The purpose of this paper is to consider the meaning of responsibility and to demonstrate the changes in its use.
　Attribution theorists F. Heider, K. G. Shaver, B. Weiner and V. L. Hamilton investigated the moral attribution process of responsibility. However, what they consider is not responsibility but a "charge" ( in other words, one aspect of responsibility). Their misconceptions are revealed in their common explanation of sanctions. This common explanation presupposes that positive sanction is the opposite of negative sanction. In this view, positive sanction is assumed to be the inversion of negative sanction. Responsibility implies both blameworthiness and praiseworthiness. But these two types of worthiness are not opposed to one another. They represent two sorts of duties: perfect and imperfect duties. Perfect duty means that it is matter of course to do something and blameworthy not to do it. Imperfect duty means that it is praiseworthy to do something and not wrong not to do it.
　By using this taxonomy, we examine the use of the word "responsibility." The stimulus coordinates from 1982 are compared with the coordinates from 2000, and the change in its use is demonstrated. The organized structure of past responsibility had groupings of both perfect duty and imperfect duty. The organized structure of present responsibility has groupings of perfect duty alone. Imperfect duty has been included in prevention, which is an aspect of perfect duty. The meaning of responsibility is reorganized to be "prevention and charge."

抄録全体を表示

　Recently, the Japanese authorities have been enforcing measures to support the societal reinsertion of Nojukusha (Japanese outdoor sleepers). "Support center" programs attempt to get them out of homelessness by giving them access to jobs or social welfare support, and giving them an "appropriate" place in Japanese society. These measures clearly show the existence of Nojukusha who reject this program and remain on the street. They are categorized as "people who refuse a decent civic life," and they become the targets of pressure and exclusion.
　If their "preference" is reasonable for them, what is the logic that sustains this choice? This paper attempts to examine the logic of their "preference. "
　For this purpose, I rely on the theory of "life structure" and adjust it to grasp Nojukusha street life. Based on survey data, I describe the process and state of Nojukusha street life. This data consists of survey data for 672 Nojukusha and life history data for 722 Nojukusha.
　I conclude that Nojukusha "preference" means "resistance" because their life structure is patterned both by the necessity to survive in the street and by an ethic: "we should live our lives by working for ourselves." Nojukusha, who have been excluded from the labor market, find that it is impossible for them to get away from homelessness by getting a job. For them, the support center program offered by the authorities means a whole life depending on social welfare services. The street life, then, is the only one they can choose to conform themselves to their ethic. It is then the only reasonable preference.
　This paper leads to a paradoxical conclusion. The "preference" for homeless life tends to be regarded as deviance from public opinion and the actions of "normal" citizens. However Nojukusha life is based on their own values.

抄録全体を表示

　The purpose of this study is to analyze the experience of accepting the motion picture films in modern Japan by investigating screenings in a rural village of Nara Prefecture. The analysis presented here is mainly based on oral history collected from members of Nosegawa village in Nara Prefecure. A comparison is made between screening experiences as they appear in oral history and screenings as depicted in the medium of the time.
　As cinema and theater are usually regarded as modern, urban culture, they have often been examined in cultural studies and media studies, but have rarely been mentioned in rural sociology. By focusing on the screenings practiced by ordinary rural villagers in their everyday life, this study provides alternative viewpoints to previous studies that have ignored such everyday practice (such as the "employment" of traveling theaters for their own purposes).
　The following four findings were obtained as a result of my case study.
　(1) Rural sociologists have not paid proper attention to screenings in rural areas, having dismissed them as trivial.
　(2) Historical approaches to film in modern Japan show that the traveling theater formed the national subject through its education and propaganda. But such studies are based on two tacit premises: that cinema is a medium promoting identification with the nation-state, and that cinema audiences, particularly in rural areas, are male.
　(3) When elderly villagers talk about cinema, they differentiate between their own screenings and educational screenings. From this, it can be said that people continuously redefine educational and propaganda films in the context of their everyday lives. This shows that their adherence to the nation is subject to negotiation.
　(4)In rural areas, cinema was accepted as early as the 1910's as a new medium and a symbol of modern technology. Cinema was a strategy for the modernization of the community, used for such purposes as raising funds for new elementary schools.
　By examining the screenings of villagers in Nosegawa, this study offers a new discussion of modern culture in Japanese rural society.

