A Study of Music Education during World War II : An Analysis of the Curriculum Plans of the National Elementary School Attached to Akashi Women's Normal School

The purpose of this study is to clarify the transition and the characteristics of the curriculum plan of the National Elementary School Attached to Akashi Women's Normal School during the period of the war. It analyzes the music curriculum plan from 1940 to 1943. The results were as follows: 1. The music curriculum plan of the war period had a tendency to interrupt the normal pattern of the music class because it expanded the study area of Harmony-listening. 2. Lyrical content of the singing material had two tendencies: one was about nature and everyday life and the other about militarism. However, musical education put more importance on singing per se than to lyrics. As a result, an unconscious ideology of lyrics was created in the students and children acquired militarism by an imperceptible process. 3. Neither students nor teachers considered why they sang or what they sang. This is the problem of musical education during World War II as well as the central characteristic of musical education.