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Paper short abstract

　This paper examines disability perception among Japanese farmers using a multi-layered model. It focuses on how interpersonal, practical, and structural layers coexist and shift over time, and how social support helps sustain positive change.

Paper long abstract

　This paper examines disability perception among Japanese farmers employing people with mental disabilities through a multi-layered analytical model. Rather than treating disability perception as a single attitude that emerges and deepens over time, the study conceptualizes it as a configuration of three perceptual layers that coexist throughout the process: interpersonal understanding, practical accommodation, and structural understanding. Transformation is defined not as the appearance of new layers, but as shifts in their relative prominence and interrelation.

　Drawing on qualitative interviews with farmers engaged in agri-welfare collaboration in rural Japan—including crop farming, dairy farming, forestry-related work, and agricultural organizations—this study adopts a narrative and process-oriented approach. Interpersonal understanding refers to how farmers emotionally and relationally interpret people with mental disabilities, including distance, anxiety, trust, and familiarity. Practical accommodation concerns everyday work practices such as task adjustment, role-sharing, and coordination developed through shared agricultural labor. Structural understanding involves recognizing disability as shaped by organizational arrangements, work environments, and community contexts rather than individual deficits.

　The analysis shows that these three layers are present both at the initial stage of employment and in later phases. In the early stage, practical and structural considerations—such as concerns about work pace, safety, and responsibility—tend to dominate, while interpersonal understanding remains limited. Through daily shared work, practical accommodation often moves to the foreground, enabling farmers to reassess assumptions about ability through concrete experience. Over time, interpersonal understanding becomes more relationally grounded, and structural understanding may be articulated more explicitly as farmers reflect on conditions needed to sustain cooperation.

　Importantly, positive transformations in the configuration of perceptual layers are not irreversible. Even when interpersonal understanding and practical accommodation become more prominent, such configurations may become unstable under changing work conditions or increased workload. This indicates that sustaining positive transformation cannot rely solely on individual ethics. Organizational and community-level structures—such as shared reflection, collective responsibility, and connections to external support—play a crucial role in stabilizing these configurations.