戦前期中等教育における教養と学歴 : 篠山高等女学校を事例として

There are many studies on educational credentials. But most of them focuces on interrelationships between educational credentials and employment or promotion of personnels in modern organisations. The subjects of those studies are mainly male. However, this paper focuses on clarifying the meaning of educational credentials for female. During the pre-war period a main goal for women was marriage. Most women prepared for marriage with serving as a housekeeper to learn housekeeping skills and sewing after elementary school. From the end of the Meiji era, secondary education began to play a role to prepare for marriage among middle class women. Middle class consisted of many kinds of occupational groups such as from wealthy farmars in rural areas and wealthy marchants to white coller workers in urban areas. Secondary education for female developped rapidly aiming at the nurture of "Good Wives and Wise Mothers" during the Taisho era. Secondary education for female was deeply embedded in middle class culture. According to culture of those occupational groups, there were different types of institutions with various years of learning and diverse curricula. The diversity of institutions is characteristic of secondary education for female. Unlike for boys'secondary school, secondary schools were actually the highest stage of education for most female. That is only a few women entered colleges. Secondary education didn't prepare female students for a college entrance examination. Female students enjoyed extra-curricura activities and their school life without pressures from entrance examination. This is another characteristic of secondary education for female. By exploring (1) detailed processes of establishing a women's secondary school in Tanba Sasayama area, and clarifying (2) social function of this school and (3) it's culture, we argue how educational credentials were permiated in the "life world" of women during the pre-war period