Today, schools offer a wide range of extra-curricular activities based on students' self-governing group activities along with subject teaching. However, it has not always been self-evident that students' self-governing group activities are “school internalized” and incorporated into planned school educational activities. This was an idea that emerged in the U.S. from the 1890s through the early 20th century, when various new attempts to introduce student activities outside the subject curriculum into school educational activities began. A theory was eventually established that organized the content and methods of extra-curricular activities, emphasizing their relationship to the subject curriculum. This paper considers the logic and nature of the internalization of student activities into schools through an examination of this process. The paper used a diachronic collection of articles on extra-curricular activities from The School Review, a journal published by the University of Chicago containing the largest number of articles on secondary education among educational journals of the same period. The research was also furthered by other important papers and theoretical books on extra-curricular activities such as a comprehensive collection of historical documents, with a focus on Elbert K. Fretwell, one of the leading extracurricular activists of the time.

 Based on this review, the paper proposes the view that the basic logic of school internalization, as seen in the student self-government system of the 1890s, is to view extra-curricular activities as a way to (1) separate children from extramural political, cultural, and social conditions and to provide a substitute for their human development function, and (2) create "pure" opportunities for "Americanized" citizen development with pre-defined principles within schools, (3) to be created under the guidance of teachers. Development thereafter, related to (3), aimed at refining teachers' instructional theories within schools and enriching the content of extra-curricular activities, carrying over the principles of (1) and especially (2) throughout the development process.

 In recent years, discussion about anti-natalism has become active in various areas. This movement is attributed to South African philosopher David Benatar's book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming to Existence (2006). In response, the aim of this paper is to clarify the one aspect of education which can respond to anti-natalism. To this aim, the following issues are addressed.

 First, we examine education from the perspective of the argument of the “asymmetry of pleasure and pain” that constitutes the foundation of Benatar's “anti-natalism.” He rejects education if it involves the possibility of pain (Section 1). However, pain exists, and people who feel pain keep being born. Although he accepts this fact, he does not think that it is desirable that those who are born always choose death or suicide (Section 2). How should these people live their lives? Here, we examine the “agnosticism about the value of life” of Kazuo Kojima, known as Benatar's translator. Kojima's logic has a wider scope than Benatar's: based on his argument, no one knows whether birth is better or worse. Therefore, the previous generation is charged with the “obligation to make life better” for the new generation born lacking this knowledge (Section 3).

 Next, we consider whether education can respond to this obligation. It is clear from this examination that all education is not prized. While aware of this, can we conceive of education which can respond to anti-natalism (Section 4)? At last, in order to answer this question, we examine Hannah Arendt's argument, which takes the anti-natalism of ancient Greece and finds its responsiveness in “action.” Arendt believes that people can endow their lives with splendor, improve their lives and live better, through “action.” She expects education to play the role of “preparation” for this situation. Education that can respond to anti-natalism may be seen in part as the “preparation” that she describes (Section 5).

 When anti-natalism is taken as the premise, the response from education to the new beings that are born is crucial. This is because these new beings, born despite the fact that it would be better for them never to have been born, have grounds for improving their lives and living better in the places where they live. This is made clear by denying the “good” of being born. Education is not all affirmation or negation. While aware of this, education that responds to anti-natalism needs to think. When we take the position of denying the “good” of birth, a new perspective is given to education. This is the significance of this paper.

 This study examined class size difference in the transition of elementary school students' achievement by analyzing panel data composed of Japanese language standardized test scores at five points from around the end of first grade to around the end of fifth grade. The data for 103 schools, 162 classes, and 3,460 students were analyzed. Multilevel analysis with a model postulating three levels (student and time, student, and school) was conducted. The results indicated that smaller classes are advantageous for students' five-year Japanese language achievement trajectories. The study also discussed the advantages of long-term panel data gathering when examining class size impact on academic achievement, as well as the necessity of further research, including large-scale classroom observation, to discover how class size affects students' academic achievement trajectories.

 Japanese higher education has a high proportion of women in academic areas such as humanities and nursing, and a low one in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). As a background to this gender segregation, the relationship between track selection in high school and major selection in higher education has been pointed out. In other words, in high school, boys tend to be more likely to choose science tracks and girls tend to be more likely to choose humanities tracks, and the curriculum tracking between track selection and major selection leads to gender segregation in higher education.

 On the other hand, some survey results show that at the elementary and junior high school stages, there is already a tendency for self-evaluation as the “science type” for boys and the “humanities type” for girls. In addition, although the proportion of “science type” girls is larger than that of “humanities type” girls at the elementary school stage, the proportion reverses at the junior high school stage. Based on these findings, this paper focuses on the “humanities type” and “science type” self-concepts (humanities and science self-concepts) of junior high school students and examines the mechanism of gender differentiation.

 This study tests four hypotheses about how the mechanism of gender difference occurs. First, because boys perform well in science-related subjects while girls perform well in humanities-related subjects, boys are more likely to evaluate themselves as the “science type” and girls themselves as the “humanities type.” Second, because boys like science-related subjects while girls like humanities-related subjects, boys are more likely to evaluate themselves as the “science type” and girls themselves as the “humanities type.” Third, if girls believe the stereotype that “boys are better suited to science,” they will be unlikely to evaluate themselves as the “science type.” Fourth, if girls' parents believe the stereotype that “boys are better suited to science,” girls will be unlikely to evaluate themselves as the “science type.”

