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This paper examines the practices of natural science researchers and the recognition authors receive in multi-authored papers at Japanese universities. The ' Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication' by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, which sets global standards for authorship ethics in many natural science fields, notes problems in two areas in particular: with 'gift authors' (people who are indicated as authors, but who do not actually contribute to the work) and with 'ghost authors' (people, often students or researchers in lower positions, who are not properly represented in the paper even though they make essential contributions to it). We also note the recent complaints by junior researchers about these violations, which are claimed to be harassment or bullying using power differences. Our survey of researchers in natural sciences at 15 top Japanese universities shows that, despite the different specialized fields, few researchers actually meet the gold standard of authorship criteria of proper authorship and about half think that their violation might be condoned. The data are analyzed taking into consideration a particular local context. Through the exploratory research above, we speculate that most natural science researchers in Japan may be either confused about or struggle with the situation where the strict global criteria conflict with specific local cultures that often condone gift and ghost authorships. Those who are already socialized in such local cultures take unethical authorships for granted, while others view it as an intersection of harassment and misconduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local people of a community interact with nature in a way that is mediated by their local cultures and shape their own environment. We need a local approach to conservation for the local environment adding to the political or technological approaches for global environmental problems such as the destruction of the ozone layer or global warming. The local approach to conservation is based on the paradigm of "life-environmentalism" found in the discussion of Japanese environmental sociology. Life-environmentalism focuses on the lives of local residents to analyse regional environmental problems and pay attention to their local cultures. In this paper, I will examine whether Japanese outdoor education can contribute to the local approach of conservation and I will present a test case of community-based outdoor education based on life-environmentalism.

William R. Tonso has chosen an issue that he knows something about to examine how sociology textbooks address controversy. Appealing for gun control is fashionable, but it is at odds with a fondness that ordinary Americans have for their firearms--one that is supported by a growing body of research on deterrence to crime. There are two sides to the issue, but Tonso shows that in a large sample of texts, the sociology establishment predictably shades, omits, and distorts the politically incorrect position that citizens should not be compelled to relinquish responsibility for the security of their families and property. (Contains 54 notes.)

Copyright of Journal of African Studies is the property of Japan Association for African Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the presence of lonely, isolated and impoverished older citizens in Japan's prison population, many of whom have turned to petty crime only recently and arguably lack a genuine need for corrective services. The paper offers empirical evidence drawn from a mixed-methods study that appears to confirm their compliant, 'law-abiding' attributes. It argues that their influx into prisons can be seen, at least in part, as citizens who are already socially excluded and stigmatised leveraging law to assert an additional risk-laden and stigmatised identity, which provides protection. The outcome is the subversion of prisons as de facto aged-care communities. This analysis resonates with an emerging body of literature that Chua and Engel (2018; 2019) have described as the 'Identity' school of legal-consciousness scholarship. This literature centres on empirical studies of marginalised cohorts who leverage legal structures to embrace an identity that complicates their stigma while providing desired protections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Akìwowo's vision and scholarship were very much impacted by his historical context. Most of his work was conducted after independence when the issue of development was upmost in the minds of Nigerian academics. Born in 1922, he was an elder among the post-independence scholars who sought to help move the new nation forward. This paper focuses on the distinct ideas Akìwowo brought to this endeavour. It was the area in which I had the most discussions with him and in which I collaborated on a publication. I focus on (1) the context within which his ideas developed, (2) his perspective on indigenous sociologies and (3) his output. Akìwowo's concerns in the 1970s are still with us as is clear from Burawoy's Presidential address at the International Sociological Association meetings in Japan, 2014, and the ongoing work of sociologists and social scientists from other regions of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Japan is today an advanced industrial society, much like the advanced industrial societies of Europe and North America, there are significant cultural and social structural differences found in modern Japan. In this respect, as the first advanced industrial society in Asia, Japan provides us with an interesting test of many sociological theories and concepts which have been formed from the experiences of Western industrial societies. Beginning with the recent example of the Recruit stock scandal in Japan, the present paper will outline some of the important aspects of Japanese social structure, such as extensive group unity and vertical organization, which influence the nature of white collar crime in Japan's current political-economy. From such an examination as this social scientists can better understand not only white collar crime in Japan, but also the nature of white collar crime in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the media sociology in Japan. It states that the main stage of social communication is shifting to social media on the internet. It mentions that disaster response has become one of the most important themes of media sociology, highlighting the influence of internet on the availability of computer-mediated communication in Japanese society.

