In Japan, globalization, aging, and a declining birthrate are simultaneously in progress. As a result of these phenomena, increase in the future population of foreigners and diversification in their composition have become more natural eventualities for the Japanese.
However, the consciousness toward foreigners in Japan has worsened, and both the government and the academics have no effective measures to improve the situation. This paper deals with administrative measures that can improve the consciousness toward foreigners in Japan.
Based on national statistics and my questionnaire survey that compared municipalities that are home to foreign-born residents and where many Russian sailors land, the following facts became apparent: the lack of communication between foreigners and Japanese and the negative influence of the media have elevated the uneasiness and prejudices against foreigners.
With reference to the abovementioned facts, this paper examines the governmental policies by analyzing literature. In addition, by interviewing executive officers, the paper examines the governmental policies with regard to five municipalities in Hokkaido; these municipalities have many contacts with foreigners.
The analysis revealed three problems. First, municipalities in Japan do not generally have a standard for cross-cultural understanding. Second, there is no post to taking care of cross-cultural understanding measures. Third, there are no official rules concerning the education of cross-cultural understanding.
Cross-cultural understanding is the common issue in all the three problems. However, with regard to this, the Japanese government depends entirely on the initiatives of municipalities and nongovernmental organizations. Furthermore, the government has been negligent in giving the most basic instructions to the municipalities or in setting fundamental standards to facilitate cross-cultural understanding. If the government does not set a standard or cope with every situation that arises, it would be difficult to improve the feeling of hostility toward foreigners in Japan.

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Since the 1980s, there has been a policy shift toward a community-based approach focusing on its needs and effectiveness in the field of natural conservation or development. This approach gives rise to the following questions with regard to the players involved: Whose and what aspect of nature should be conserved? Why and how is its legitimacy accepted by others?
This paper aims to analyze the manner in which the people involved in the Mattole watershed were able to give legitimacy to themselves for managing local natural resources through the process of constructing the collective memory of salmon. In the Mattole watershed, in Humboldt County, California, there have been sharp divisions between ranchers as "developers" and newcomers as "environmentalists" over watershed conservation and restoration since the 1970s. However, a mild collective identity of the residents in the watershed has been cultivated through talks and discussions of the memory of salmon in the discursive space that generated from conflicts. Furthermore, this discursive space provided residents with the watershed ethics of human-nature relations; moreover, it provided them with legitimacy as the main players involved in managing local natural resources. In this paper, the author focuses on the constructive process of the collective memory, particularly on the talks and discussions of the memory among people through interactions; further the author suggests its possibility as the base for legitimacy.

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In Japanese jurisprudence, it is widely maintained that lawyers should practice in accordance with a legal way of thinking that can be reduced to the form of an if-then statement: "If you find facts specified by the statutes (for example, the defendant was negligent, and the plaintiff exercised due caution), then you must award the decision to the plaintiff." Niklas Luhmann (1972) pointed out that the if-then form is a crucial feature of the modern legal system, and that it carries the advantage of exonerating judges from an examination of all relevant consequences of their decisions.
This article explores the function of this type of exoneration in actual judicial arguments and argues that it can lead judges toward contrary decisions. It mainly examines two important cases in Japan: one concerns punitive damages for nonpecuniary loss (pain and suffering) and the other involves a case in which the plaintiff claimed damages for the loss of the future earnings of his/her children who died in the accident. In the second case, the plaintiff wanted to be paid in yearly installments on the deceased's obit, hoping that yearly payments would make the defendant recall the accident. In both cases, the plaintiffs were trying to punitively punish the defendants through tort liability. As the Japanese jurisprudence provides that tort liability must not be punitive, the court declined the claim for punitive damages. On the other hand, the installment payment was awarded in the latter case in favor of the plaintiff's right to choose the method of payment, regardless of his/her intention behind the punishment; the decision did not support the reasoning that the defendant should recall the accident. In both cases, the advantage of the if-then form played a pivotal part in the arguments.

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Some contemporary arts have spread into various aspects of our social lives, and policies promoting culture and art have been formulated. Since these policies can contribute to the development of a region and the improvement of people's quality of life, so it should be guaranteed that everybody has the rights to create and enjoy for culture and art.
Osaka City draws up an outstanding plan for the development of the city through the activation for experimental arts. In Shinsekai Arts Park, one of the venues hosting cultural programs in Osaka City, four art nonprofit organizations (NPOs) base the vacancies managed by Osaka City, explore the possibilities of their expression at a time when they are successful in cultivating an organic relationship with the "Shinsekai" region. It could be said that many projects of experimental arts have affected people's lives and regional activation or, in a manner of speaking, has cultivated their culture. However, Osaka City changed the plan and shifted the genre of support from experimental arts to traditional arts and digital contents industry.
Art is the expression of one's values. In cooperation for arts creation we would know there are various values, and confront such themes as coexisting with all kinds of others in this society. The activities of these NPOs have succeeded in creating a "local public sphere" of artists and citizens and a setting for the construction of a "civil society" from the grass roots. In cultural policies there are problems such as biased budget, inconsistency of plan, or the immaturity of the manner of collaboration between the government and civil sector as NPOs. It would be expected that we recognize for public aspects of culture and art in the society, and have cultural tolerance of various values to coexist and invest time into "cultivating" such culture.

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Commonwealth and state governments have promoted Indigenous education since the 1967 Referendum. Further, since 1990, although they have promoted education policies that are more positive than the earlier ones, a gulf still remains between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. This paper analyzes the present situation of Indigenous education in primary and secondary schools. In particular, the study focuses on recent trends in the educational setting concerning Indigenous people.
In order to clarify the analysis of the recent trends in Indigenous education, this research attempts to examine not only statistical results but also the findings of the interviews conducted as part of research in 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2005. These interviews were conducted with teachers, students, parents, Aboriginal Education Assistants (AEAs), and other educational staff related to Indigenous education.
The research outcome demonstrates how the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students has been gradually decreasing based on the retention rate. Although it is obvious that Indigenous students still face difficulties in education, the gulf remains not only between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students but also between the Indigenous students from urban and remote areas. In response to this disparity, recent changes in governmental education policy have shifted budget funding toward programs that concentrate on remote areas. The outcome of this alteration in policy can only be estimated. In contrast to this, other changes that are only related to improving basic literacy and numeracy skills pay less attention to cultural awareness and instead move farther from involving Indigenous communities and parents into school-based programs. The research also shows that even though the number of Indigenous students has been increasing in recent years, the number of AEAs and the strength of Indigenous teaching staff has not been increasing proportionately. This implies that governments are not focusing on involving Indigenous people in education as much as they did earlier. These trends also affect multicultural education and will affect the future of Indigenous education.

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