The value of SDGs, including “No poverty” seems to permeate all over the world these days, however, the negative discourses toward homeless people also still remain.　Is there any possibilities that the perspective toward homeless people turns over and society tries to solve the homelessness together? This paper examines the possibility, focusing on the awareness of the mainstream society. For the purpose, this study performs a survey, analysing life stories of four people who chose to work with homeless people at a social enterprise, The Big Issue Japan. As the result, it found out that they transoformed their social views due to interactions with homeless people.

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This paper is a study of the life stories of three former street children who move between family, peers, and NGOs. It analyzed the roles of families and peers by participatory observations and their narratives through activities with them. The results showed that family and peers play different roles from the previous studies, which were fixed and depicted only one aspect. The study results showed that peers worked to connect with NGO support, were role models to show their connection to society, and created relationships that had a positive impact on each other. Family members act to attract their child to home. Behind their behavior of extrusion and attracting child lie complex family circumstances, sexuality, drugs and HIV, to which the families reacted in different ways. And the child also continues to “come and go” in response to the family’s reaction.

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This essay, by analyzing the life stories conducted with Vietnamese refugees living in Japan, reveals their acquisition of Japanese language not by regular schooling, but rather through their social interaction with others. Previous studies pointed out the lack of Japanese language proficiency among Vietnamese refugees but failed to capture their trajectories of language use and acquisition of Japanese language. This essay finds out that interviewees tend to acquire oral languages through daily conversations with others and written language from their employment environment. The findings point out the importance of focusing on the complementary use of plurilingual competences and general competences in analyzing the linguistic experiences of immigrants as multilinguals.

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