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This paper considers the functions and effects of "representation" in politics and education. The voting age for public elections in Japan has been lowered from 20 or older to 18 or older, calling for a shift in the curriculum to the basics of political participation and competence. In this paper, while focusing on the political issues concerning the publicness of the curriculum up until now in particular, I will demonstrate experimentally that considering this problem means radically reconsidering the struggles contained in the meaning of participatory politics itself, not only the situation of representative democracy in modern society, and that it clarifies once again the covertly configured educational problems of competency. [Translated by Nadezhda Murray. This article was originally published, in Japanese, in "The Japanese Journal of Educational Research" v82 n4 2015.]

Inequality and injustice in education have been viewed from the perspective of social justice. Since the emergence of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice, social justice issues have attracted the attention of social and political philosophers. Theoretical consequences of social and political philosophy have been actively incorporated into the field of education. However, the issue of educational justice remains controversial and requires further philosophical consideration. To further philosophical consideration, this paper explores how the class or the classroom can generate space and time for democracy, by focusing on the educational specificity of the classroom community, which is called 'Gakkyu' in Japanese. Social justice in education is not only a policy issue, but also a practical issue which should be tackled in the classroom. Rethinking the ways of democracy to face conflicts arising due to differences and equality of children in the classroom is an important method of bridging social justice and education. In this paper, the following question will be explored: how classroom democracy can be nurtured and the classroom community transformed into a democratic place where children from various background and experiences gather and learn from each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the philosophy of education. It mentions COVID-19 has exposed the degree to which technology has penetrated the society, teachers around the world are learning to handle technologies such as Zoom and YouTube in order to teach online. It also mentions COVID-19 has exposed the precarious relationships between humanity and nature.