Following the research by the contemporary Japanese sociology and economics, the income and educational levels of son and daughter in Japan depend on the same kinds of levels of their parents. Consequently there is the severe gap of not only income but also cultural capital between the higher income class and the lower one.

If we try to resolve the discriminative problem in Japan, it is necessary for us to make redistribution of income and sustainable accumulation of cultural capital in the society by educational reform of Japanese University with the view of cultural capital formation for every people and long-life education systems opening the people who want to promote the accumulation of cultural capital in urban and regional areas.

The key concept of such a reform is 'increasing capabilities of people' that means the ability of people to lead a long life, to enjoy good health, to have the world stock of knowledge and information, to participate in the cultural life of their community, and so on. The faculty of cultural policy for 'increasing capabilities of people' with the concept of cultural capital' opened in 2001 at the Kyoto Tachibana Women's University.

In the case of this faculty's experiment from 2001 to 2004, faculty members have been challenging to accumulate cultural capital for every student by educational reform of communication systems (so-called new TA, teaching assistant, systems) with the teaching cultural the concept as the required subjects, fundamentals of cultural economics and cultural policy, cultural economics and cultural policy.

In so-called new TA systems, after the lecture for about 160 students a teaching room for 90 minutes by the professor, they branch into about 20 members for debating about the lecture and challenging to summarize and review every lecture in about 60 minutes. After the TA of each branch received their contents, he/she correct them from view point of ability to observe every life, to appreciate the contents, to develop the idea logically, to express correctly or artistically and to comment the contents creatively. After 3 days, the professor receives the contents with TA's comments etc. and checks the contents with additional comments. After return the contents from professor, TA members copy the contents and preserve them in the big shelters with key that can protect privacy of every student. The contents with comments return to the every student for checking by self and inputting the revised contents to every computer. At the end of the term, he/she presents the FD or CD with all digitalized contents. These contents will support their life as the cultural capital that exists in embodied.

Faculty members tried to fulfill the contents by the participating students the field work with support of the people facing the urban regeneration and regional growth. They experienced to learn how to live the people there, how to be inherited valuable cultural capital by them and how to co-ordinate the cultural resources in diverse situations. As all these learning and experience are mobilized to challenge the graduation thesis, it is natural that diverse and excellent results would produce. In the faculty most of the student presented the graduation thesis about 10,000 letters.

It is necessary for us to reform the university with the view of cultural capital formation for the people supported by excellent information systems that can support good communication with cheap cost beyond time and space. We shall find the image of university that can educate the person who will be able to accumulate cultural capital in his/her own life and in community for urban regeneration and regional growth. By taking up the concept 'cultural capital', we should create the new teaching systems for supporting every student and organization in long life education.

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We reported the major findings of our research based on our own academic achievement tests towards elementary school and junior high school pupils in 2002. We then pointed out the fact that the differences of achievement between social groups have been expanded. Nowadays, that issue is seen to be one of the most serious educational problems in contemporary Japan.

Although the differences of various educational outcomes such as academic achievements or educational aspirations between social groups are always emphasized, it is surprising that they seldom discuss about the ways in which those differences could be made smaller. I myself have been exploring the issue in these several years. In this paper, I will describe the progress and the future directions of our academic exploration on this particular educational issue.

In section 2, I will give some consideration on the basic concepts such as 'gakuryoku' (academic achievement) and 'gakuryoku kakusa' (collective difference of academic achievement) and locate the existence of the schools that are actually reducing the differences in the context of the theory of effective school. That theory or research trend has been developed in the U.S.A. and the U.K. in these three decades. The concept of effective school is related to a kind of school that can reduce the differences of academic achievement between social groups such as social classes or ethnic groups.

In section 3, the findings of our collaborative research carried our in 2002 will be shown and the actual contents of effective schools found out in the research will be discussed. In those schools (one elementary school and one junior high school), the averages of achievement of the children are pretty high and the ratios of low-achievers remain fairly small. The overall efforts of the school towards guaranteeing the minimum level of achievement for all the children seems to bear fruit sufficiently.

