This study examines the process of “one-word instruction” and its establishment in a young kindergarten class. Through the analysis of “line formation practice,” the study explores how a caregiver's simple cue prompts children to form a line in a specific way.

Children in kindergarten form lines as part of their routine. A characteristic feature of this process is that the caregiver's “one word instruction” guides the children to simultaneously form a specific line. How was this “one-word instruction” established? This study analyzed a scene where a child, new to kindergarten, participates in forming a line. The study employed H. Garfinkel's concepts of “instruction” and “instructed action” as well as the discussion around instructional history.

The analysis indicated that the caregivers readjusted the instructions to combine onomatopoeia with concrete body movements, using the children's responses to the instructions as resources. When the children formed a line in response to the instructions, they evaluated the status and confirmed the name of the line, treating each instruction as a learning item. The process of assigning a status to each instruction as a learning item has also been elucidated. In addition, in the process of establishing the “one-word instruction,” the resources used to construct the previous instructional activity were used to construct the new instructional activity, and the instruction was constructed using interactional history.

By considering the community engagements in a former coal field, this paper examines how the remains and memories of coal mines have been found in postdevelopmental coal fields and what significance they may have for regional revitalization.

Old buildings, ruins, townscapes, and landscapes that were once neglected are now recognized as “heritage sites” with important historical and cultural value for the region and society. Under these circumstances, the remains and memories of the coal industry in Japanese society before and after World War Ⅱ have been attracting attention in recent years as industrial heritage. In each former coal field, the remains and memories of the coal mines are being explored. Specifically, this paper considers the activities of the “Ohmachi Brick Museum.”

Ohmachi Town, Kishima District, Saga Prefecture, where the “Ohmachi Brick Museum” is located, was once a leading coal field. The closure of the coal mine had serious economic and social impacts, and for many years the history and memory of the coal mine have been overlooked by the local community. However, in recent years, efforts to utilize the remains of coal mines left in the area have been initiated by “Ohmachi Brick Museum.” These activities reveal the cultural and social processes in which the industrial remains left in a region are given value through the various interactions and dialogues of the people who live there. The efforts to preserve and utilize the remains of the coal mine also serve as a starting point for reconsidering the state of the region and developing community engagements centered on residents.

In previous discussions, despite their analytical importance, the spatial dynamics of protests and the roles of bystanders, downtown streets, and sidewalks have been less examined. This paper studies how non-partisan onlookers participated in the street demonstrations in the 1960 Anpo Protests, which represent the struggle against the US–Japan Security Treaty in 1960.

Prior research has emphasized participants' political ethos of being “citizens” and the social background of post-war Japan as the direct incentives for taking action. These factors, however, cannot explain why the demonstrators initially hesitated to join the march before finally deciding to participate. The question here is how the bystanders alongside the street, who were strangers to each other, could join and then actively take part in the protest. This paper understands the anti-Anpo demonstrations as a highly urban phenomenon of gathering on the street and elucidates its process through focusing on their corporeal performance in an urban space.

The light-hearted atmosphere of demonstration, which was expressed through the protestors' easy-going appearance and attitude, encouraged the undecided onlookers to participate in the march. They experienced the protests as highly festive events with a cheerful ambience composed of the clothes of marchers, bystanders on the sidewalks, street vendors, and the grandeur streetscape of the downtown area. The agency of protesting was performatively exercised through the practice of demonstrating the boulevard together with strangers. The participants who had once been bystanders actively performed the demonstration, not through the medium of language communication but through sensing and touching each other's bodies while gathered in the same place.

This paper presents an alternative model of urban protests as the gathering of bodies by highlighting bystanders and downtown urban spaces and critically develops the studies on spatial dynamics of protest, which, to date, have mainly concentrated on the ideologies of activists and demonstrations.

In recent years, the social isolation of men has become a social problem. Previous studies have only provided a linear explanation for this situation, based on sex-role theory, which states that men are easily isolated because their masculine roles constrain them. This paper aims to analyze in detail the process of social isolation （i.e., exclusion or separation from the group）, including interactions with others and independent choices of individual men, using Raewyn-Connell's theory of masculinity.

Life history interviews with four men who had experienced isolation in school revealed two processes of social isolation: the first is a process of ostracization and exclusion in the form of neglect and disregard when a man cannot participate in the conversational culture due to a disability. The second is a “self-isolation” process in which men who aim to join a superior male group but fail to do so consider themselves psychologically superior by differentiating themselves from superior men to cope with conflicts. As a result, they avoid relationships with other men. These results reveal a mechanism of men's social isolation that has not been clarified. The paper also clarifies the dynamics of the creation and maintenance of a hierarchy among men through interactions such as exclusion and separation.

This study addressed two points. First, we analyze how homelessness is justified, as a former homeless person displays reasons for homelessness. Based on the findings, we identified a distinct significance for “Respectful Outreach,” differing from conclusions from previous studies.

In contemporary Japanese society, homelessness is seen as deviant behavior from the common sense perspective. Consequently, homeless individuals are often questioned about their reasons for doing so. While previous studies on homelessness involved researchers advocating for and explaining the reasons behind homelessness, the expanding and “sophisticated” welfare system has made it progressively challenging to justify homelessness. This study reveals the fundamental structure that makes it appropriate to inquire about the reasons for homelessness directly from homeless individuals.

The importance of “Respectful Outreach” has been underscored due to concerns regarding diminishing spaces for homelessness in public areas, prompting a reevaluation of its significance in recent research. However, the relevance of such support and the justification of homelessness remain unclear from previous research findings. This study elucidates the burden imposed on homelessness through activities aimed at describing situations in which homelessness is justified. Subsequently, we correlate the results of this study with those of earlier research, reexamining the potential significance of “Respectful Outreach” in liberating homeless people from societal scrutiny questioning their way of life.

Previous studies have highlighted gender disparities in housework skills as one reason for the slow pace of equalization in the division of housework. This study examines whether the gap in housework skills in couples affects the housework behavior of each partner and the underlying mechanisms. Specifically, I derive hypotheses regarding different mechanisms from specialization and status characteristic theories and test them using a randomized factorial survey experiment targeting Japanese men and women in their 20s to 50s living in Japan. The analysis results with the willingness to do housework as the dependent variable indicate that the disparity in housework skills affects the willingness to do housework, as expected from the specialization mechanism. However, the magnitude of the effect is not affected by the paid work hours of each partner, the difference between them, or the income ratio of female partner. There were no differences in the effect of disparity in housework skills according to the vignette person' s gender, or respondent's gender or status beliefs about gender and housework skills, as expected from the gender stereotypic evaluation mechanism. These results suggest that the disparity in housework skills is a rationalization tactic for the unequal division among couples and is likely to affect housework behavior. Assuming that men and women acquire different housework skills owing to gender-based socialization, they suggest that a specialization mechanism based on productivity in housework potentially leads to gender inequality in the division of housework.