Copyright of Sarajevo Social Science Review is the property of University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Political Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines whether the Japanese youth labor market has become more unstable, particularly since the 1990s. To address this problem, I suggest that we consider the transition rate of job exit to be the benchmark of instability in the labor market and focus on workers’ career histories until they reach the age of 34 years. This paper presents six hypotheses that explain the instability of the youth labor market as follows: the total increase in the job-exit transition rate, the higher risk of job exit for provisional workers, the increase in the number of provisional workers, the increasing transition rate for provisional workers and stable regular workers, the impact of firm size, and the impact of the collapse of the bubble economy. I present the summary statistics of job exit rates and the results of the Cox partial likelihood estimation models. A conspicuous phenomenon of the 1990s entailed an increasing number of provisional workers who ran a higher risk of job exits compared to regular workers. However, the job exit transition rates are generally stable. Moreover, the transition rates for regular female workers have decreased since the 1980s due to the increasing realization of gender equality in society. Although partial likelihood estimation states that firm size and the type of officer concerned (public/private) had significant effects on the transition rates, their effect did not intensify after the collapse of the bubble economy. In sum, the evidence that the Japanese youth labor market changed in the 1990s is limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a research paper which discuss the impact of Japanese culture on the budgeting process of business enterprises from a single company small-sample pilot study. The research links specific aspects of Japanese culture to the predictions about Japanese groups' budgetary, performance evaluation and variance investigation practices. The researchers reviewed the relevant literature in accounting, education and sociology, to know how Japanese culture systematically differs from Western culture in the budgetary process. It found that the Singaporean subsidiary of the Japanese company studied, used common Japanese budgeting practices.

This paper discusses archaeobotanical remains of naked barley recovered from the Okhotsk cultural layers of the Hamanaka 2 archaeological site on Rebun Island, northern Japan. Calibrated ages (68% confidence interval) of the directly dated barley remains suggest that the crop was used at the site ca. 440–890 cal yr AD. Together with the finds from the Oumu site (north-eastern Hokkaido Island), the recovered seed assemblage marks the oldest well-documented evidence for the use of barley in the Hokkaido Region. The archaeobotanical data together with the results of a detailed pollen analysis of contemporaneous sediment layers from the bottom of nearby Lake Kushu point to low-level food production, including cultivation of barley and possible management of wild plants that complemented a wide range of foods derived from hunting, fishing, and gathering. This qualifies the people of the Okhotsk culture as one element of the long-term and spatially broader Holocene hunter–gatherer cultural complex (including also Jomon, Epi-Jomon, Satsumon, and Ainu cultures) of the Japanese archipelago, which may be placed somewhere between the traditionally accepted boundaries between foraging and agriculture. To our knowledge, the archaeobotanical assemblages from the Hokkaido Okhotsk culture sites highlight the north-eastern limit of prehistoric barley dispersal. Seed morphological characteristics identify two different barley phenotypes in the Hokkaido Region. One compact type (naked barley) associated with the Okhotsk culture and a less compact type (hulled barley) associated with Early–Middle Satsumon culture sites. This supports earlier suggestions that the “Satsumon type” barley was likely propagated by the expansion of the Yayoi culture via south-western Japan, while the “Okhotsk type” spread from the continental Russian Far East region, across the Sea of Japan. After the two phenotypes were independently introduced to Hokkaido, the boundary between both barley domains possibly existed ca. 600–1000 cal yr AD across the island region. Despite a large body of studies and numerous theoretical and conceptual debates, the question of how to differentiate between hunter–gatherer and farming economies persists reflecting the wide range of dynamic subsistence strategies used by humans through the Holocene. Our current study contributes to the ongoing discussion of this important issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the relationship with data from a nation with a substantially different social context, Japan. American research on suicide has been based largely on American samples. Little is known about whether the results of this work, such as the link between divorce and suicide, will be replicated for nations with substantially different institutional and cultural structures. The present paper tests the marital integration theory of suicide with data from Japan. Briefly, the marital integration theory holds that as bonds to marriage weaken, suicide risk increases. Further, the kinship system in Japan is apparently more integrated than it is in the United States. For example, in Japan 37.3% of the elderly lived in three-generation households compared to only 0.5% of the elderly in the United States. Durkheim's theory of social integration and suicide emphasizes the subordination of the individual to group life as a prophylactic against suicide. Individualism in family life was emerging as the pattern for the future at the time of Durkheim's study. It is anticipated that a rising divorce rate should affect suicide risk for several groups: divorced persons; separated persons who are contemplating divorce; married persons with severe marital problems; and the children in such families.

