Modern society is a pluralistic society where the most of the pertinent issues we should resolve by facing it squarely have been entangled one another so much as to become even bigger problems in a variety of social sectors, and to work with those fie...
Modern society is a pluralistic society where the most of the pertinent issues we should resolve by facing it squarely have been entangled one another so much as to become even bigger problems in a variety of social sectors, and to work with those fields in a complex manner. Likewise, in such a pluralistic society, to make a reasonable decision having equipped with adequate problem-solving ability, it can be said that we are required to attain the power of critical thinking that will enable us to look through complexity referring to the whole context. In accord with such a request of this age, necessity of education for critical thinking and also significance thereof have been stressed, and, even in the educational circle, research activities with the purpose of training critical thinking have been increased continuously. Research activities concerned with education for critical thinking have been conducting in various areas, however, such research works may have a great deal of impact on the department of social studies that deals with actual social affairs in particular. And the legal education in this curriculum takes up a key position in the course of handling and resolving legal issues that are to be faced in this complicated modern society. To have the education for critical thinking through legal education play a good role in a real term, works for composing textbook to fit in with cultivation of critical thinking must be preceded. In this paper, with analytical frame for textbook that has been drawn up by the expert group composed of mainly incumbent high school teachers on the basis of Nine Factors, Nine Criteria of Critical Thinking edited by Paul (1894) who has been mostly active as a researcher in the area of critical thinking, and having analyzed quest activities compiled in the high school textbook on 「Law and Society」 and the part relative to cultivation of legal mind also, researcher has elicited the following conclusions.
First, results from measurements according to three categories of critical thinking revealed that analytical thinking and dialectical thinking were similar, and among three categories, logical and argumentative thinking was the lowest. Second, results from measurement according to the chapter that deals with critical thinking revealed that both Chapter I and Ⅱ in common was higher in the area of ‘analytical thinking,’ and that ‘logic and argumentative thinking’ was the lowest. And, Chapter Ⅲ, Ⅳ, and Ⅴ were lower in the area of ‘logical and argumentative thinking.’ Meanwhile, ‘dialectical thinking’ was the highest. And so it displayed differences between them. In other words, as a whole, the logical and argumentative thinking was estimated as low in score, so then researcher could see that there was a necessity to reflect the three categories of critical thinking more evenly across the entire chapters. Third, as the result of comprehensive measurements of critical thinking, the experts’ evaluation of the critical thinking that all embraces ‘analytical thinking,’ ‘logical and argumentative thinking,’ and ‘dialectical thinking’ involved in 62 measured items with respective to [Quest Activity] and [Cultivation of Legal Mind] across the textbook of 「Law and Society」 was 61.7. In the mean time, total score not only of each category, and the contents of each chapter of the textbook on 「Law and Societ y」, but also the total score of the critical thinking in whole are low, so then it can be said that the curriculum activities relating to 「Law and Society」 according to the 7th Curriculum is not a great deal of help in developing and training critical thinking.
Therefore, having carefully reviewed the inappropriateness of the textbooks now being used as educational materials to promote critical thinking power based on right understanding of critical thinking, it is required to reflect any things to be improved or problems in consequence to the textbooks that would be compiled and edited in forth coming years. And, even in other textbooks including social study, it shall be necessary to conduct a deepened and more extensive evaluation in the public education system in order to improve critical thinking skills for students, by exerting effort to grasp the current status of education in critical education, and so forth. Most of all, having realized that education in critical thinking is essential for the youth, who live in this complicated modern world, and also having sought various methods in a diversified manner to educate them the critical thinking that fits our reality in a righteous manner, we should have to help young people so as to think in a reasonable, critical manner.