<論文>社会科・公民科教育法における「社会参画」の可能性 : コミュニティ・スクールを事例として

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to consider the possibility of a teacher training program of social studies in Japanese school education in terms of citizen participation. Since the 1990s, policy makers in Japan, have been paying growing attention to the role of school education in promoting "citizen participation" or "community involvement", as it has been increasingly reported by the mass media that young people are rapidly losing their sense of social belonging in the context of the diversification of individual values. In this contexts, social studies (shakai-ka), one of the subjects in Japanese school education, has been attracting much attention from the Ministry of Education as a way of fostering civic consciousness in young people. However, these arguments have overlooked a concrete way of fostering teachers who can be highly conscious of social participation or active citizenship. Accordingly, this paper examines, from the perspective of sociology, the possibility of a teacher training program of social studies in terms of citizen participation by focusing on the collaboration between compulsory schools and local residents in aging rural areas. In particular, through participant observation and interviews, this paper analyzes the process of intimate collaboration between a very small-scale community school and the aging community around it in a certain rural area in Mihama Town, Mie Prefecture. The results suggest the following: 1) the local residents participate in the school management and educational activities in their daily lives, and the students have a close relationship with them; 2) such an intimate collaboration between the school and the community around it can provide not only opportunities for lifelong learning to all members of the community, but also chances for the children to acquire social capital and a sense of civic and social belonging.