R.ポールの批判的思考教育における文学教材の価値概念体系

抄録

The purpose of this study is to investigate the structure of the curriculum and the thinking within Richard Paul's language arts education infused with critical thinking, from the perspective of a value concepts system for literary materials. The study proceeds as follows: First, the study extracts the main value concepts which are involved in literary works and into which learners inquire. Second, these value concepts are categorized. Third, four categories (personal society, general society, international society, and nonsocial individual) are analyzed and examined.

The results reveal that the structure of the curriculum is spiral in nature. The developmental stages of kindergarten and elementary school foster both attitudes for fair and autonomous thinking and the ability to derive new ideas from plural perspectives. During all stages, as the social scale is expanded and both social and emotional distortions are escalated, abilities of inquiry are gradually developed. The results also suggest that educational thinking is essentially about fostering the kinds of qualities necessary for constructing an international and democratic society. They include qualities to response to social contradictions, qualities essential in societies where diverse perspectives coexist, and qualities to escape from individually asocial situations. Thus, when one surveys the globalizing society, this study proposes a direction for language education in Japanese that is infused with critical thinking.