In introducing this special Japan issue of Language, Culture and Curriculum, this article provides some background on Japan and Japanese society and offers relevant references to works from a variety of fields that provide additional information. The article also introduces each of the papers in this issue and provides an appendix of helpful contacts where readers may obtain further perspectives (and access up-to-date information and research) on language learning and teaching in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of contemporary sociology in Japan. The sociological discipline in Japan has made remarkable progress since World War II. The rapid economic growth during the 1960s, which was prompted by Western influence, had an effect on the direction of the discipline's development. After providing a brief overview of historical events, I consider scholarly publications during the last 30 years to illuminate substantive trends in sociological research. As might be predicted, the changing substantive interests of Japanese sociologists have been in many ways a response to societal changes and needs. I also examine the trends in theory, methods, and empirical research. A content analysis of articles published in the major Japanese sociological journals shows the growing emphasis on theoretical scholarship and the decreasing emphasis on empirical research in recent years, The conclusion presents some considerations concerning the future direction of Japanese sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropologists and sociolinguists tend to overemphasize the fact that the Japanese conform to the norm culturally and linguistically, Similarly. The researcher has overlooked 'the way in which the individual in Japanese society manipulates other people To his or her advantage, and thereby frequently ignores group constraints'( Moeran, 1988:428). This paper will show how the Japanese reflect their individualistic spirit at the microlevel while conforming to the social norm at the macrolevel by analyzing the Japanese discourse modal mono. This author will first discuss the core meaning (context-free meaning) of the pseudo-noun mono and show that the extended meanings (context-bound meaning) are derived from the core meaning and that the various functions mono fulfills should be treated as what Austin (1962) calls the illocutionary force of the utterances. This author will then show that mono is a discourse modality conveying the subjective, emotional and psychological attitude of the speaker toward the message content, and toward his or her interlocutor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information related to sociology as of April 1, 1950. The Committee of the American Sociological Society on Contributed Papers for the 1950 annual meeting consists of Robert E. L. Fans, chairman; and A. B. Hollingshead and T. C. McCormick. Papers submitted for consideration should be sent not later than June 1, 1950. Recently elected officers of the Pacific Sociological Society for 1950 are: President, Leonard Bloom; Vice-president, Southern Division, Ernest Greenwood; Vice-president, Central Division, Carlo Lastrucci; Vice-president, Northern Division, Joseph Bachelder; and Members of the Advisory Council, Robert O'Brien and Paul Wallin. Gwynne Nettler continues as secretary-treasurer. The Society's annual meeting will be held in Seattle, Washington, during April 21-22, 1950. The Twenty- second annual meeting of the Japan Sociological Society was held in Tokyo, Japan, during October 15-16, 1949. The meeting was attended by more than 250 members. Fifty-two reports were given on various aspects of social theory and social research, and three public lectures on the topic, "The Population Problem in Japan."

The history of social research can be read as a critical endeavour inasmuch as it unbuttons the normalcy of collective action by multiplying relevant actors and the imaginaries of social reality. I show how paying close sociological attention to what I call cosmopolitical events, offers one approach to such a conception of critical social science. In the paper, I explore the effects of the Japanese events at the Fukushima nuclear plant to unfold its significance as consequences that disrupt, question and alter common and taken for granted modes of ordering social life. Specifically, through approaching Fukushima as a cosmopolitical event we gain insight into the complex processes of normalizing social relations. Moreover, the Fukushima event and its effects demand to extend the history of the sociological imagination to the social and political relevance of the non-human. What emerges is a practice that enriches the process of unfolding research agendas and conceptual space to include those that have been excluded, marginalized, forgotten, unconsidered, or disfigured in the process of normalizing social and political action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper. I examine the process by which the people living with HIV/AIDS (PWHs) got involved in collective activities. In particular, I will focus on hemophiliac PWHs who joined in "case supporting organizations." In Japan, about 1,400 hemophiliacs contracted HIV due to a tainted blood product (chemical poisoning). When they filed suits against the Japanese government and pharmaceutical companies from 1989 to 1996. the stereotypes toward HIV/AIDS were blatantly exaggerated and quite prevalent. How did hemophiliac PWHs get involved in these cases and support organizations? How did they avoid=bashing" and discrimination? Hemophiliac PWHs behaved like "conscience adherents" without coming out about their HIV infection. They secured their safe participation within such support groups as this enabled them to avoid an environment of seated prejudice. The programs in the support groups sometimes urged the other participants to be aware of PWHs who are invisible in their ordinary life. This awareness makes it more difficult to resolve the problem of elimination/exclusion of PWHs. This trial generates an opportunity of cooperation among people with/without HIV. It can be said that all members are concerned with HIV/AIDS as conscience adherents. Thus, this trial enables hemophiliac PWHs to participate in case support programs and communicate with others, with ease. This paper asserts that the notion of "conscience adherents" applies not only to pre-infectors but also to PWHs. These findings can contribute to the sociology of social movements and collective action, and also to our understanding of living a life with