Email:hnakazawa[at]sophia.ac.jp

In the age of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity), sociology is in the unique position to enable students to understand our environment in flexible and reflexive ways. A report entitled “The Future of Skills: Employment in 2030” (Bakhshi, Downing, Osborne & Schneider 2017) lists sociology as the fifth important skill needed in 2030. This is because neither AI nor machines can dismantle the given frameworks in which we act on a daily basis. Sociologists often emphasize sociology’s important contribution to the nurturing of journalistic minds due to the discipline’s coverage of a large range of topics, as well as its focus on teaching social statistical skills. Besides these two points, I believe an additional merit of sociological thinking is its strong focus on grasping others’ way of thinking. This facilitates discussion between diverse people and enables people to cooperate and act in an interdisciplinary way, to cope with the unprecedented social problems, we are facing today.

Urban and Regional Sociology, Environmental Sociology, Sociology of Risk and Disaster.

・Hideo Nakazawa, 2021, “Introduction: Tokyo’s Gentrification in Context”, International Journal of Japanese Sociology, 30: 3-5.

・Hideo Nakazawa, 2019, “Miners’ Diaspora and Politicized ‘Heritage’: After Forgotten Coal in Japan”, The Chuo Law Review,126(5・6): 1-24.

・Hideo Nakazawa, 2017, “Suburban/Hinterland Aging in Japan and Types of Policy/Civic Reactions: Area Management, Relocation, or Contraction?”, Korean Regional Sociology, 18(2): 293-317.

・Hideo Nakazawa, 2016, “National Development Policy and Regional-Community Studies in a Postwar Japanese Context”, an online article on the JARCS (Japanese Association of Regional and Community Studies) official website.

・Hideo Nakazawa, 2014, “Tokyo’s ‘Urban Regeneration’ as the Promoter of Spatial Differentiation: Growth Coalition, Opposing Movement and Demographic Change, The Chuo Law Review,121(3・4): 1-31 (2014)

・Hideo Nakazawa, 2013, “Aged Newtown Problems on Greater Tokyo Outskirts: Several Strategies against the Compressed Cycle of Urban Decline”,  The Chuo Law Review,120(3・4): 1-29.

・Hideo Nakazawa, 2012, “Japan’s Coalfields in Context: Undermining the Miracle, Challenging the Obliteration”, The Chuo Law Review,119(1・2): 1-25.

・Hideo Nakazawa, 2006, “Between the Global Environmental Regime and Local Sustainability: A local review of inclusion, failure and reinventing process of environmental governance”, International Journal of Japanese Sociology, 15: 52-69.