A Study on the Spacial Cognition of High School Students
Case of the Traditional Industries in Mie Prefecture
1987 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 21-33
Details
1987 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 21-33
The Purpose of this paper is to clarify the existence of the spacial cognition of high school students and its regional difference. The author have tried to investigate the above-mentioned by using the traditional industries as a concrete indicator for measuring the students' cognition. The reason that the author chose the indicator is that the individual traditional industry in Mie Prefecture is evenly distributed, and it is considered that average high school students have the elementary knowledge about this situation.
2, 990 students (1, 476 boys and 1, 514 girls) of 7 high schools in Mie answered the questionnaire. The questions are (1) the cognition about the traditional industries, (2) the knowledge and interest in it, and (3) the daily behavioral area of high school students. In speculating their answers the author have tried to evaluate students ideas given in an uninhibited manner. This paper mainly deals with (2) and (3). The result of this investigation is as follows: The students recognized 7 industries as the traditional ones in Mie. Among them are pearl cultivation industry, earthenware industry, shigreni production industry, pickles production industry, towel production industry, dyeing industry, and kumihimo production industry. These 7 industries could be divided into two categories; (1) one in which the students know the name of the production area. (2) the other in which they do not.
Furthermore, the author have touched upon the relationship between the distance of those production areas and the students' behavioral area, and have come to the following conclusion; the students' spacial cognition spreads over three major districts (1) the coastal District of Ise Bay (2) Iga District (3) Eastern Kishu District. It is considered, as contributing factors to the formation of the students spacial cognition, that the distance from the production area to their houses has exercised influence on the cognition formation in case of Eastern Kishu. Equally it is safely said that the segregating elements caused by Nunobiki mountains and the function of satellite district of Osaka have had great influence on the spacial cognition in case of Iga District.
