Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
revisions of the 2008 National Curriculum Standards, the author describes how les-
sons are actually being put into practice in the junior high schools in the geography
fi eld of Social Studies.
3.2
Current Status of Junior High School Geography
Education
3.2.1
The Objectives and Content Structure of the Geography
Curriculum
There are four objectives in the geography fi eld:
1. About geographical recognition,
2. About grasping geographical phenomenon and regional characteristics/issues,
3. About thinking and understanding geographically, and
4. About geographical skills and attitudes.
The fi rst objective indicates the basic goal of the geography curriculum, which
under the current revisions is to cultivate students with a geographical recognition
of the world's various regions (MEXT
2008
).
Since the 1977 National Curriculum Standards (Ministry of Education, Science
and Culture
1978
), the geography instruction in junior high school has two goals:
(1) to cultivate a foundation for geographical ways of looking and thinking, and (2)
to foster a recognition of Japan's national land based on a broad perspective. In the
2008 version of the National Curriculum Standards, to these, 'a geographical recog-
nition of the world's various regions' was newly added. Up until now, within the
mandate of 'geographical recognition,' the 'knowledge content' of geography learn-
ing has been, in principle, to emphasize 'local area recognition' in elementary
school, 'national land recognition' in junior high school, and 'world recognition' in
high school. However, under the current revisions, students will learn both 'national
land recognition' and 'world recognition' in junior high school geography.
Although the second objective was related to viewpoints and methods for investi-
gating geographical characteristics in the 1998 version of the National Curriculum
Standards (Ministry of Education, Science and Culture
1999
), this part in the revised
curriculum has been changed to emphasize geographical characteristics and regional
problems. The reasoning is that the current revisions have taken into account learning
on the world's geographical characteristics and Japan's regions, highlighting regional
problems in the survey of the local area. This point can be seen as a lessening of
the relative emphasis on 'strengthening lessons on methods of study' that were meant
to instill viewpoints and methods for grasping geographical characteristics, one of the
basic principles of the revisions in the 1998 National Curriculum Standards.
The third objective is indicating ways of thinking about the peculiarities and nature
of geographical characteristics, followed by objective four, which is indicating the