HIV/AIDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology has been peripheral to the field of medicine in Japan. This paper is largely based on the author's experience of teaching sociology in a medical school in Japan. The paper analyzes why the two disciplines are irreconcilable and discusses how sociology can be involved in medicine and medical education. The discussion in this paper will be threefold. First, the paper will point out the incongruence between the medical sciences in medical school that are extremely biomedicine oriented and sociology that largely deals with the social construction of disease. How and to what extent the conflict between the two disciplines can be resolved will be discussed in the paper. Second, the paper will focus on how medical school education is institutionalized as well as controlled by the government, which might leave little room for sociology. Given this, the paper will consider how sociologists can become more involved in the education of medical doctors. Third, the paper will examine how and to what extent sociologists are able to deal with the sovereignty of medical doctors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we look at the history of social survey development in Japanese sociology. First, the history of social research in Japan before World War II is explored. Second, the introduction of survey research to Japan during the American occupation after World War II is examined, and third, the present state and roles of social survey research in Japanese sociology is discussed. Social research was introduced as an administrative tool for the government. Sociology and social research were developed under British empiricism and American pragmatism, but Japanese academia has been based on a metaphysical approach. Social research introduced as a practical tool long had difficulty in being accepted by Japanese academia. For this reason, most sociologists in universities did not use social survey research for practical purposes, but pursued qualitative methodologies for analyzing data to gain academic prestige even after Social Stratification and Mobility (SSM) and Sabro Yasuda's research projects spread social survey methods in the field of Japanese sociology. Such academics did not think that findings acquired through qualitative case studies had to be confirmed through quantitative data to serve a practical purpose, nor did they believe that quantitative data could be better understood when examined along side qualitative data. Social survey methods have been opposed by those who have favored case-study analysis methods in Japanese sociology. Needless to say, this opposition is fruitless. I propose that professional sociologists in Japanese universities should use social survey research for practical problems more frequently. This is the best way to establish sociology and social research as a science in Japanese society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes gendered social identity in Japan and the United States, countries with comparable postindustrial economic systems but distinct cultural traditions. Using national surveys (1995), we find gender differences in value orientations to be neither systematic nor consistent. They often disappeared after controlling for demographic and human-capital variables, though not so often for Japan. Other variables proved more important predictors of values than gender, although in different ways in Japan and the United States. We conclude by reassessing the use of the term gender in social research and the cultural meaning of gender relations by addressing the feminist concerns with issues of gender location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the ways in which the department store has become a key site for the constitution of Japanese modernity through the introduction of images and goods taken from the West, along with the emphasis on “Western design” and “Western taste”. These new consumer spaces have become aestheticized in various ways so that we can speak of an “aestheticization” of everyday life. Yet this was also a modernizing learning process for Japanese consumers, hence a key problem was how these new experiences were to be classified and ordered into a relatively stable habitus. The rise of the department store has had an important mediating function here. Department stores not only provided new goods along with interpretations of how to use them, but also acted as theatres, as rehearsal spaces, with front and back stage areas where one can watch the performance, try out for oneself new roles. This is especially the case for women in the city, who were able to explore a new identity space with a new set of competence experiences and pleasures. In this process, the department store also provided a form of women's public sphere where they could enjoy shopping, entertainment and learning opportunities. Department stores encouraged not only a sense of luxury and theatrical settings, but also help to teach women how to assemble new tastes and styles into their lifestyle. In addition, it should be emphasized that in the Japanese case, department stores also played an important role not just as a new cultural initiative on the part of the businessmen and cultural intermediaries who invented consumer culture, but also as a political initiative on the part of the government who sought to link them to the reform of everyday life and the production of good Japanese citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at how far women's access to positions of power in the labor market is independent of class background, looking at the case of Japanese women in professional and managerial employment. It questions both the conventional approach to the class analysis of women, as well as the dismissal of the concept of class in understanding women and power. Using three different indicators of social origin, based on father's employment position, mother's work status and employment position, and parent's cultural capital, it argues that women's access to positions of power in employment is not independent of social origin. On the contrary, a privileged class background is more important for women that it is for men in gaining entry into professional and managerial employment. The study also looks at how the inclusion of women in the analysis affects the understanding of class, and proposes the use of both conventional and alternative theoretical and methodological approaches to understand the complex relationships between gender, class, and power.

