高等学校における 「人文地理」 の履修状況

Abstract

Human Geography in the Upper Secondary School Curriculum is an obvious topic of interest for most persons concerned with geography education. In this connection, the enthusiasts for geography education may overlook some pertinent materials, especially the latest report of Offering and Enrollments in Upper Secondary School Subjects, published by the Ministry of Education, Japanese Government in 1959, based on the data in the school year 1958. This survey by the Ministry of Education was conducted on a very broad scale. Questionnaires were distributed to all the Upper Secondary School in Japan.Upper Secondary Schools consist of Full-time course and Parttime course both of which are divided into General Course and Vocational Courses. General Courses have several Types, and Vocational Courses have many courses-Agricultural, Fishery, Engineering, Commercial, Homemaking etc..Human Geography is offered with the following modes of credits: 5 credits in General Course of Full-time Schools, 4 credits in General Course of Part-time Schools and 3 credits in Vocational Courses. Human Geography is offered in a different length of school year.The Per-centage of pupils who take Human Geography at one time or another during their Upper Secondary School Course is as follows:General Course of Full-time Schools 69.1%General Course of Part-time Schools 73.8%Vocational Course of Full-time Schools 78.3%Vocational Course of Part-time Schools 66.4%Total: 72.4%Generally speaking, Human Geography is more popular among the pupils than Japanese History or World History in Vocational Courses, especially in Agricultural, Fishery, Commercial and Mercantile marine courses, but less popular in General Courses. This fact will be chiefly owing to the tradition of our secondary vocational education and to the character of Geography.The Per-centage of pupils taking Geography in Upper Secondary Schools of Japan is about four times as large as that of U.S. High Schools.