The Social Functions of Secondary schools between the two World Wars : From the cases in two defferent areas

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We examined and compared the social functions of secondary schools in two remarkably different areas between the two World Wars.One area is the area, Toyonaka, where urbanization proceeded rapidly as a bed town of Osaka. There newly settled residents who mostly consisted of new middle class required academic secondary schools for their children.The other is the area, Tsuruoka in Yamagata prefecture, where modernizing process was much more slower than Toyonaka. There various social classes had their own educational demands, and different types of secondary schools, from academic to vocational, were established based on those demands.For example, boys of wealthy old middle class moved into new middle class through male academic schools. Boys of lower class enrolled in engineering secondary schools as future middle level engineer in urban big industry. Sewing schools were for future farmers' housewives.From these findings we can conclude as follows :1. Social classes have their own educational demands and the structure of social classes in a local area and its transformation has a strong influence on the type of secondary schools established.2. The purpose of secondary schools were to develop the area schools were established by educating young generation. But in fact prestigious academic schools had a function as a ladder for geographic mobility from a local area to urban and industrial areas. It may be the characteristic of Japanese secondary schools until late 1960's. We need to examine it more in detail.