The Development of Adult Schools in Japan : Focusing on the Cases in Metropolises in the Early Post-war Period

Social education (adult or non-formal education) projects of municipalities in postwar Japan started in association with a framework based on Kominkans (or Community Learning Centers), which were suitable for the social conditions of rural areas. On the other hand, a contrasting framework of social education projects in municipalities also appeared in the end of 1940s. It was the framework based on “adult schools.” Adult schools established in many large cities at that time offered participants(students) more advanced, more systematic, and more various courses than those of kominkans. Many staffs and researchers on social education in those days remarked the possibility of “adult schools.”Today we can rarely find public projects titled “adult school” in Japan. Most of adult schools were renamed and restructured as “Courses for Citizen,” “Civic University,” and so on by now. The staffs and researchers on social education today seldom use the word “adult school.” Addition to this, there are few articles or books for historical research on adult schools in postwar Japan.This article focuses on the development of adult schools in metropolises in the early postwar period (1945 to 1955) to lay a foundation for the comprehensive history of adult school in postwar Japan. We selected five cases: the adult schools in Kawasaki City, Yokohama City, Tokyo Metropolis, Nagoya City, and Osaka City. We examined what these cases have in common from four viewpoints: circumstances concerning establishment of adult schools, average time allocated to each course and trends of contents, attributes of participants, and how participants engaged in management of adult schools and how they formed groups.We have found some common trends of adult schools in metropolises at that time as below. Firstly, in most of cases the education boards of municipalities already started some projects of adult education courses before establishment of adult schools. The concept of “adult school” offered a standardized and systematic framework to each municipality. Secondly, we can find considerable similarity on the contents of courses in adult schools, and the “liberal arts education” counted in most of cases. Thirdly, the majority of participants were white-collar and graduates of upper secondary schools. The most part of them were latter teenagers and early twenties, and there was no clear imbalance in sex of participants. Finally, the participants played certain roles in management of courses in their adult school (as members of management committee, for example) and often formed various reunion groups in most of cases

Neighborhood Organizations in the Context of Municipal Social Education in the Early Post-War and High-Growth Period : Focusing on the Discourse on Neighborhood-Level Basis of Social Education and Kominkan

Most of discourses on neighborhood groups in the context of social education (adult education) in the early post-war and high-growth period in Japan concentrated on social education groups such as youth groups and womenʼs groups. On the contrary, neighborhood organizations such as rural and urban neighborhood groups (Buraku-kai and Chonai-kai) and residentsʼ associations (Jichi-kai) were not referred to so often. These neighborhood organizations were, however, closely related to municipal social education and community learning centers (Kominkan). The discussions on the relationship between neighborhood organizations and municipal social education have been accumulated independently according to each topic. This article aims to present an overview of these discussions, and to clarify common framework of perception on neighborhood organizations for social education staffs and researchers in those periods.In the early post-war period, kominkans were needed to play a role to raise political consciousness as residents of “a city,” “a town” or “a village”. At the same time, kominkans were also needed to play various roles based on solidarity of neighborhood. On the other hand, neighborhood solidarity and organizations were often blamed for oppression and irrationality in the traditional neighborhood communities. Therefore, Jichi-kai newly established in the areas of apartment buildings in suburbs, and Jichi- Kominkan (residentsʼ autonomous Kominkan) newly established in rural areas held up the ideal of “residentsʼ autonomy” (Jichi) to remove oppression and irrationality.In 1970s, the “policy for ideal communities” by the Ministry of Home Affairs attracted attention of social education staffs and researchers, and neighborhood solidarity was perceived as a positive concept to overcome the alienation of humanity in the rapid industrialization. On the contrary, the aim to overcome oppression and irrationality accompanying neighborhood groups, and the expectation for kominkan to raise political consciousness as residents of “a city,” “a town” or “a village” came to be paid less attention. Additionally, most of social education staffs and researchers believed pure solidarity among neighborhood based on learning activities, but they didnʼt discuss the relation between this type of solidarity and “governance system of community”. Moreover, they didnʼt pay much attention to the viewpoint of social class when they were discussing those topics above.This article only presents a historical overview and extract a framework of perception of social education staffs and researchers, but it will contribute to reorganize the findings of former historical studies which were too detailed and separated each other