In section 4, I will tough the contents of our on-going research project carried out in Osaka. The aim of the project is to find our various kinds of effective school in Japan and to draw common characteristics of those schools. We provisionally present seven factors that can contribute to make a Japanese school effective: not to make the children rough, to develop the good relationship among the children, school management emphasizing teamwork among members of staff, positive and practice-oriented school culture, collaboration with parents and local community, internal system guaranteeing the minimum level of achievement, existence of leaders and leadership.

In section 5, I will consider several issues I order to prospect future development of research on school effectiveness in Japan. The following is the issues I will pick up: development of appropriate achievement tests, development of appropriate indication of family backgrounds, planning of longitudinal research on school effectiveness, necessity for research on the process of school improvement.

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There are two purposes for this paper. One purpose is to analyze "a difference of academic achievement" that has been recently seen as a problem in Japan. The other is to argue the effect of schooling which can reduce the gap of academic achievement.

In Japan, up until the present, it was rare to argue about the problem of academic achievement. However, there are many social complaints made from the academic attainment gap in our country, such as the increase of "Freeters", people who are not employed. Urgent action should be taken, but there are not enough studies on the problem. At first, in this paper, I researched on the academic achievement differences.

Secondly, I analyzed of effect of schooling for academic attainment. I think there are two solutions to solve this problem. One is social reformation, and the other is to rely on the effect of schooling. Social reformation is the hard way, therefore in this paper, I argue about what schools can do to reduce "the difference in academic achievement". In this process, I borrow the idea of "Effective School". "Effective School" is "the school guaranteeing the academic achievement of socio-economically disadvantaged children". This idea belongs to "School Effectiveness Research" that has longer than a 30 year history in England and America.

In this paper, I analyze the academic achievement test data of 4 subjects in 5^<th> grade junior school students. Findings are as follows. First, "a difference of academic achievement" does not simply mean a difference between the upper stream and lower stream. Moreover, lower stream's achievement is depressed in particular. This means that big supports are needed for disadvantaged children. Second, in even such a situation, there is "Effective School" that guarantees academic achievements of socio-economically disadvantaged children. And, "Effective School" has "concentration for learning" and "a good class atmosphere" as its factors. Besides, "Effective School" can reduce the difference of academic achievements in my research.

Schooling, alone, cannot solve the problem of the academic achievement difference and social inequality. However, I believe that schools have great potential to make it happen. Collecting academic attainment data and School Effectiveness Research based on them will be necessary in the future for our country to tackle the problem of the gap between social groups.

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The reform of the student financial aid system is one of the policy challenges in Japanese higher education. The purpose of this paper is to consider the relationships between the student aid policies and the financial gap in the United States in order to get some basic information for Japan's policy development.

The "student financial aid policies" in the United States have more types of the programs than Japan's "SHOGAKUKIN" policies. They belong to three main public policies as follows: (a) (narrowly defined) student financial aid policies (SHOGAKUKIN policies), (b) tax and financial policies, (c) tuition and fee policies. Although the student financial aid (narrow definition) has been developed for equal opportunity of education, it could not catch up with the increases in tuition and fees. The college entry rates of low-income students continue to lag behind their middle-and upper-income peers. Whereas the problem had not been solved, new tax policies were introduced for the middle/upper-income families in the late 1990s.

The report of the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, "Access Denied: Restoring the Nation's Commitment to Equal Educational Opportunity" drew attention to the shift in policy priorities away form "access for low-income students" to "affordability for middle/upper-income students" at the federal, state, and institutional level. This trend could hamper the "universal access" to higher education. It must be noted that the programs for low-income students and middle/upper-income students are debated, legislated and administered separately by different decision-making and implementation processes.

