Development and issues of local studies in Japanese geography education post world war II: Focusing on the practice of the “Local area” unit in junior high school geography courses

Abstract

This article aims to clarify the state of development of local studies in Japanese junior high school geography education after World War II. The study examines (1) descriptions of the course of studies, (2) previous researches on educational practices in the “local area” unit, and (3) examples of educational practices that incorporated fieldwork in connection with the “local area” unit. The following results were obtained: First, the “local area” unit was included in all iterations of the course of study between 1958 and 2017. Second, previous researches indicates that topographic maps has been used extensively in recent educational practices in the “local area” unit; this is because questions on topographic maps has been often set on senior high school entrance examinations. Educational practices that incorporated fieldwork were found to be extremely rare. Many teachers cited the lack of lesson time across the year as a reason for not incorporating fieldwork. The fact that teaches can not identify topics that should be studied in the lesson of local area could be another reason for the absent of a practice of field work from the educational programs. Third, some examples of educational programs incorporating the practice of fieldwork into the “local area” unit show high educational level. Recent studies of geography education have suggested a specific teaching methods, that carefully chose the content, implementable for teaching local area within 50 minutes. In order to realize this, it is necessary to ensure adequate teacher education and training.