The Japanese noh theatre started out as a popular art form which originated among the lower classes of society. The noh master Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443?) refined it so that it conformed with the aesthetic preferences of the élite members of the audience. Within a century of Zeami's death, many members of the audience had crossed the boundary between spectator and performer, and had begun ardently to learn to perform noh. By this time, the performers were able to participate in defining the noh theatre, rather than being constrained by the aesthetic preferences of their patrons as in the earlier times. This paper argues that evidence of the changing social discourse about the noh theatre can be found in historical documents written by both the audience members and noh practitioners. These historical documents, ranging from noh treatises to diary entries, demonstrate how the noh theatre was perceived and related to by both the performers and the audience since Zeami's time. When the genre had successfully established itself as an officially sanctioned theatrical form during the late Muromachi period, noh practitioners were able to create a category of noh plays that were markedly different from the earlier ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comparative analysis of text and images in Japanese and English software manuals, recipes and other procedures. The Japanese procedures are found to be more elaborate in the extent to which they engage the reader/viewer, in the degree of detail with which they represent the portrayed action, and in the explicitness of marking the procedures' stages. An attempt is made to account for these differences by reference to differences in the socio-cultural context between the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extending the study of picture postcards beyond an analysis of their content demonstrates that changes in the material circumstances of the production of postcards, and the conceptual shifts that they catalyzed, fundamentally altered the visual field of late nineteenth–century Japan. Once the postal system began in Japan in 1870, government–issued prepaid postcards, and picture postcards collected and sent from other countries, did introduce the medium to a small degree. However, private production of picture postcards only started in 1900, when postcards to which stamps could be affixed were first allowed. Stores and periodicals first produced them as promotional gifts, opening an arena for print technology experiments. During this period, government–issued commemorative postcards officially encouraged soldier–civilian correspondence, sparking wartime collecting booms. Early postcards of “beauties”, bound by taboos against depicting ordinary women, featured only geisha; later ones depicted ordinary women, subsequently creating a constellation of national stars, setting the stage for later postcard–format bromide paper prints of movie stars’ photographic portraits. “Current–events postcards”, rather than prioritizing accuracy, served as commemorative memorials. However, it was the rise of photojournalism that rendered the genre obsolete. Railway travel, besides reconfiguring and expanding the landscape of tourist destinations, also shaped practices of communication, aided by the innovation of the fountain pen. Increased speed and mobility changed travellers’ ways of seeing in a manner that, like postcards, altered visuality and transformed notions of time and space. Ultimately, picture postcards simultaneously offered intimacy with and distance from the object of the scopophilic gaze of an expanding audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to clarify how Japanese rural families have continued and changed from a viewpoint of generational succession. The survey from which data was collected was conducted principally in Yamanashi prefecture, Japan. Three main points will be focussed on: members, property, and ideology. Almost 40% of family members surveyed continued to live together with their parents after marriage. However, they did not necessarily succeed the family farm. The ways in which they live together and farm their land have become more diverse. It is still very common for the entire family property to be inherited and succeeded by only one child in accordance with the Ie system. Despite the fact that family structure is changing greatly in present times, many farming families continue to adopt this system of inheritance. Ideologies concerning ceremonial matters and human relationships remain strong, but have weakened with regard to land inheritance. Our results suggest that the family's desire for succession was stronger in cases where multiple generations cohabited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban planning for age-friendly environments is an important issue, and occupational therapists and occupational scientists could contribute to planning such environments; however, knowledge of the potential roles of occupational therapists is limited. To explore the potential roles of occupational therapists in urban planning for age-friendly environments in Japan from the perspectives of occupational therapists and stakeholders. A Q-methodology study was conducted to gain viewpoints from occupational therapists and stakeholders regarding their roles in the urban planning of age-friendly environments for older people in Japan. Participants included eight occupational therapists and seven stakeholders who completed the Q-sorting process. Three viewpoints emerged which are interpreted as roles of occupational therapists: (1) Promote older people's participation in everyday activities in their communities, (2) Advocate for older people towards policy-making to reflect their occupational needs or perspectives, and (3) Arrange neighbourhood environments towards enhancing participation in occupation through adjustments to compensate for functional limitations. Results reveal the potential roles of occupational therapists in urban planning for age-friendly environments in Japan. These roles can be a guide in the continuing professional development of occupational therapists in the fields of urban planning for older people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Review for the Sociology of Sport is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article characterizes the present global crisis as an interregnum of modernity. The paper, while granting that the multi-faceted brake if not break-down of world economic development is a major parameter of the global crisis, adopts the perspective that there are other deep structures operative--political, moral, cultural, and cognitive ones, which intertwine with the economic to produce a state of general disequilibrium, and not just a partial economic disequilibrium. The phrase "interregnum of modernity" has been used to propose that the world is in a global axial period of transition. This is paralleled in the interregnum of theoretical frameworks having paradigmatic status in American sociology, and probably in other social sciences. Japan has already shown remarkable technological and economic growth and even in the grim global economic climate of the past ten years, China and Korea have turned in above-average performances. In this interregnum, an innovative endeavor for sociologists is to study on a comparative, cross-national and cross-historical basis the nature of crises, societal as well as cognitive ones.