In order to address the problems, the following programs are considered as useful solutions by the researchers. Prior to entry to college, "Early Intervention programs" and "College Saving Plans" are effective for lowincome students and families. The Early Intervention programs should be organized to create a school culture that enhances students' college aspirations. New College Saving Plans must be developed for low-income families, in addition to the current "529 plans" for middle/upper-income families. After entrance into college, some incentives such as paying institutions for special programs of the Pell grant recipients are needed to raise the persistence rates. After graduation, the collection programs for low-income students, such as "Income Contingent Repayment Plans", and tax benefit programs for students of all income levels should be developed. The universal access to colleges in "Lifelong Learning Society" requires tax benefit programs for nontraditional students and distance learners.

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The purpose of this paper is to seek the transformative possibilities of the charter schools on the school system. Not a few researchers and teachers often criticized that those new public schools should be the institutional entities for the privatization and conservative tribalism in education.

But some 'mom- and- pop' charter schools are surely the experimental schools which could put a brake on the reproduction of poverty and social stratification. Those are also 'effective schools' which can improve student achievements in testing and can make their children leaders of social justice.

They have brought a new right for the school stakeholders to establish a public school and to define their own school accountability into the public education system in the United States. This definitely means a new type of affirmative actions that are theoretically based on constructionism.

Furthermore, in the article, I tried to reconstruct the old and new normative frameworks of affirmative actions because we could refine both frameworks as the tools to analyze the practices in the charter schools. I concluded that Nancy Eraser's theory of justice and the egalitarianism of Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis should be available for the constructionism theory connecting between redistribution with recognition.

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In July 2006, OECD published 'OECD Economic Surveys Japan 2006', which indicated the rise in measured inequality and relative poverty. It also recommended that children in low-income households have adequate access to high-quality education to prevent poverty from being passed on to future generations. The purpose of this paper is to explore the truth of 'adequate access to high-quality education'. This paper emphasizes the notion of 'social capital' as the key concept, in that social capital should relate the process of both a change in the transition system as well as its complex polarization.

Recently, in the developed nations, the new concept of competence is appeared through breaking a youth transition system and polarization of their biographies. This paper takes notice one of that is called 'Key Competency', proposed by DeSeCo Project in OECD. Competence is not the specific ability or skill, but the complex system of actions. Therefore, the learner is requested to have many chances and tries for acts in the learning process. Social capital affects the learning process of Key Competency deeply, because it would make the internal base of participation to learn mediating by the trust, which is an important factor of social capital. Learners who have more social capital tend to participate to school, community, and other informal networks more active, and have advantages on learning competence over others.

Nevertheless, some recent researches in UK suggest us that the inequality of social capital has expanded in the developed nations. The cause and background of this tendency is thought as the structural one, that is progress of knowledge society, Individualization (U. Beck) and so on. I suppose that according to these social changes, for the one hand, middle class families and youth are getting a bigger advantage to make social capitals, and on the other hand working class ones are becoming more disadvantaged.
As the change of the concept of competence, the values of social capital have expanded, and on the contrary, the inequality of social capital has expanded. This is the serious dilemma young people have faced in the process of their transition.

How should we try to solve this dilemma? A plural approach to secure the formation of the capital related to various societies equally might be necessary for that. To put it concretely, at first, we should proceed to largescale economical and cultural equalization, because equality are supposed to promote 'trust' between people. Secondly, in the case of education and learning, we should try to secure equal conditions to politically create social capital, and practically try to make it various, especially among the disadvantaged children and youth to compensate for inequality. Thirdly, we should not unify and standardize the notion of social capital, but try to acknowledge the virtues of its various types.

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In modern society, the school education system functions as 1) transmission of knowledge and 2) socialization. Recent studies in search of the possibility of equalization via school education tend to focus on the transmission of knowledge. However, for fostering consciousness and attitude in support of redistribution of resource, we need to explore another aspect of social function, socialization of students in school education.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the socialization effects of school education which can foster a reciprocal relation, by analyzing a survey of children's social competence.

This paper is based on the questionnaire survey undertaken with about 1600 people (primary and secondary school students) chosen from 8 areas in Japan during from November 2004 to March 2005 (part of the survey was conducted in September 2005). This questionnaire was designed for comprehending "NEW" core-literacy needed in contemporary society, which consists of social competence, media literacy, and emotional literacy.

