It is said that in general, high school graduates enter Japanese universities directly after graduation and that there are few adult entrants who have work experience. However, before World War Ⅱ, there were many adult students, especially in private colleges.

  In this study, I focus on the Meiji era and consider descriptive information about mature students in books and other materials. Their traditional role as the oldest son and their economic situations were deterrents to entry, but after the Meiji revolution, advancing one’s career was approved. People were encouraged to advance to higher education to take up a profession that was more socially admired and better paid. For those people, finishing a higher education course was valuable enough to overcome the deterrents they faced, even if they were older.

  Those people tended to enter private colleges because these colleges were flexible and open to working adults by giving evening courses and special financial assistance. This was because there was weaker demand for them from younger secondary school graduates than for public institutions and they also recognized that being responsive to working people was their own mission.

  This paper aims to examine the relationships among pedagogy, social work, and community through a consideration of the theoretical subjects in recent studies of Social Pedagogy in Sweden. Swedish Social Pedagogy (Socialpedagogik) has been classified as a part of social welfare because social pedagogues have engaged in social work. However, Socialpedagogik is an inherent discipline that includes pedagogical functions. Examining the theoretical subjects of Socialpedagogik could be helpful in understanding Socialpedagogik, and the concept could help construct a support system for people who need social and educational support.

  The theoretical subjects in Socialpedagogik are as follows.

  1. How can we think about the relationships between social work and Socialpedagogik? If Socialpedagogik is an inherent discipline, we have to solve both social and educational functions and then consider the relationships between them.

  2. How can we think about the relationships between community and Socialpedagogik? To clarify the process of formation of a culture and community and how Socialpedagogik could approach forming them, we have to study this more demonstratively.

  3. Related with the two questions above, how can we think about social pedagogues’ expertise? At present, the training programs of social pedagogues have been increasing. In this situation, there is a need to show the differences from social work and clarify the educational meaning of Socialpedagogik.