Abstract:

In Japan, disaster prevention education is a part of the school curriculum and is taught systematically depending on the developmental stage of students. Each prefectural and city board of education prepares disaster prevention education materials that consider the characteristics of their region. Thus, while the materials are prepared according to the developmental stage of the students, the contents of the materials differ among prefectures and cities. Despite this requirement, the contents of the materials may not always be appropriate for the students’ developmental stage, and educational goals remain undefined.

In this study, based on the goals of the national government with respect to disaster prevention education for students’ developmental stage, a set of instructional items for disaster education are established. The purpose of this study was to understand the consistency among these materials with respect to their content structure. The analysis was based on the disaster prevention education materials published on the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's website (https://anzenkyouiku.mext.go.jp/) as of August 2020. The regional classification of the Board of Education that prepared the materials was “all regions”, and the safety issues examined were limited to “disaster” and “all areas”. A total of 94 materials met these criteria.

The analysis revealed that some instructional items were covered less frequently in the materials.
In addition, there was a difference in the content structure between the national guidance for disaster education and the content structure of the materials.
In the materials for upper elementary school students, “concern for the safety of others” was mentioned as a prerequisite. However, only three materials (17.6%) mentioned “Encouraging younger students to evacuate” and only seven materials (41.2%) mentioned “Life in an evacuation center and your role”.

In the materials for junior high school students, “to deepen students' understanding of volunteer activities” was mentioned as a prerequisite, but there were few descriptions of volunteer activities, and only 10 (55.6%) of the materials mentioned “participation in volunteer activities”.

In the materials for high school students, “to enable them to actively participate in volunteer activities” was mentioned as a prerequisite, but only 7 materials (50.0%) mentioned “active participation in volunteer activities”. Furthermore, while “to contribute to the safety of friends and family as well as people in the community” was mentioned as a prerequisite, only three materials (21.4%) mentioned “evacuation guidance according to various situations”.

Instructional items that are omitted from the materials can be supplemented by using textbooks and disaster education materials, such as disaster prevention games. A well-balanced lesson structure for disaster education is considered necessary.

Keywords:

Disaster prevention education, education materials, developmental stage of the students.