一九二〇年代後半 - 四〇年代天津における義務教育の進展とその背景

Abstract

This article examines the development and background of compulsory education in Tianjin from the latter half of the 1920s until the 1940s. During this period the spread of compulsory education in China was steadily increasing in speed. The resulting increase in the number of primary school students surely brought about for better or worse great changes in educational facilities and in the makeup of local society. I believe that grasping these changes is extremely important for understanding Chinese society from the latter half of the 1920s. However, as regards the compulsory education of the period in question, there has been insufficient progress in understanding even such basic information as the number of schools or of students. Thus in this article, I examine the case of Tianjin in terms of specific circumstances of the spread of compulsory education during the period in question and its background as basic research to advance future study. The results of this study revealed the following broadly distinguishable changes in compulsory education in Tianjin during the period in question: 1) the mushrooming growth of primary schools (particularly the increase in the ratio of municipally operated primary schools among all primary schools); 2) the explosive growth in the number of primary school students (the increase in the ratio of primary school students within the total population, in short, the increase in enrollment rates); 3) in terms of the numbers of students, municipally run primary schools exceeded private primary schools; and 4) the initial steps were taken to spread compulsory education to the educationally deprived (women and the underprivileged). The following essential points in the background to the above changes have become clear: 1) an enhanced positive attitude of the government toward educational administration (establishment of an department of education, independence of educational expenses, trial implementation of short-term compulsory education); 2) the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War (spreading of education in order to facilitate the smooth functioning of the occupation by Japanese army and the implementation national education (國民教育) by GMD after the war); 3) the flow of people immigrating to Tianjin due to the war and natural disasters (the increase of school-age children). It can be surmised that the above changes influenced education in Tianjin itself (including social education (社會教育)) as well as its relation to regional society.