The author was responsible for organizing a symposium on "Rethinldng the era of mutual help" held at the 2009 conference of the Japan Welfare Sociology Association. The intention behind holding this symposium was stated as follows. "What is it that occurred in Japanese society in the period before public long-term-care insurance was introduced in 2000, for example, and in the period following this introduction? There was talk of 'tomorrow's self' , and, in order to attain this or in addition to it, "mutual help". This was not only talk: this sort of system was actually created, and this is what social welfare came to be seen as. At this time everyone began to share an awareness of the limitations and of the need to do things to an 'appropriate extent' . While this might be how things have appeared, this appraisal may not be accurate. There must have been at least a wider range of opinions and approaches, both in the past and today, than are included in this account. How should the current state of affairs and its development be viewed, and what is the outlook for the future? I would like to talk about and consider these questions with the various presenters and panelists taking part." In this article I express my own thoughts on what we can learn from the papers published in this journal.by Reiko Gotoh and Josuke Amada, both of who made presentations at the symposium. In addition, I raise several points on the subject of how going forward on this can be connected to all the thinking and research that have been devoted to these issues till date.

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Given that there are individuals who are in need of help, why is it that public assistance extended by the state is of far great significance than any personal aid or religious benevolence? The purpose of this paper is to inquire into the theoretical foundation of public assistance or, more concretely, to examine the perspectives of the Rawlsian theory of justice and the Sen's capability approach on this issue. Why is carrying out an even resource distribution according to individuals' needs unconditionally and sufficiently justified? The tentative conclusion of this paper is to complement Rawls' spirit on the difference principle, based primarily on Sen's conception of the right to well-being, and on conceptions such as "synnnetry before risks," "broadening the conception of responsibility," and "broadening the conception of contribution," which can be induced by reinterpreting Aristotle's classical ethics on justice.

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This paper aims to analyze the social policies and historical dynamism associated with "aging" in post-war Japan mainly after the 1970s. The study is conducted from the viewpoint of institution analysis, and covers "plans," "effects," "usages," and "strategic arrangement of institution. " I find that Japanese pre-war social policies stated national needs as part of institutional plans, discussed institutional effects beyond such plan, and looked to enhance national power and maintain social order as a result of the deployment and strategic arrangement of institutions. On the contrary, the social policies of post-war Japan went beyond the original plan that was based on necessity and the protection of the elderly. It repeatedly invoked "the misery and fear of aging," and sought to build a social anxiety toward "aging that everybody will face"; such feelings were gradually institutionalized. Meanwhile, institutional usage and strategic arrangements were made to form interest groups among the people. In other words, by invoking the misery of aging, post-war Japan institutionalized social and economic policies on aging; pension schemes and medical care and welfare systems were established. Then, misery, absurdity, too little or too much services in the new institution were exposed yet another image of miserable elderly, which led to establish today's institution with more long-term care insurance schemes and registrations. This is the situation that restrains us today. I summarize in this paper how this institutional restraint prevents us today from addressing issues related to aging and effecting appropriate reforms.

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In this paper I would like to propose the notion of inter-expressive action, to enable the study of care work and emotional labor. Inter-expressive action is defined as human interaction in a face-to-face social relationship through the mediation of non-verbal expression. Such action assumes, in particular, a characteristic of interSUbjectivity. By exchanging expressions, we can pick up on the emotions of others, and the SUbjectivity of each co=unicative partuer can resonate, enabling us to recognize each other not as mere objects but as human beings with homotypic subjectivity. The human services of emotional labor and care work above all are accompanied by this interexpressive action, because the services come into existence in face-to-face social relationships. Indeed, care workers often say that they gain job satisfaction from seeing the joyful expressions of clients. Also, a nurse caring for a patient in a vegetative state said in an interview that she had experienced a turning point in care when she recognized a momentary change in her patient's facial movement as an expressive signal. The notion of inter-expressive action might be connected with sociological action theory. Weber, like Schutz, took some notice of a specific role of expressions in face-to-face relationships. Habermas insisted that notions of inter-subjective action would be needed for action theory. I would like to emphasize here that, with the notion of inter-expressive action, we could develop the argument of emotional labor. The theory of emotional labor as argued by Hochschild failed to study face-to-face relationships because it implicitly adopted a type of action based on objective-subjective distinctions. With the notion of inter-expressive action, we can understand that human services involve simultaneous dual relationships: one is a face-to-face relationship and the other is an anonymous relationship, such as between a customer and seller.