The ability to ascertain the extent of product sale fluctuations for each store and locality is indispensable to inventory management. This study analyzed POS data from 158 convenience stores in Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan and found a power scaling law between the mean and standard deviation of product sales quantities for several product categories. For the statistical domains of low sales quantities, the power index was 1/2; for large sales quantities, the power index was 1, so called Taylor’s law holds. The value of sales quantities with changing power indixes differed according to product category. We derived a Poissonian compound distribution model taking into account fluctuations in customer numbers to show that the scaling law could be explained theoretically for most of items. We also examined why the scaling law did not hold in some exceptional cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the significance of gender related studies in sociology, with reference to post World War II. It states that women's liberation movement not only raised awareness about the problems of the sexually discriminatory social structures and social consciousness in Japanese society but also employed self-criticism of the sexually discriminatory consciousness that existed within women themselves.

Copyright of Japanese Sociological Review / Shakaigaku Hyoron is the property of Japan Sociological Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Japanese Sociological Review / Shakaigaku Hyoron is the property of Japan Sociological Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

One of the important points in the discussions on minority groups pertains to the category words associated with that particular group. However. the significance of category words for the members of a minority group itself has been overlooked. The aim of this paper is to consider this point by analyzing one category word that is used by gay/bisexual men in contemporary Japan. In the context of gay/bisexual men's group, this point is associated with how they can address themselves and construct "we" without hurting someone by the category words they use. The word kocchi (here/this side) is frequently used by gay/bisexual men in Japan and can be considered to be an answer to the above question. This word implies peer consciousness among them, and by using it. gay/bisexual men construct themselves as a peer group without foreclosing anyone. This function derives from the tautological characteristic of the word kocchi. Of course, in some cases, this word leads to dysfunctional consequences. However, kocchi, a vague and tautological expression, plays a very important role in constructing gay/bisexual men as "we". This analysis can throw fresh light on the discussions about category words, because this case shows that the significance of a category word can be its "unsubstantial" feature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Certified Social Workers and Certified Care Workers Act was enacted in 1987 in Japan. After the enactments, sociology has been included in the national examination for the acquisition of a social worker's license. This paper examines narratives in sociology and education in sociology in social work education and related academic studies. This study will address the scope of sociology within the realm of social work. First, I will explain the present state of social work education in Japan. Second, it will focus on the manner in which sociology influences social work education, related academic studies, and a social worker's practice. Third, I will consider the manner in which sociology contributes to social work education, related academic studies, and a social worker's practice. Although sociological theories are presently selected arbitrarily in social work education, sociology has had an incredible impact on social work. For example, institutions were deinstitutionalized, paternalism was rejected, and self-determination and "users' narratives" acquired respect. It is believed that transformations of this nature have made a social worker's methods postmodern. However, there is a sanctuary that postmodern social work cannot cover. I argue that this profession presently has two different methods of intervention. The first method of intervention is postmodern care, while the other is evidence-based social work that supports powerful intervention. The present situation of social workers should be considered in order to initiate sociological discussions in the realm of social work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines secondary education in Japan from a sociological perspective. To begin with, I consider the significance of the theme of sociology in secondary education, and provide three reasons for conducting such an analysis: the importance of sociological education from an international perspective, the possibility of the development of sociological pedagogy, and the contribution of Japanese sociology to secondary education in general. Second, I illustrate the marginalization of sociology within the secondary school curriculum in Japan, by examining the guidelines set and its treatment by the Ministry of Education, Culture. Sports, Science and Technology. I suggest three reasons for this marginalization, namely, the characteristics of sociology as a discipline, a general indifference towards the subject at the institutional and administrative level, and a lack of collaboration between educators involved in social studies education and those involved in sociological education. Sociological pedagogy has been proven effective in the fields of both comprehensive study and experiential learning used to help social problems. After reviewing several studies in teaching sociology, which discuss the integration of sociological education into service-learning, I consider the application of this new pedagogy to the secondary education curriculum or introductory-level sociological education in Japan. Further, I examine society's perception on social studies education in relation to the development of the education of the global citizen or the influence of the