Cities and ""Villages"" in the Movement for the Improvement of Living in the Later Taisho and the Early Showa Era : the discourses about the targets of the movement and their transition

The current studies on the movement for the improvement of living before WWII in Japan mainly referred to cities, or to farming villages only individually. I think it is necessary to examine the mutual relation between the cities and villages in this movement. In this paper I investigate the discourses on the journal of Seikatu-Kaizen-Domeikai (The League for the Improvement of Living) and Seikatu-Kaizen-Chuokai (The Central Association for the Improvement of Living) From early 1930s, Domeikai and Chuokai tried to expand its activities into rural districts, especially farming areas. On the journal of Domeikai and Chuoukai (Seikatsu-Kaizen or Seikatsu), many articles about farming villages can be found in the end of 1920s and 1930s. But, as a whole, the activities of Domeikai and Chuokai, and the articles on this journal were aiming mainly at the inhabitants of cities. We can find two features in the discourses of these articles. First, the dichotomy of ""city"" and ""village"" can be found. This structure of discourses consisted of gaudy and frivolous ""cities"" and thrifty and steady ""villages."" Second, though in early 1920s the new middle class was regarded as the leader for the improvement of living conditions, the discourses that regarded villages as the models of life-style were dominant on the journal in the end of 1920s and 1930s. These discourses about ""villages"" played a role to clarify the problems of the life-style of ""cities."" But the number of articles that referred to farming villages rapidly decreased in the end of 1930s. The image of ""villages"" as the opposing life-style to ""cities"" could exist on the basis of the extreme differentials of living condition between cities and villages. These differentials became unclear under the war, and the discourses which had related ""cities"" and ""villages"" lost its basis

Juvenile Crimes in the Meiji Era and Official Statistics : statistical "facts" and explanations of them

In this paper I attempt statistical analysis of juvenile criminals in the Meiji era. The arguments about juvenile crimes or delinquency in this period have referred mainly to discourses, institutions, or qualitative materials. By using quantitative materials, I point out the problems of these biased arguments. First, I examine the transition of number of juvenile criminal defendants in the Meiji era. We can find that the transition of total number of them was much influenced on by the number of defendants for "minor crimes." Moreover, the transition in laws and regulations of police control, and transition in formality of statistics were reflected on the number of minor crimes. We can say that discourses of this periocl about juvenile crimes referred to the statistical data which was much influenced on these "external variables." Second, I examine the statistics of the attributes of juvenile prisoners in 1900s (property of their family, education, growing condition, crimes they had committed, etc.) These statistical materials tell us that some of discourses in this period about attributes of juvenile prisoners were exaggerated, or inaccurate

A Tentative Study about Reading and Social Stratification after WWII : Changes of the actual differentials/changes of the awareness of differentials

We can see many excellent historical studies about the relation between reading behavior and social stratification in Japan before WWII. These studies succeeded in describing the differences of reading behavior between social classes by using not only quantitative data but also various qualitative data. However, we have never seen such studies that apply these viewpoints to reading behavior after WWII. My tentative study consists of two essays. First, I investigated changes of the differentials of reading rate by using several surveys which have been made continuously after WWII. In the high-growth period, the reading rates both in cities and villages rose much. On the other hand, the differentials between social classes scarcely changed during this period. Moreover, we can confirm the obvious differences of favorite genres, reading time, and expenses for books between social classes. The structure of these differences is very similar to that we had before WWII. Second, I described an outline of changes of discourses about the relation between reading behavior and social classes after WWII. I examined the articles and papers on The Science of Reading edited by the Japan Association of Reading since 1957. The articles and papers which were based on analytic framework of social stratification extremely reduced in 1970s. After the high-growth period, the discourses about reading have lost the awareness of social stratification

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京都大学アカデミックデイ2022開催日時: 2022年6月19日(日) 10:00-16:00会場: ロームシアター京都主催: 京都大学（学術研究支援室、研究推進部研究推進課、「国民との科学・技術対話」ワーキンググループ）京都大学の学術研究成果発信の一環として包括的に登