- 著者
-
西村 大志
- 出版者
- 社会学研究会
- 雑誌
- ソシオロジ (ISSN:05841380)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.42, no.2, pp.43-64,160, 1997-10-31 (Released:2016-11-02)
This article is a socio-historical study about children's sitting body technique. The discourses presented here are gathered from Meiji-Taisho era scientific journals of medicine, hygiene, pedagogy and paedology. In the early Meiji period, the western-style chairs and desks were introduced into the elementary schools, and the new style of body technique was imposed on the school children. There were arguments in the medical and educational world whether school children should sit on chairs or not, what the healthiest way of sitting should be and the best form of chairs and desks were. At the same time, how to measure the sizes of children's bodies and how to cure their improper posture were taken into question. Early school hygienists investigated the nature of school children's bodies, chairs and desks. Much importance was laid on designing the whole classroom including the form of chairs and desks, and taking into consideration the way they conform to the children's bodies. They tried to gauge the effect of the school environment on the children's bodies. They believed that almost all of the school children's diseases of improper posture were caused by improper surroundings. But the knowledge of school children's bodies changed gradually. With the help of paedology, pedagogical discourse went hand in hand with medical discourse. And under the influence of genetics, diseases among children were held to be due to their predispositions. As a result, children's bodies were reconsidered, and the most important thing to cure improper posture was considered to be the children's own personal effort: children were thought to have to cure themselves through gymnastic exercise. Here we can observe the hidden mechanism of subjectivization of modern society.