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Comprehensive study on connections between industrial labor problems and vocational education/training
This research group focuses on three topics. First, the group aims to clarify the quality of workforce required in various contemporary industries through analysis of specific labor processes and labor force structures. Second, the group seeks to illustrate ideal education and training that help to develop vocational abilities required today. In this case, emphasis is placed on the relationship of such education and training with economic, industrial and corporate trends rather than directly on school education. In other words, vocational independence of workers and their qualification systems must be examined in terms of worker treatment based on labor management and educational systems in the business community. Third, education provided by schools, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, and other public organizations assumes an increasing importance in the development of vocational skills today. Such education is also expected to play a major role in initiatives to: (1) promote the reemployment of unemployed middle-aged and older workers, (2) train employed workers to respond to technological innovation and changes in industrial structure, and (3) resolve the problem of increasing numbers of university graduates working part-time. This research group considers what it takes to live up to these expectations.
As described above, the group’s research areas are related to a wide range of labor-related fields, including social policy studies, labor economics, labor sociology, industrial pedagogy and business administration/labor management theories. What is essential and unique to this research group is its focus on the meanings of and conditions for independence by way of “workforce cultivation” through those relations.