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This article explored Pinker's theory on citizenship; it was R. Pinker who had developed T. H. Marshall's classical theory to incorporate the transition of time. It could be said that Pinker's theory on citizenship is concentrated in his early works, Social Theory and Social Policy, The Idea of Welfare, and the more recent article "From Gift Relationships to Quasi-markets." The author paid special attention to the arguments constructed in these works. Pinker denied the traditional argument that universalism and the institutional model ensure citizenship status, and that selectivism and the residual model diminish its chances. He insisted on the importance of the idea of pluralism against unitarism, and he adhered to pluralism as the theoretical model for guaranteeing the status of citizenship, because it did away with "the dependence" and reduced "the risk of stigma." He found the concrete form of pluralism in Le Grand's theory on quasi-markets. Pinker emphasized on the middle of the road character of citizenship, and built a logical connection between the ideas of citizenship and "democratic welfare-capitalism," both of which had been analyzed by T. H. Marshall. In conclusion, the author pointed out that Pinker's theory on citizenship is unique because the model of social service is from the viewpoint of the receiver and because it offers a new perspective to studies on the welfare state.

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In the support for the independent life of the people with learning difficulties, the attendants meet so many problems. This article aimed to investigate what the problems are and how the attendants find themselves as "the attendants" . Because there are many difficulties in the communication, in order to understand what the people with learning difficulties want and need, the attendants must think about themselves how they suggest to, how they listen to, and how they behave in the communication. There are two main issues in the independent life, the one is "keeping everyday-life" ,and the other is "expanding capability" . Sometimes the collision between the two issues happens. Especially, when the conflicts occur with surrounding community, the attendants feel a serious collision between the two issues. In such cases, the attendants try to consider the conflicts with community as the chance to change neighbors to supporters. The attendants consider it "natura!" that everyone lives in community with various people, though they are the people with serious lealling disability or the seriously autistic.

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Trust is a significant factor in interactions between professionals and clients. However, existing theories on trust do not adequately elucidate the relationship between trust and the interactions based on it. In this paper, a narrative approach was applied to analyze the daily life reports pertaining to certain days when nursery teachers and parents alternated their shifts. Nursery teachers were classified according to the degree of trust placed in them by parents and a comparison was made between the high- and lowtrust classes using narrative analyses (construction and relationship analyses). As a result of the construction analysis, parents' narratives of the high-trust class were characterized by the "development type" in which similar plot patterns were repeated. In the relationship analysis, we found that teachers from among the high-trust class expressed their comments on topics related to the parents' narratives. In sum, the difference between the high and low-trust classes was observed not only in "what" or "how much" but also in "how" the narratives were framed. Lastly, we discussed the reasons why the means of narration caused a difference in the parents' degrees of trust and how the forms of narration can work toward developing parents' trust in nursery teachers.

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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the possibilities of Individual Care in the traditional nursing home. Firstly, we define the conventional group treatment, and reveal the serious problem related to "Alienation of Care Work" that is faced by the care workers. Secondly, we advocate Team Care, through which we aim to realize the ideal ofIndividual Care, and we structure and clarify our issue. We take "K nursing home," in which care workers follow Unit-style-Care, which is close to Individual Care. And we declare the possibilities and limitations ofIndividual Care. Our research method demonstrates the process of Unit-style-Care in K nursing home. We continue to carry out interviews for seven continuous years. After that we introduce the outline of K nursing home. Then, we analyze the five stages of the process of Unit-style-Care. Finally, we conclude with a discussion on the limitations of Unit-style-Care: the disconnection with other units, the negative competition within the work process, etc. On the other hand, the possibility of "Team Care" remains open, through which we develop the well-known relationship.

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