according to parental school choice in Japan. (3) For parents, choosing a private school is a strategy to evade educational risk in the Japanese educational system. (4) The families that select a private school tend to reproduce their competitive attitudes and the value of upward-mobility in their children. They also expect generosity to their children.

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The current conditions of childrearing are an issue of interest amid the increasing polarization of the economic foundation of childrearing families. In the present study, we investigated policy responses based on the life history of a mother and her child with regard to the reproduction of poverty. Analysis revealed an unbreakable chain of chronic poverty in which poverty during childhood was linked to poverty during adolescence and to poverty in single-mother households and poverty among women. The persistent effects of poverty during childhood and the associated link between poverty and isolation resulted in instability of family structure as well as lifestyle, and the broken family was suffered from a form of social exclusion. In order to solve the problem of poverty during childhood, it is necessary for the parents' generation to actively take measures against inequality of wealth, and to establish comprehensive support systems that cover education, welfare, medicine, housing, and labor. In addition, social work to prevent isolation of children at risk of poverty and empowerment to promote social integration were proposed as crucial perspectives.

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The reports suggest that the polarization of households with children into rich and poor, caused by changes in the economic fabric and by the diversifying of the norms and forms of the family, intensified in the latter half of the 1990's. This gives rise to the following three questions. First, it appears that, in metropolitan areas, children's chances for educational promotion are correlated with the level of their household income and their mothers' educational background. What are the consequences of these correlations? Second, in metropolitan areas, parents are divided into two groups in terms of their preferences in parenting. One prefers that their children enter a private elementary and/or junior high school: they would like to buy a better education for their children and avoid what they regard as a useless education in a public school. The other prefers a more inexpensive public school to a private school. The groups are divided not only into different strata, but also into different communities in the same area. Is such a division also found in the countryside? Lastly, single-mother families are isolated in current Japanese society and the issue of their poverty is sidelined, although it is a major issue. Consequently, we consider the intergenerational reproduction of poverty in single-mother families. How could we solve this problem? At the very least, reports signify that it is a burning issue to investigate how the polarization of families promotes social inequalities among children.

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It is frequently said that the degree of familial differentiation of schooling has expanded in recent years. In contrast with the stratification studies that originally covered this issue, recent works have put more stress on economic problems.
Therefore, we need to focus on the educational attainment of mothers that particularly reflects the viewpoint of family sociology: parenting, female gender, the occupational environment of married women, familial cultural capital, and so on.
The current situation is one where the tertiary education attendance ratio of middle-age females has risen as high as forty percent. Taking this ratio into account, the education of mothers may be dichotomizing their educational strategies.

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This study examines how paternal involvement through children's swimming lessons influences their school-aged children's attitudes toward lessons and global self-worth. In Japan, various types of extracurricular activities have become popular among children. Swimming lessons, in particular, are the most popular. In this paper, I analyze paternal involvement through children's swimming lessons. Specifically, I examine how the involvement of fathers through such lessons influences children's attitudes toward their lessons, and how a father's and mother's cooperation influences both paternal involvement through these lessons and the global self-worth of the children. The results of this study are as follows: Paternal roles and the father's cooperation with the mother are positively associated with perception toward children's lessons, and paternal perception toward and the mother's cooperation with the father in children's lessons are positively associated with paternal involvement through children's lessons. Moreover, paternal involvement through children's lessons is positively associated with children's attitudes toward their lessons, although paternal perception is not related to children's attitudes. Additionally, the mother's cooperation with the father in children's lessons is positively associated with the children's global self-worth, whereas that of fathers is not.

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In the perspective of “diversification of family”, there assume to be increasing potential options of family of choice. The concept of family stipulated in Family Law in Japan, however, still and clearly assigns mutual collaborations for subsistence within and among the family members, which is defined as the product of consanguinity, matrimony and cohabitation. According to family rhetoric theory, even individual and subjective definitions of family can be easily affected by these three elements of legal family definition. Additionally, as the concept of intimacy functions as a new and critical criterion for subjective family definition, needs for subsistence expected in legal family often conflicts with the inevitable instability of intimacy-oriented family. Due to poorly organized access for extra-familial welfare in Japan, contemporary family crisis partly stems from this discrepancy. To address this problem, it is essential to articulate the excessively complex concept of family into some basic needs, which are traditionally expected in family including needs for subsistence, both for political and analytical arguments.

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