교육 가미시바이(紙芝居)와 아동의 사상교육 - 일본소국민문화협회를 중심으로 -

Abstract

This paper aims to describe the development of syokokumin kamishibai education under the Empire of Japan. In kamishibai (紙芝居), each scene is represented as a story with a picture, and as the scenes are presented, a story unfolds through dialogue and pictures. Kamishibai was designed by a candy vendor and first shown in early 1930. Many are familiar with kamishibai through the famous play Gold Bat. The reasons why the popularity of kamishibai spread rapidly in the public in the 1930s are twofold. First, during the Taisho (大正) period, entertainment industry work emerged as popular culture developed in earnest. Second is the increase in unemployment. Kamishibai can be practiced easily without specialized or technical knowledge, so many of the unemployed found employment in the kamishibai industry. This study focuses on ideological education and training based on kamishibai. Why has kamishibai been used for ideological education? First is its strong capacity to transmit information. Even without a large vocabulary, the narrator can easily communicate information, including visually through pictures, which aids understanding. Second is the entertainment aspect of kamishibai, combining stories, pictures, descriptions, and narration which many enjoy together as a group. Third is the Manchurian Incident. When the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the ideological education of children became more important, as tends to happen during wartime. The Japanese Children’s Cultural Association acted as an umbrella organization for children’s cultural institutions. Kamishibai fell under the organization’s Kamishibai Association, which was responsible for overall control of children’s culture. The association engaged in substantial censorship, deciding the theme and dialogue of kamishibai. They association changed the name of kamishibai to hurue-nihonnshoukokumin and incorporated it into ideological education.