This study has two aims: the first aim is to investigate the relationships between components of social thinking and judgment abilities (i.e. inductive reasoning ability, deductive reasoning ability, social judgment ability, and critical thinking ability)- especially the relationships of the other components to critical thinking ability, and the second aim is to develop a lesson unit as an example of history lesson design on the basis of experimental lessons.

　　To achieve our first aim, we developed experimental lessons (seven credit hours), selecting the Pacific War as a topic of history learning and implemented them for 4 classes of third grade junior high school students. The results (derived using post-class tests) suggested that social judgment abilities could facilitate critical thinking abilities. This suggestion also yields a hypothesis about history lessons, that it is essential to foster social judgment abilities as an educational approach in history lesson to encourage development of critical thinking abilities for junior high school students during their second and third years.

　　To achieve our second aim, we developed a lesson unit based on the hypothesis on history lessons entitled “Women and War” (three credit hours). The unit is composed of four parts to make students evaluate the role and responsibility of women in the war effort during 1931~1945 (three parts), and also to inquire into their own evaluation criteria reflectively (one part).

　　The purpose of this paper is to explore ways of self-evaluation in philosophical learning. In philosophical learning, the teacher encourages a common consensus among students and also draws awareness to the existence of dissensus. In addition, it is effective for children to self-evaluate their learning to understand methods of evaluation.

　　In philosophical learning, dialog and description are targeted during self-evaluations. Children then examine the effects of self-evaluation learned through two consecutive themes. For the first subject matter, the children base their self-assessment on self-created criteria. Subsequently, an education professional must verify whether the children were able to make use of what they learned from the first subject matter to learn the second subject matter.

　　The research results are as follows. First, children understand that their way of thinking has changed, and they are able to consider what was missing from their original ideas. That is, they become aware that they are developing their strengths and overcoming their weaknesses. Second, the teacher is able to communicate the children’s individuality to each child and give them confidence. Thirdly, the description of the self-evaluation is important in the children’s self-evaluation. By writing a description, the children understand that their way of thinking changed and are prompted to think about what was initially missing from their ideas.

　　This case study examines how high school students in two schools in Japan understand the history classes of their teachers through long-term observations of classes and interviews with students. As an overview of history education research in Japan, it has often been argued how various stances toward learning history can be valued for each student. However, they tend to discuss how teachers and researchers give meaning to learn history, and these arguments go no further than speculative discussion and thus the empirical research examining how students give meaning to their history classes in Japan is scarce.

　　I clarified how students “master” and “appropriate” history learning through their teachers’ history classes using the concepts of “mastery” and “appropriation” indicated by Wertsch (2000).

　　As a result of this survey it was found that in the classroom of a teacher who places “lessons through discussions” at the center of the curriculum, students “master” memorizing historical knowledge. Some students referred to interpreting the history, but they did not appear to “master” it, mainly rather “appropriating” the memorization of historical knowledge, for example they placed “lessons through discussions” as the meaning of learning knowledge, which was different to the teacher’s intention. On the other hand, in a class of a teacher who emphasized considering the present through historical events, students “master” understanding the history as well as considering the history in relation to the present. The students compared the learned content with contemporary events and associated them with knowledge learned in other subjects. The author could see how students “appropriate” considering the history in relation to the present.

　　The primary significance of this research is to show two cases: one where students give meaning to their teacher’s history lessons that differs from the teacher’s intention, and the other where although the teacher’s intention can be well understood, their intention is overly interpreted (from the perspective of “mastery” and “appropriation”) by some students.

　　An important consideration for social studies and history lessons (which are positioned as a part of social studies with the objective of “cultivating civic qualities through social awareness”) is that they allow students to depict history themselves while remaining grounded in the results of historical research. This study develops and clarifies the effectiveness of teaching materials that use gaming simulation as the underlying lesson methodology for this type of history lesson. To verify this, we conducted a lesson using two differing methodologies with identical content and then attempted to clarify the qualitative difference in the teaching materials by comparing the results.

　　As a result of the verification, we confirmed the existence of qualitative differences in historical awareness acquired by learners due to the differences in teaching method and found that the gaming simulation teaching materials made it possible for learners to grasp the history from the perspective of historical subjects, allowing them to depict that history with greater proficiency.

　　The results of the study show that gaming simulation is a method that enables “dialogue with the future as it was seen by the people in the past,” one that we were able to position as something that expands and carries on the methods of “vicarious experience” which is an effective methodology in conventional history lessons.