Lifelong Education Of The Sino-japanese Comparative Study

"How can we make people's later life healthy and satisfactory?" This question already has been an important issue as a common concern in China and Japan. Furthermore, along with increase of the elderly population, social change and development, the elderly people's lifestyle change, needs of the elder's lifestyle has been changed accordingly. Social participation and lifelong education for old people and motivation for their life, which should be considered in those issues, are the key words of solving aging society problem. With researching the elder's lifestyle in China and Japan, situation and problems of lifelong education of the two countries and referring to survey conducted by Elder's college(Laonian Daxue) of Minzu University of China and Life Education Center of Kamakura City (Kanagawa, Japan), I have investigated what is the best solution for the issues. At the same time, I have tried figure out future potentiality of lifelong education and its unlimited possibility in this thesis.The academic focus on elder's college is currently concentrated in the field of pedagogy and psychology, but not studied widely in the area of sociology. Therefore, I have compared the cases of Elder's college of Minzu University of China and Life Education Center of Kamakura City from a sociological point of view. In addition, I also have researched how to improve lifelong education by analyzing the elderly people's activities in the lifelong education and suggested some constructive opinion for its development in the future.The purpose and the contribution of this thesis are following 3 points:First, I have researched the situation of lifelong education and its educational environment in China and Japan then conducted a survey of the lifestyle and the elderly people's sense of value. Secondly, through a comparative study of lifelong education in China and Japan, I have identified similarities and differences between the two countries and also found out some problems and development process of the lifelong education in the each country. Finally, I have explained the potential power of the elderly people in lifelong education activities and researched the prospect of lifelong education by analyzing how to improve it. I hope that these discussions will be the mutual promotion for the aging society in China and Japan.I would like to put forward several ideas for the lifelong education of the two countries:1. To promote the lifelong education mainly by the citizens, at the same time to respect and esteem citizen's educational demand;2. To establish support network for lifelong education;3. To provide learning information and advice system;4. To help "hidden" learners;5. To utilize learning outcomes and promote social participation;6. To give proper evaluation and opportunities;7. To reinforce the cooperation between government and citizens or civil society organizations;8. To train personnel for supporting lifelong education;9. To build a new community through the development of lifelong education.