This paper begins with a discussion of Australia's immigration context and the extent of ethnic diversity in the country. Following a brief discussion of public opinion surveying in Australia it considers five main issues, based in large part on the findings of the Scanlon Foundation surveys, fifteen of which have been conducted since 2007, These issues are: social cohesion; sense of belonging and social justice; attitudes to immigration and asylum seekers; levels of intolerance; and multiculturalism.

The paper aims to explore the intersection between community events and “disaster mitigation” through a case study of rites and festivals led by local volunteers. The analysis shows that this intersection was observed when collaboration on rites and festivals served as a simulated drill for shelter operation, and social capital was built with the intention of creating mutual support in the case of a disaster. It also indicates that such an intersection can be formed through an organic combination of practical wisdom obtained through adaptation to a case's particular historical and regional context.

This paper examines coalition strategies and outcomes through a case study of an NGO network organization for advocacy over the Convention on Biological Diversity. Prior studies have not fully articulated the outcomes of coalitions and the roles of environmental advocacy movements. By analyzing the collective outcomes of a coalition's diverse membership, this study finds that “inclusive strategies”, designed to promote various members' participation, lead to increased political influence but also limit the coalition's ability to systematize its work or focus effectively on specific activities. This reduced ability to focus and empower grass-roots members is consistent with existing concerns about the effectiveness of environmental advocacy movements.

Although professional ethics requires caregivers to obey their disabled clients, it can be difficult for disabled people to give firm instructions. Some earlier studies have suggested that caregivers may set their own standards of care, which is risky considering that there is a discrepancy between what caregivers think and what their clients want. To understand the management of this risk, the author observed interactions between caregivers and their physically disabled clients. A qualitative analysis showed that even when caregivers misinterpret clients' messages, they do not think that there is a serious problem because clients can point out errors, and caregivers can try again. Sometimes, however, caregivers hesitate to act without directions because of the issue of the privacy of the clients' family. Even though clients consent to caregivers acting without explicit directions, their actions can be modified if the caregiver deems it necessary according to their clinical judgment.

Since the 2000s, part of the Okubo district, where many foreigners inhabit, has become a tourist spot as a Korean town, and come to be referred to as “Shin-okubo”. We assumed that this new tourist spot is different from Okubo itself, which had often been studied as a residential area and as a multicultural coexisting place. Therefore, in this paper, we analyzed how “Okubo” and “Shin-okubo” were described in magazine articles from 1986 to Sep. 2015. As a result, we found that although “Shin-okubo” stems from physical Okubo where many Korean shops exist, at the same time, it is currently separated from Okubo because of its unique image that has been formed by tourists and the media. We therefore suggest a more holistic perspective on this space, “Okubo/Shin-okubo” area.

How is long-distance caregiving done? In this paper, to clarify one aspect, I carried out a Conversation Analysis on decision-making processes in long-distance caregiving during a care conference. Sometimes, there are moral dilemmas in long-distance caregiving that exist in the interaction between the distant family and the care manager. In order to deal with these dilemmas, those involve mainly use the following methods: (1) the use of the final particle “-yone” to claim an independent epistemic primacy while exhibiting an affiliative stance, and (2) the co-completion of a turn through taking advantage of the division in a Turn Constructional Unit. Through these two methods, a distribution of responsibilities is accomplished which makes it possible for the participants to deal with the moral dilemmas involved in long-distance caregiving.

Studies of subjective social unfairness, which form part of the field of class consciousness research, are based on a quantitative analysis using a large-scale data-set. At present, however, there is no attempt to clarify the mechanism on subjective social unfairness because of weak relation between subjective social unfairness and social stratification. In this paper, we apply the Relative Deprivation Index proposed by Yizhaki [1979] to reveal how income comparisons with others affect the formation of subjective social unfairness. Results show that the amount of personal income in and of itself has an influence on subjective social unfairness for males, whereas for females the Relative Deprivation Index in which a comparison is made with the household income of others from the same generation has a negative influence on subjective social unfairness.

Before WWII, Japan's urban festivals were conducted by residents inside the urban community with part-time actors from agricultural villages. However, the situation changed in the 1960's. This research clarifies how the urban communities mobilized other participants into the festivals instead of farmers, to recreate their festivals. The author conducted the research on the transition in the role of shagiri music in the Hikiyama festival in Nagahama, Shiga. In conclusion, we see that the shagiri contributed to the mobilization and recreation of the urban festival by creating both a cooperative structure between distinctive communities and a new system for passing the festival on down the generations.

This article describes the practices for eliminating “desire” in drug addicts at DARC (Drug Addiction Rehabilitation Center). Specifically, we have examined and discussed the following three points: (1) Members of DARC who engaged in a variety of practices to eliminate a “desire” that suddenly occurs every day at DARC, (2) how by being on the side of “fellow” supporting members of DARC, who are also suffering from this “desire”, a variety of practices for eliminating “desire” has been established, and (3) the conditions in which this variety and the supportive “fellowship” were established. The aim is to be able to imagine an environment in which DARC's members and “fellows” can accept members unconditionally, regardless of whether or not they have returned to a life of drugs and crime.

This paper examines the characteristics of Japanese medical policy for the patients with rare diseases (“Nanbyo”) under the regime of the Principle of Policy for Nanbyo (Nanbyo Taisaku Yoko) in 1972. By analyzing the historical documents of medical research projects and the discourses of the medical researchers who participated in these projects, I find that social policies for the patients with rare diseases have been significantly affected by the research-oriented paradigm in which clinical medical researchers in public hospitals and national university hospitals have played a major role. A symbolic consequence of this research-oriented rare disease policy is the fact that out-of-pocket medical care expenses of patients with rare diseases have been publicly subsidized in the name of “rewards for clinical donor”, not as social and medical care policies.

In Japan, the tax support system for nonprofit organizations was legislated in 2001, then significantly revised in 2011. Behind these events was constant lobbying by a social movement organization called C's. This paper examines how C's used two types of lobbying tactics: outside and inside. As outside tactics, the organization carried out “conflict expansion” by appealing to mass media and collecting signatures, and “signaling” by holding campaigns with Diet members. As inside tactics, it presented petitions to the government and attended political party hearings. These tactics were scheduled over one year and were repeated 12 years. Although the frequency of the outside tactics decreased, the organization constantly employed its inside tactics. After the change in government, C's changed the political situation and achieved its goal.

The aim of this paper is to examine the ways in which the media influences tourists' choice of sights. By doing so, it aims to go beyond previous studies, which tended merely to regard the role of the media as that of reproducing images. With the spread of social media and smartphones, however, individual tourists have used media so actively that they have changed the media's roles in tourism. This exploratory study examines the role of social media, especially SNS, in this respect through interviews with Japanese tourists who have been to Joufen. The study shows (1) that tourists “actively conform” to significant others' choices when deciding where to visit through their use of SNS, and (2) that photos posted to SNS tend to generate the unintended consequence of the reproduction of images of tourist sites.