抄録全体を表示

　This paper analyzes the front cover pictures of magazines for boys and girls and examines the changes of motif in visual images of the young. This paper aims to clarify the gender differences in the images of children among modern Japan's new middle class by focusing on their bodies and behaviors.
　The results of this analysis are as follows. Between 1985 and 1910, the pictures emphasize the infertility, innocence and weakness of the "girl" by placing her with a mother next to her. Then, from the early 1910s to 1920, the mother is no longer illustrated and the "girl" appears graceful rather than infantile. However, during the early 1920s, a drastic change arises in the cover pictures: the "girl," with European-style clothes and bobbed hair, is seemingly expected to have an active body. In the latter 1930s, in the midst of war, the cover "girl" is illustrated as a female child who works hard and fights for her nation. On the other hand, the "boy" already appeared as active and patriotic since 1895, and the image did not change thereafter. These findings make it clear that, for the new middle class of modern Japan, the emergence of a new concept of "child" meant the creation of a "boy" and "girl," two existences with completely different meanings. That is to say, existence of the "boy" was regarded as useful for the nation from the beginning, while that of the "girl" was considered to be flexible, only to be usefully employed in case of war.

抄録全体を表示

　The purpose of this paper is to examine the production-process of female "workers" in commercial high schools during Japan's high growth period. The "hidden curriculum" is used as a key concept.
　This paper mainly focuses on commercial education in Saitama and Chiba Prefectures in order to analyze educational change during the process of urbanization. At the beginning of this process, these commercial high schools started to produce many clerks who worked under college graduate white collar workers. At the same time, the number of female students was rapidly increasing in these schools.
　As a result, the implicitly recognized objective of "training individual (male) owners of retail stores" that has existed since the end of WWII was acknowledged as out-of-date, and teachers themselves overtly doubted the necessity of commercial education itself.
　Therefore, conventional commercial education was forced to change. Facing such a critical situation, teachers discussed and practiced in detail the "new" formal curriculum to meet the needs of labor market, and tried to reinforce the connection with the labor market through vocational skills. However, what the labor market demanded for female commercial high school graduates was not only vocational skills, but also communication skills for smooth human relations in the work place. Consequently, a hidden curriculum for such communication skills was gradually being put into practice in commercial high schools.
　However, the majority of these female graduates quit when they got married after only a few years of service. Reflecting this reality, after 1964 the number of statements emphasizing the importance of home economics started to increase in the commercial education study groups of these prefectures. At the same time, through its hidden curriculum, home economics in commercial high schools succeeded in producing domestic workers who had not only housework skills, but also human relation skills needed in the family and the community.
　Lastly, it is concluded that the hidden curriculum practiced in commercial subjects and home economics shared the following common characteristics:
　(1) It began to be practiced in the early 1970's; and
　(2) it produced female "workers" who contributed to better communication in each area.
　Through these processes stated above, these commercial high schools produced "skilled" wage laborers and domestic workers at the same time.

抄録全体を表示

　The dominant conception of volunteer activities views them as the activities of idealistic "citizen." The conception is based on the following three empirical assumptions:1) the number of people participating in volunteer activities has been increasing;2) people take the initiative to carry out the activities, rather than being forced by compulsory community organizations; and 3) the activists are not biased toward a specific social stratum.
　However, by analyzing various statistical data on the changes in volunteer activities after 1980s, this paper shows that none of the abobe assumptions are justified. In the first place, there has not been a real increase in volunteer activity. The "increase" in the number of volunteer activities in the statistical data is explained largely by the fact that as time passes more people define their activities using the word "volunteer." Secondly, most volunteer activities are still performed through the community organizations. Thirdly, as for the social stratum, the upper economic class has greater influence on volunteer participation than before, which is the opposite of the current perception. From this perspective, while the space for citizens' participation will expand, it is likely that economic power extended without the market will be more influential in the public sphere.
　So far, Tocqueville's idea has been the mainstream, conceptualization of civil society in relation to administrative authority. However, it is important to build the independence of civil society in relation to the market. This construction depends on how positively NPOs can intervene in the inequality which spontaneously exists inside the civil society, and how effectively NPOs can mediate the voice of people who suffer a relative shortage of resources and space.

抄録全体を表示