JJSTE v39n2 - Research on the Usefulness of the Junior High School Industrial Arts and Homemaking Subject Areas as Displayed During the Great Hanshin and Awaji Earthquake Disaster

Abstract:

Research on the Usefulness of the Junior High School Industrial Arts and Homemaking Subject Areas as Displayed During the Great Hanshin and Awaji Earthquake Disaster.
Shigeki ANDO

The researcher has investigated the effects of the extraordinary conditions during and after the disastrous January 17, 1995 Great Hanshin and Awaji Earthquake on junior high school students in Kobe. The research was conducted during the period of May, 1995 to July, 1995. Data were collected using questionnaires and interviews. The respondents were third-year junior high school students from the five junior high schools located in the residential areas that were severely damaged. The following points were brought out by this research: 1) Public schools played a functionally important role as refuges during the above-mentioned catastrophe. 2) It is necessary to incorporate emergency training into the junior high school curriculum. 3) Industrial Arts and Homemaking were identified as a subjects that have great usefulness when living under these extraordinary conditions. 4) Judging from the experiences which students faced in the seismic disaster, it is much more important for the Industrial Arts and Homemaking subject areas to emphasize practical activities based on accurate theoretical learning.

Key words :the Great Hanshin and Awaji Earthquake, Kobe Earthquake, questionnaires, interviews, Industrial Arts, Homemaking, practical activities