This study aims to throw light on historical changes in the content of study related to safety in everyday life centering on disaster risk reduction in the technology and home economics curricula at junior and senior high schools (afterword transcribe into ‘secondary schools’) with a view to improving this content in the home economics curricula at secondary schools.
Our analyses employ the methods indicated hereunder on the basis of the study guidance principles and the commentaries on them in the home economics curricula at secondary schools. First, we established frameworks and categorization for purposes of analysis taking account of the features of the home economics curricula and of concepts of school safety. Secondly, on the basis of our categorization, we extracted comments made on safety, and thirdly, we clarified historical changes employing a classification into the content of study of, respectively, disaster risk reduction, accidents and occurrences in everyday life, and traffic accidents.
The analysis showed there have been two major changes in the content of study of disaster risk reduction accompanying revision of the study guidance principles. The first change took place during the late 1940s. References were made to disaster risk reduction in various walks of life in the junior high school study guidance principles released in 1947. During the second period, which lasted between around 1957 and 2007, there was a drastic quantitative and qualitative decline in disaster risk reduction education, while there was an increase in content related to accidents and occurrences in everyday life. This was no doubt a consequence of the focus placed on accidents and occurrences in response to social conditions at the time. Another factor was that the segmentation of areas of study accompanying the focus on the systematic features of study content made it difficult to deal with disaster risk reduction, which tends to be comprehensive in nature. The study guidance principles in force at present during the third period do incorporate disaster risk reduction to some extent in the context of study of housing, but it was clear that the content had deteriorated both quantitatively and qualitatively in comparison with the first period.

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This study reevaluated the achievements of Hamaguchi Goryo, through the collection and analysis of a large number of documents and materials, to extend the focus from disaster prevention, for which he has primarily been famous for (specifically, “Inamura-no-Hi” [fire of rice sheaves]), to the wider perspectives of disaster prevention, prevention of epidemics, and defense. The results confirmed that his achievements were not limited to “guiding evacuation from the Ansei Nankai Earthquake tsunami” and “constructing the Hiromura embankment” but also extended to pioneering; epidemics prevention, in his outstanding work on “cholera prevention in Choshi” and “donation to the reconstruction of the Otamagaike Vaccination Center”; and defense, in the “formation of the Hiromura self-defense group” and “educational activities including the establishment of the Hiromura training camp (private academy)”. Furthermore, analysis of textbook entries of Hamaguchi Goryo confirms that the portrayal of his achievements is limited to the field of disaster prevention.
In light of these results, the current study described how Hamaguchi Goryo’s achievements in the fields of disaster prevention, prevention of epidemics, and defense in the Ansei era could serve as effective educational material for risk and crisis management education today, by highlighting:
(1) The risks of low-probability, high-consequence events (natural disasters, major outbreaks of infectious disease, war, and terrorism), leading to effective maintenance of risk awareness among citizens of Japan.
(2) The importance of rapid judgement and action, as well as foresight and effective action for crisis management, and initiatives involving long-term, comprehensive perspectives for risk management.
(3) The importance of intrinsic self-help, with love for one’s hometown and country as motivation, together with the need for regular engagement in mutual help activities (including contribution to community and society and human resource development through education) in ordinary times, as self-help alone is not sufficient to cope with a major disaster.

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The authors have recognized that there will be a sufficient improvement in disaster mitigation education in schools if we can develop emergency evacuation activity resources to bridge disaster managing manuals with subject-based learning. After a pre-survey (June, 2014 to September, 2014), the authors surveyed how teachers teach disaster mitigation education at 35 schools and boards of Education around Western Japan (October, 2014 to December, 2015), as a result the authors developed effective resources (July, 2014 to March, 2015), and consequently introduced these resources to teachers (since March, 2015). These resources were developed in relation to evacuation behavior and drills and used within existing primary school subjects of English language activities and arts and crafts. The resources were named ‘Toto shoes’ and ‘Eisai learning’. The former is used in the subject of arts and crafts and the latter used in the subject of English language activities. ‘Toto shoes’ is a coined word of tote bag (toto bag in Japanese) and escape (tou in Japanese pronunciation). ‘Eisai learning’ is also a coined word of English (ei in Japanese) and disaster (sai in Japanese). Explanations of Toto shoes to children and adults at the Hokudan Earthquake Park in Hyogo were performed from March to September, 2015. Eisai learning was performed to university and high school students from September to November, 2015. The results of a questionnaire show that ‘Eisai learning’ can be useful for English and disaster mitigation learning. Those who listened to the explanation of Tote shoes commented positively. These two resources were promoted to primary school teachers who the first author had formerly interviewed and the author received positive comments.

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