齋藤 亮次/ Ryoji Saito
Head of Academic Management and full-time social studies lecturer at Kamiyama Marugoto National Institute of Technology (KOSEN). Nationally certified career consultant (MHLW). Affiliated researcher at the Waseda University Institute for Education Research. With fieldwork experience spanning over 50 countries, he specializes in career education, inquiry-based learning, and geography education.
Affiliations
Institute for Social Vision & Design (ISVD)
Editorial Team
Links
Publications
Career Counseling for High School Students: Supporting Self-Determined Pathways
In an era of diversifying pathways to higher education and the pursuit of well-being, this book explains the individualized career guidance that teachers are called upon to provide. Drawing on 20 common pitfalls, it offers concrete approaches and methods to help students make self-determined decisions about their futures.
SCHOOL SHIFT: You Embody the Future of Education
Ten practitioners present both theory and practice for the future of school education in an era of 100-year lifespans, covering school DX, inquiry-based learning, project-based learning, career education, school organizational reform, and teacher career design.
Media Coverage
What We Should Tell People Who Think 'Retirement Means Sipping Tea on the Porch'
The Hidden Problem with Schools That Teach 'Push Forward and Try Harder'
Supporting Children's Self-Determination (10-part series)
Related Articles (6)
The Anatomy of Japan's 'Child Penalty' — The Triple Burden of Child Allowance, Education, and Housing
Japan's 'child penalty' (kosodate-batsu) refers to the aggregate economic and social disadvantages families face for having children. While child allowance income caps were abolished in 2024 and coverage extended to high schoolers, the underlying structure remains: tertiary education's private funding share at 51% (highest in the OECD) and metropolitan housing costs consuming 25–33% of income. This article focuses on three economic burdens directly affecting household budgets — child allowance, education costs, and housing — and dissects them through data and international comparison.
Five Checkpoints for Spotting Graph Manipulation
Truncated Y-axes, distorted proportions, cherry-picked data, correlation-causation confusion, and sample size fallacies — this article dissects five common graph manipulation patterns and provides practical checkpoints for critically reading data visualizations.
High School Tuition Gaps by Prefecture — Osaka ¥630K, Tokyo ¥490K, Rural Areas ¥457K
A 2026 reform abolished income limits for Japan's high school tuition support program and raised the private school cap to ¥457,000. But "tuition-free" means very different things depending on where you live: Osaka offers ¥630K (the national high), Tokyo covers up to the metro average, while most rural prefectures have only the national base. This article reads the structural inequality through data.
Japan's 2030 Digital Textbook Mandate — Three Forces Behind the Cabinet Decision
On April 7, 2026, Japan's cabinet approved a bill to recognize digital textbooks as official textbooks. On the same day, a privacy law amendment was also approved. While Sweden reversed course after reading scores dropped and Norway demonstrated shallower screen reading, why is Japan pressing forward? An analysis of three structural forces revealed by 12 citizen voices on Threads.
Causes of School Non-Attendance in Japan 2023: Data Analysis of 346,000 Students by Grade and Region
School non-attendance reached 346,482 students in 2023, an 11-year consecutive increase. One in 15 middle schoolers is absent. What lies behind the 51% labeled 'apathy and anxiety'? Analysis by grade and prefecture.
Do You Know the 'Conditions' for Free University Tuition? — Income Limits, Multi-Child Requirements, and International Comparison
Japan introduced tuition-free university education for multi-child households in April 2025. But only 12.7% of all households qualify. With household education burden at 51% (2nd highest in OECD) and education spending at 3.9% of GDP, the gap between the label 'tuition-free' and reality reveals a structural problem in Japanese higher education.
Other Members
Researcher 02 / Director
塩見 尚大/ Naohiro Shiomi
Project designer. He facilitates communication within organizations and projects, overseeing management and direction. Known as a hub who connects people, he draws colleagues and partners into collaborative problem-solving.
Researcher 01 / Representative Director
横田 直也/ Naoya Yokota
Creative producer and strategic designer. With an integrated approach spanning concept development, strategy, and design, he leads projects from structural analysis of social issues through to solution design. He drives research projects in areas such as traffic noise and urban environments, combining data analysis with design-driven methodologies.