 Analysis of a questionnaire survey of Japanese junior high school students showed results partially supporting Hypothesis 1, because self-recognition of scientific ability mediates the effect of gender on the humanities and science self-concepts, but the proportion of meditation is only about 7%. Hypothesis 2 was also partially supported because the preference for science subjects mediates about one-third of the effect of gender on the humanities and science self-concepts. Hypothesis 3 and Hypothesis 4 were both supported because it was confirmed that if girls and their parents believed the stereotype above, girls were less likely to evaluate themselves as the “science type.”

 The above results show that even before entering high school, girls are unlikely to evaluate themselves as the “science type” due to factors other than their own academic ability. The results of this study suggest the importance of invalidating the gender stereotypes that exist in Japanese society.

 This paper aims to clarify the development of the education study of Shigenori Tsuchida (1929-2003) in the early 1950s, focusing on the influence of the Yamagata Prefecture Children's Culture Study Group (Yamagata-ken Jido Bunka Kenkyukai, hereafter YCCSG).

 In Japan in the early 1950s, discussion and diffusion of seikatsu-tsuzurikata (life writing) education was a central issue in teachers' education study. Teachers organized circles and promoted movements to address this issue. Within this education study, what role did circles play and how did teachers shape their awareness? To examine these questions, this paper focuses on Tsuchida's education study in the YCCSG and analyzes (1) the characteristics of education study in the YCCSG, (2) the changes in his awareness in the YCCSG, and (3) the contents of practice documents as the outcome of his education study.

 The analysis reveals the following. (1) YCCSG was a space for education study centering on monthly meetings of teachers in Yamagata Prefecture who were interested in seikatsu-tsuzurikata. Their education study was characterized thus. First, in discussing their practice, members valued discussion of children and mutual disclosure of practices including problems. Second, members shared outside information through a variety of media, with particular concern with trends in the private education movement; the information was examined in the context of their practice. The outcomes of this research were published under the authorship of individual members. (2) Through education study in the YCCSG, Tsuchida underwent two types of changes that corresponded to the characteristics of the group. First, through discussions of practice, he began to notice individual children's unique character and logic. Second, through learning from outside information, he acquired social science-based perspectives and identified the need for a clear explanation of methods of seikatsu-tsuzurikata education. (3) In his descriptions of individual cases in the practice documents, he expressed the awareness he acquired through education study. In addition, conflicting evaluations of cases were found among his notes and practice documents. These evaluations showed that his perspectives both drew abundant significance from facts about children and corresponded to the trends of the private education movement. In the end, he chose the latter view in his description of the practice documents to be published nationwide.

 The paper concludes that in the early 1950s, YCCSG was a space for education study with a dual focus: knowledge rooted in education practices derived from facts about children and so on, and knowledge that corresponded to nationwide trends such as social sciences and the policies of the private education movement. Through this education study, Tsuchida was able to read the abundant meanings implicit in facts about children and to gain a perspective connecting the facts of education practice to nationwide trends. In addition, the paper's results suggest that the teachers' circles of the 1950s sought to respond to both the facts of education practice and the trends of the private education movement, and also that they were not necessarily horizontal relationships but in fact had leaders.

 The psychoanalyst Erik Erikson (1902-1994) is known for such concepts as the “ego identity” and “life-cycle.” His thinking is based in the clinical experience of child analysis (psychoanalysis of the child) acquired early in his career. Recent studies of Erikson have shown that his clinical works deserve to be evaluated as psychoanalysis. In accordance with this perspective, the purpose of this paper is to reposition his thinking as psychoanalytic theory. This requires a focus on his early years in particular. Therefore, this paper addresses his early study Configurations in Play (1937), and reveals the process by which his early thinking emerges from a psychoanalytic background. The key perspectives at that time were Freud's dream theory and developmental theory, as well as the theories of child analysis and the concepts of “configuration,” “organ-mode,” and “body-ego.”

 First of all, Erikson's methodology of the “configurational approach” was influenced by Freud's analysis of dreams and the play technique of child analysis, and can be contrasted with the work of Melanie Klein. The unique characteristics of Erikson's technique, however, are that it focuses on visual forms of play and that it reveals the "body-ego" of the child. "Body-ego" is a concept used by the psychoanalyst Paul Federn to refer to body image based on subjective bodily sensations and libido. Erikson revealed children's “trauma” by visually reading the "body-ego" from the forms of the building block houses created by the children.

 Second, Erikson reinterprets the "body-ego" from the viewpoint of "organ-mode,” which derives from the descriptive method of psychoanalytic drive (Trieb) used by the psychoanalyst Karl Abraham, in which the body is understood through division into "zones" (parts) and "tendencies" (function). Erikson classified three types of zones and five types of "tendencies" into a chart of possible combinations. This was a reinterpretation of the psychosexual developmental theory constructed by Freud, as well as the starting point for Erikson's original thinking.

 In light of the above, it becomes clear that Erikson's early clinical practice and theory should be understood as psychoanalysis, and that the entirety of his thinking, including the "ego identity" and "life cycle," may be reinterpreted as psychoanalytic theory.