2015 Volume 24 Pages 94-104
This paper examines the major principles supporting teacher training in postwar Japan and how the educational system that accomplished university teacher training was carried out under the new educational system, through the analysis of students’ choice about academic elective subjects at Tohoku University Department of Education. The education department, an organization without parallel nationwide, was born out of the subsumption of normal schools that were the vehicle for compulsory school teacher training in the prewar imperial university education system. Accordingly, it is the best example to inspect the actual conditions of teacher training as it is supported by high level research.
This paper is original in that it analyzes the work of teacher training through trends of education students and those of their teachers at the same time.
This paper provides the following conclusions. First, primary school teachers were trained with a major focus on single academic subjects by other departments in the university. Second, junior high and high school teachers, who instruct academic subjects, were department of education majors. When the training of primary school teachers was not equal to that of secondary school teachers which was supported by a high level of research, it was not sufficient. This fact shows that the division by the kind of teacher, either primary or secondary, was continued from the prewar period.