changing structure of contemporary society. I then argue that sociology can contribute to the learning and development of communality and sociality and in diverse areas outside the sphere of traditional social studies. Finally, I suggest that it might be especially significant for the future of Japanese sociology to promote further study of sociological education in secondary education in order to support its practice at the institutional level and engage more positively in educational administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to discover the latest bases for contemporary sociology in Japan. First such base of sociology was explored in secondary education, which identified that "the contemporary society" of the civics is very important. The second new base was discovered in the collision field. The logic of medicine in that field will encounter the logic of life, and in that collision situation, many medical doctors and co-medicals will need new frameworks to understand the situation. In the civics of high school, some "learning-units" are about selective contemporary social problems. The educational aim in high schools is to enable the synthesis of thought in all the students so that they will be able to use two or more social sciences. Sociological system theory and certain other sociological tools are useful in such educational practices. In medical education, not all medical students can avail the opportunity of studying the perspectives on ordinary living, a fault that was pointed out by the young family medicine doctor. In reality, it is necessary to adjust reciprocally the logic of the medicine and logic of life, a process in which sociology can participate. This participation is an opportunity for the society of sociology, which in other words, is an example of sociology adding to the surroundings. Sociology must have the potential to make life/medical innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the midst of the ongoing cultural globalization, many rural areas in Japan are poorly equipped to enjoy cultural activities. Cultural sociology has worked on political issues that have had ramifications on the popular or ethnic culture, hut not on issues related to institutions that support cultural activities. On the other hand, the regional development movement that uses cultural resources has attracted attention in its practice of regional construction. Some cities obtain cultural resources from all over the world: they attract the people who form the creative class, and are thus in a position to target further cultural development. Other areas, however, are not always able to do that. This paper focuses on the issues of Local diversity and endemism to discuss this situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies trends in intergenerational social mobility using growth curve modeling. The main research questions are to describe the characteristics of early career trajectory among Japanese men, and also to examine the cohort change in association between career trajectory and class origin. With data from four national representing surveys, two-level hierarchical nested dataset consisted of the person-year work history data file and individual data file is set up. The author conducts multilevel logistic regression analysis which is well-adapted to hierarchical structured datasets. The results indicate that, the change in reproduction of upper non-manual class can not be shown, while reproduction of self employed class demonstrate an upward trend. These findings suggest that we should pay attention to local structure in social mobility as well as overall structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What do university students majoring in sociology learn from the subject? What kind of interest do they have in it? What kind of usefulness do they find in the subject? This paper attempts to explore these questions based on the results of a questionnaire survey conducted by the Sociological Education Committee of the Japan Sociological Society in 2003. First, I examine the students' interest in society and knowledge about sociology before entering university, and then summarize the results about their satisfaction with lectures, seminars, and so on. Next, I classify the vocabularies used by the students to answer the questions pertaining to how useful and interesting they find sociology. This shows that they refer to its "scope" (sociology enlarges their views), "nonobviousness" (sociology transcends their common sense), and "closeness" (sociology relates to their own positions) more frequently than usefulness in their jobs or knowledge about society. In the last part, I attempt to examine these results and tentatively consider the future directions for sociological education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I consider forestry households that are faced with financial difficulties from the viewpoint of the New Economic Sociology in order to demonstrate the structural backgrounds of forest devastation in Japan. First, I discuss recent studies on forest devastation in sociology and point out that it is insufficient to explain the background of the problem on the basis of the price difference between imported logs and domestic logs or the decline of villages. Further, I examine that the New Economic Sociology considered in this paper is useful in providing an account of how forest devastation has spread in Japan in the last 20 years. Next, I focus on the changing social networks within the wood industry to examine how the type of crisis that forestry households presently experience has changed from that in the 1980s. This change in the type of crisis indicates that the severance in the social interrelations between forestry households and sawmills came about because sawmills were disembedded from the traditional networks of wood trade, and forestry households were unable to tackle financial difficulties with the existing practices. I then show that Japanese forestry households were inevitably involved in cutthroat price competition and were forced to overproduce. Finally, from the abovementioned analysis, we may reasonably conclude