To clarify socialization effects of schools, cross tabulation analysis comparing the scale of reciprocal attitude and multiple linear regression analysis are conducted in this paper.

The result of these analyses show the following.
1) Most students sympathized with the person who fell into a difficult situation and they intend to build up reciprocal relationships.
2) However, general trust towards other people decreases as an educational phase proceeds. Sympathy and reciprocity-scale derived from the questionnaire showed that active reciprocity among students has also weakened.
3) Nevertheless, multiple linear regression analysis shows that regardless of cultural capital that students have, supportive relations in school and higher relevance to school knowledge heighten sympathy and reciprocity-scale each educational phase. These results indicate that school education can foster relations of reciprocity.
4) But in post-primary education phase, higher academic achievement lowers sympathy and reciprocity-scale. This showed that socalled "success" in school tends to segmentalize students into an isolated existence.
5) In addition, cross tabulation analysis comparing scale of sympathy to reciprocityscale and self-identity or perspectives about competition each educational phase suggests that on one hand, relations of reciprocity nurtured in school are against worsening inequality, on the other, they confirm disparities among the people.

Based on these results, this paper concludes that relations of reciprocity nurtured in school are characterized by ambiguity to possibility of equalization, for fostering equalization process via school education, We need to explore inclusion/exclusion mechanism in the classroom community and the phase of school knowledge which refers to communal ownership of knowledge.

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The base of social policy has become competition and efficiency since the 1980's. This policy expands the economic difference. It was recently pointed out that there are differences in education-difference in achievement, social mobility, choice of career-between children from the rich class and children from the poor class. This problem is argued mainly in the field of the distribution theory which studies about the way of just distribution of resources.

However, the purpose of this article is to study about the new approach to the problems of differences. It is the "capability approach" of M.C. Nussbaum. This approach grasps the difference in the field of "capability" and allows us to see the difference on which economic and distributive theory has given little attention. This paper examines the possibility and problem in the "capability approach" through studies about her idea of "capability".

Chapter 1 illustrates, with comparisons to the distributive theory of J. Rawls, why Nussbaum thinks the public policy must ground on "capability". The author thought that a theory of justice based only on the resources people should have was inadequate when it was not guided by the conception of what people do with the resources. She insisted that we have to think about what is the good for humans. The difference is grasped in the good not in the goods. The good, the idea comes mainly from Aristotle study of "eudaimonia" and Marx's view of human, is the life that is worthy of the dignity of the human being. She sees the life from the viewpoint of the human function that characterized us just as humans.

Chapter 2 surveys the idea of "capability". The author thought that it was important to decide and to choose the way of life by oneself. So the aim of politics is "capability" not "functioning". This term derives from Aristotle's word "dunamis" and means having the opportunities for functioning. She defines three types capabilities, basic, internal, combined. Therefore "capability" can show which and how many goods people needs. That is to say "capability" means not only innate equipment but also states of the world external to the person's condition. The distributive theory of Rawls cannot clear that social context when we use goods. Moreover, the author propounds us the threshold of the good human life as basic social minimum with the list of ten central human capabilities.

Chapter 3 considers the relationship between the "capability approach" and education. The "inner capability" develops by education. However, Nussbaum insists that the educational goal must be functioning in childhood to produce mature adult capability. Because children do not have much knowledge of good human life, they do not develop practical reasoning. Thus, the aim of education is to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection about the planning of one's life in the capability approach.

The "capability approach" can see people in their social context. Therefore it has the possibility to truly realize the fair equality of opportunity. However it has problems about how to decide the threshold level and what functions must be filled during childhood.

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In postwar Japan, the transition system from school to employment has been linear without interruption. But today's youth in Japan are going to live their own life-cycle that is different from the standardized and stable one of which the older generations have experienced. It is the post-Fordism life-cycle, which is disorderly and fragmented. The purpose of this paper is to derive a perspective on how young people find their own pathways and what support policies and practices are necessary for them in the modern era of unstable employment.

