This paper aimed to study the processes that culminated in the Sakae Village Farmers’ Union Movement and the Sakae Village Agricultural Management Study Group in the 1960s. This development is considered the starting point of the community autonomy that characterises present-day Sakae Village.

  Learning and practices connecting life and production were necessary because of the economic stratification and the crisis of agricultural collapse around the 1960s. The study group mentioned above and the farmers’ union organised learning, taking into account regional issues shared by all economic classes. These learning organisations were refined and maintained by the study group and the Sakae Village Kominkan (community learning centre).

  Further, the social science education imparted at the Shinano Farming Products’ College served as learning material for communal agricultural practices. Thus, it may be asserted that the Products’ College partially influenced the learning organisations of the study group and the farmers’ union and constructively affected the community development of Sakae Village.

  It is also noteworthy that the study group and the community learning centre collaborated to organise the direction of learning to accept the intellectual resources of the Products’ College and resolve community-related issues in Sakae Village. Subsequently, the farmers’ union (residents) conducted a movement aimed at alleviating community issues. In this way, the reconstruction of learning to accommodate the problems faced by the community and the consequent accumulation of knowledge and practical experience became the idea and driving force that created community autonomy.

  This study examines the roles played by readers in creating the home magazine culture in the late Meiji era. To this end, it evaluates the readership’s interactions with Katei no Tomo, a home magazine founded by Motoko Hani in 1903. The three findings of the study are described below.

  First, Katei no Tomo enlightened readers about the existence of a home magazine culture by presenting them with certain norms of home life. New middle-class urbanites certainly espoused the magazine’s models; however, low-income households were critical of the magazine because it promoted norms and standards applicable only to economically secure families.

  Second, editor Hani interacted frequently with the readers of her magazine to gauge their actual living conditions and expectations. She began to present varied images of middle-class life tailored to the homes of her readers. Consequently, she spearheaded a new home magazine culture in which the magazine did not unilaterally enlighten the readers. Instead, the readership influenced the magazine editors through its interactions with the publication, whose prescriptive contents were modified to the tastes of its subscribers.

  Finally, as the interactions between editors and readers progressed, readers also began to communicate with each other through the magazine. Katei no Tomo became a space where readers could share their views on the norms of home life and could also critically reflect on the difficulties and miseries of life. A sense of community was formed in the magazine’s readers through such interactions because they could directly empathise with others and assist those who could not follow the norms of life presented by the magazine.

  This study aims to review the social pedagogical approach to social exclusion by reconstructing the lived experiences of three former homeless people living in Kamagasaki, an area designated for day labourers (Yoseba). The study’s participants engaged actively in a community art activity hosted by NPO: The Room for Full of Voice Words and Hearts (Cocoroom).

  Kamagasaki faces the problem of social exclusion. It is also an area where community art has taken root through the efforts of Cocoroom. The present study was accomplished via interviews with three men living in this area. It also analysed the participants’ life history from the perspective of ‘life practice’ to determine how they could successfully survive social exclusion.

  The data analysis led to three conclusions: 1) the respondents’ experiences and proactive will to survive was apparent even when they reflected on their social exclusion; 2) the encounters of the respondents with community art activities precipitated a change in their relationships with others; and 3) their lived experiences signified an extension of their existence in social exclusion.

  These findings hint at a gap in the conventional research on social exclusion, which views the excluded as ‘non-independent’ and underestimates the transformative power of surviving the experience of social exclusion. This paper reveals the possibility of self-education: the excluded can leverage their lived realities and can lead themselves to more conducive life experiences by engaging in a community art activity.