that the viewpoint of the New Economic Sociology is the most effective framework to analyze the current mechanism of forest devastation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyze the relationships between "adults" and "children" in the Play Park movement in Setagaya (the pioneering adventure playground movement in Japan) and to describe the freedom of children from the sociological viewpoint. In modern society, the image of "children" is related to that of the "adults" who care for them. Nevertheless, there are many statements that insist on allowing the children's free will distancing from adults'. Studies that begin with such statements end up finding that the statements themselves are mere reflections of the asymmetrical relationships between children and adults. Thus, they again insist on the "real" freedom of children. However, the Play Parks,-- whose motto is "Play freely on your own responsibility" --have succeeded in neutralizing the asymmetry and realizing the freedom of children by following certain mechanisms. First, they develop an original logic regarding children's play and then allow children to take care of themselves. Second, adults can also share this logic, which liberates them from the inconvenience of taking care of children. Since it is adults who support the provision of space for children to be free, this may be a kind of utopia. However, modern fiction still considers "adults" as social agencies and never abandons the realm where "adults" should give special consideration to "children." If we are unable to ignore the fiction, we can learn some implications from the Play Parks. Although they are limited places, the asymmetry between "children" and "adults" is being neutralized inside these Play Parks and both "children" and "adults" can act freely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

These days, the higher death rates by suicide of middle and elderly age men and in a few regions come into question. This paper investigates the particulars and current circumstances of the death rates by suicide structurally and historically. It takes Émile Durkheim's "Anomie" theory and the methodology of Annales' social history. The analysis used death and death rates by suicide, sex, age and region from 1899 to 2002 in vital statistics. During the Period of High Economic Growth of 1960s, death rates by suicide, sex, age and region were undergoing changes. Japan's death rates by suicide were reduced immediately in the 1960s, and after this period it rose gradually. In the 1960s, gender differences declined, but after this period, female death rates by suicide fell down slightly, while those of males rose in the age range of 40 to 59 years. After this period, the suicide rates in the majority of regions are on a low level while the rates in a small number of economically disadvantaged regions are rising. The regional distribution is changing in such a way that "the center is lower, and the border is higher." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the paradigm shift from an industrial society to an information society in the 1990s, contrary to the decrease of profits in Japan''s electrical machinery firms, only Canon demonstrated its increasing trend. This contrasting performance corresponds to Canon''s another contrast with respect to increasing technological diversification while reverse trends in other electrical machinery firms. These contrasts suggest us that Canon''s technological diversification strategy can be the source of high level of its profits.Prompted by this hypothetical view, this paper analyzes Canon''s scenario for sustainable growth and attempts to elucidate its technological diversification dynamism with special attention to its contribution to high level of profits. On the basis of the identification of the correlation between technological diversification and assimilation of spillover technology, comparative empirical analyses are conducted focusing on the consequence of technological diversification and development trajectory in Japan''s leading electrical machinery firms over the last two decades. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Cites the implications of the World Cup 2002 to increase the level of nationalism and patriotism in Japan. Observation of critic, Toshimaru Ogura, that sporting events have been closely related to the administration, control and management of the people and to strategies for strengthening the social organization of the collectivity; Emphasis of psychiatrist, Rika Kayama, on the possibility of some more conservative, reactionary results from the World Cup; Disadvantage of using the national flag and hymn during the event to develop other meta-messages with ideological and political implication at the connotative level.

This paper reports the performance measurement practices of four Japanese banks. The research is a field study informed by the new institutional sociology theory. It sought to understand and explain what factors affected the design and use of non-financial performance measurement systems in the banks studied. The results indicate that several institutional forces influenced the banks to implement a particular performance measurement system. Of these, economic constraints appeared to be the most forceful factor, followed by the central bank`s regularly control, accounting standards/financial legislation, management's strategic focus, bank size, competition, and organizational tendency to copy best practices from others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In striking contrast to the conflict surrounding his earlier studies of Japanese society and culture, an amicable climate of mutual respect developed between Parsons and Japanese scholars in the 1970s. During this time, Parsons made two visits to Japan, where he was hailed as a great theorist whose views were taken most seriously by Japanese sociologists. The data indicate that, shortly before his sudden death in the spring of 1979, Parsons had begun to reformulate his ideas about modernization as a result of his increasing knowledge of Japanese society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]