著者

田中 秀和

出版者

立正大学社会福祉研究所

雑誌

立正大学社会福祉研究所年報 (ISSN:13449532)

巻号頁・発行日

no.22, pp.75-109, 2020-07-31

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Studies focusing mainly on policymakers (bureaucrats, etc.) are one commonly used technique for historical research on public assistance, including welfare systems. These studies include research on the process of establishing welfare law, research on the social history of welfare systems, and analysis of welfare standards and implementation procedures. On the other hand, some research takes a different approach to the pertinent issues, focusing on the welfare case workers who administer welfare on the front lines. This research traces the history of independent research organizations, whose primary members are welfare caseworkers, and describes how, in each era, these men and women diligently struggled in their work, and strived to improve the specialization of their occupation, while being buffeted by changing government policies and measures. The above research describes the history of welfare case workers up to the 1990s, but the modern history of the occupation from that time to today is an unexplored area of research. The goal in this paper is to learn from prior research, and at the same time clarify some of the characteristics and issues seen in the development of modern public assistance, by investigating the modern history of welfare case workers in and after the 2000s. To achieve the above goal, this paper focuses on tracing the history of the relationship between the Japan Society for the Study of Public Assistance, whose members are primarily drawn from welfare case workers, and the comics and television dramas for which the society has provided media supervision. Other issues are taken up as appropriate, such as the history of public assistance research, the image of the welfare case worker occupation, and qualification problems, so that the main theme in this paper may be understood with a multifaceted depth.