First, I made a critical analysis of the frameworks and actualities of Youth Independence Support Policy that Japanese government has implemented since 2003, and revealed characteristics and problems of this policy. According to my analysis, Youth Independence Support Policy in Japan is work fare-type policy which links welfare to work narrowly, because it emphasizes on supply-side labor market policy which intends to improve the match between youth and business enterprises by developing youth's career awareness. It introduces the private sector in the provision of service as well. It seemed that this policy has not reached young people with difficulties and even functioned to exclude them. Moreover, it was backed up with the fact that more youth with relatively serious difficulties beyond envisioned has entered Youth Independence Training Camp (Wakamono-Jiritsu-Juku).

Next, in order to find some view points and practical directions for youth's pathway and youth support beyond Youth Independence Support Policy of a kind of work fare-type social policies, I took two tasks. One is to find them from my analysis of support activities of some self-sustaining organizations in third sector for youth with difficulties, who the policy has not reached. Here I analyzed youth support activities of two nonprofit organizations and derived the conceptional distinction between employment and independence, communal relationships and networks in their locality, and the creation of intermediary labor markets and social enterprises. Another is a theoretical task. In learning from some new social reform ideas such as full-engagement society and basic income, which has been already argued in Europe, I discussed the concept of socio-useful activities without limitation of paid employment and universal social citizenship which does not link paid employment to welfare benefits. Through these tasks, I found some view points and practical directions that is, the conceptional distinction between work and independence, the one between paid employment and socio-useful activities. Furthermore, they paved the way to collective social engagement for young people, while securing the right of work and creating new employment and activities. Those view points and practical directions have been condensed to form the term 'universal social citizenship'.

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The purpose of this paper is to suggest why and how career education in the undergraduate level should have scope and sequence.

We will first, discuss why and how we need to reconsider the scope and sequence of career education, through analyzing one of the freshman seminars "JIBUN (Self-formation)," which was held for four years at Tohoku Univ. The case study clarified the fact that many freshmen could not think positively about themselves and their future; was anxious about having relationships with other students. Therefore, the university should help students to overcome these problems, and enable them to experience a smooth academic life.

According to the current definition of career education, to support students' self-formation is also regarded as necessary. The reason is that self-formation is the basis of the students' career development. If students could not think positively about themselves, how could they think of their future? Career education, most of which is job-guidance, should carefully be designed based on the students' developmental stage.

Career education at Tohoku University, however, has not yet been so designed. Only job-search guidance and an internship within discipline lie without scope and sequence considered. In this situation, students themselves must integrate these programs for their own career development.

Therefore, we suggest the scope and sequence of the career education curriculum be considered as follows. The scope can be classified into three types: one is "self-search" type which is one of the freshman introductory programs that focuses on college students so that they can have a smooth transition from high school to college life, and to study positively at a university. The second is "specialty-search type" which is an orientation to academic fields held during their first two years. The selection of the academic field is related to the course in the future for many students. This "specialty-search type" has, therefore, a very important meaning from the viewpoint of career education at the university. The third is "vocational education" type, which differs from discipline in what and how it is delivered. It can each be called, "aptitude- search type", "occupation-search type" and "training type."

The sequence can be arranged as follows in the four-year undergraduate education:

Freshman (1^st and 2^nd Semester): "self-search type"
Freshman (2^nd Semester)～Sophomore (3^rd Semester): "specialty-search type"
Sophomore (4^th Semester)～Junior (5^th Semester): "vocational education" type: Start looking for occupation
Junior (6^th Semester)～Senior (7^th and 8^th Semester): "vocational education" type: Prepare for working

The method of designing a career education should vary from university to university. What is important is to clarify undergraduate education policy: what knowledge a university wants their students to acquire from their education.

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In Japanese society today, there are many arguments about adolescence. However, unfortunately these hardly ever concern foreigners. This report clarifies some problems facing adolescent foreigners, sometimes called newcomers, who have lived in Japan since 1980.

