Development of Cognition and Citizenship in "Civics" Classes before World War II : Focusing on the Analysis of Civics Textbooks at the Formative Stage

Abstract

"Civics" became a secondary school subject before World War II in the first half of the 1930s. It is positioned early in the history of "Social Studies" education. The development of this subject was epochmaking in the history of Japanese civics education. This paper looks at the development of "Civics" with regard to the concurrent development of cognition and citizenship. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the intended purpose of the "Civics" syllabus in relation to cognition and citizenship, and how this purpose was achieved in the development of textbooks. The result of the analysis is as follows: cognitive development is focused on general norm knowledge while citizenship is developed in two ways. One is citizenship in social-life, which means having an active agenda in social life. The other is national citizenship which relates to politics for national development. This study revealed that the development of both cognition and citizenship are predominantly effected by the important role of citizenship in "Civics".