Firstly, there is the problem of exclusion from standard career tracks which is straight moving from a school to a working society in Japan. This exclusion stems the Japanese education system, which is in itself, difficult for foreigners to access an educational system that is compulsory only for Japanese citizens. Foreigners hoping to attend a Japanese school are required to individually apply for permission from the Board of Education.

Once at school, the foreign students face further problems, the largest being marginalization. This is caused by the tendency of Japanese teachers to overestimate the foreigners' competence in Japanese. Teachers observe the natural interaction of foreign students with other Japanese students and don't distinguish them. However, in reality, foreign students encounter many words that they can not understand in class. This results in daily unease experienced by most foreign students, which makes it difficult for the school.

This lack of commitment is often interpreted as their lack of effort. For most foreign students, their school achievements remain low despite their best efforts, and they often give up and sometimes leave school. Foreign students who stay are also usually excluded from standard career tracks in Japan, because the criteria for recruitment are based on school achievement.

This report goes on to discuss two common problems that foreigner students may face if they successfully qualify for a career track or further education. First is the problem of a fixed foreign image and second, the consumption of the "foreigner" label. I will illustrate the foreigner problem by the experience of a Cambodian who had a difference of opinion with his boss about the words "I understood," during which the boss referred to a similar argument he had head about Brazilian's behavior and assumed that it was the same problem, peculiar to all foreigners. He obviously had a generalized image of foreigners. As an illustration of the second problem, there is the experience common to foreign students studying in international-related departments at university. Their Japanese classmates often seek their acquaintance because they want foreign students. Due to the small number of foreign students in Japan, they can become quite a burden.

This report brings the issue that we must do research in consideration of the diversity of children in Japan, for example, the foreigner, when educational problems are at stake.

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The purpose of this paper is to clarify problems of education through the interpretation of meanings of both the critical discourses of unstable youth and the selection of youth who seem to select an unstable situation for themselves.

Critics of Freeters (youths in irregular jobs) and NEETs (youths not in education, employment or training) have insisted that the deficiency of occupational awareness in youth resulted in its increase and suggested and conducted the new policies for career education that intend to raise the motives to work of children and youth.

On the other hand, many social scientists have argued that the structure of society such as the employment strategies of corporations or inequality between generations or social stratum are the main factors for the increase of unstable youth based on the quantitative and qualitative data. They have also suggested the policies from theoretical viewpoint toward social equality and mobility.

The latter would be understandable. Nevertheless, it is necessary to consider that the criticism of unstable youth results from a 'distinction' (P. Bourdieu) desire. I don't know well whether or not it is inevitable, but it would be certain that the distinction desire would not disappear if people would know objective data, and that another distinction desire might appear after the distinction desire to Freeters or NEETs would disappear.

We must also take into consideration that disadvantaged youths tend to contact the consumption culture and to escape from labor or work. Their tendency can be interpreted as their 'resistance' to the contemporary major sense of value that demands ability and effort and that depreciate them. But they can't acquire economical or instrumental merits from the consumption culture and the escape from labor.

So it is important on the one hand to cut off the existence of the critics of Freerers and NEETs from the policies and practices, and on the other hand, to connect the existential resistance of disadvantaged youth with the economical or instrumental resistance or advantages.

Careers will become more and more 'individualized' and the employment circumstances will become more and more unstable and fluid. It will be unrealistic and impracticable for many young people to live according to plan and to enjoy the 'work' side of an occupation. We must recognize 'the second standard' that is the low level career pattern in which the couples work together in irregular jobs based not on a seniority system. We must pursue the 'better' second standard.

The purpose of education must firstly be to affirm 'the unplanned life model' accompanied with the planned life model, and secondly to emphasize the 'labor' side of an occupation instead of the 'work' side in career education (H. Arendt). For them, it is necessary for unstable youth to learn the skills and rights to 'get by', and to acquire the feeling that 'we are in the same position'.

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