In traditional school curricula in Japan, the goals of acquiring knowledge and skills of the fields of culture, science, arts and physical training are separated. However, now that science has been rapidly developing, our life and values have been changing with this development, and the desirable image of a person has also been changing; what each field aims for has become more closely linked. This fact is gradually creating a conflict with the existent subject-based education.

The Major for the Study of School Subjects has three divisions. Each division is composed of several subjects related to each other. The goal of the Division of Science for the Study of School Subjects is to cultivate educators who can be actively involved in educational issues which take place at the border between the existent subjects related to one another and who can view school education holistically by developing a wider view across all the subjects.

The three divisions are the Division of Language, Human and Social Sciences Education, whose similarity is “human beings and culture” in concept, the Division of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, whose shared concept is “nature and technology,” and the Division of Fine Arts, Music, Health and Physical Education, whose shared concept is “expression”. Each division includes educational contents which respond to the new organization of knowledge at the borders between academic disciplines.

Modern people's linguistic activities, lifestyle and patterns of behavior, and values and culture behind them have been though complicated routes. These values and cultures succeeded those of the ancient people in a previous era. The values and cultures negotiated and interacted with different values and cultures and have grown increasingly to new values and culture in a new era. In the 21st century, owing to the increase of borderlessness, development of a global Internet society, and diversification of values among the people, it has been difficult to understand people’s lifestyle and patterns of behavior from the conventional perspective of values and cultures. In this situation, we should discuss what should succeed the existing values and cultures and what should be developed and created as values and culture.

The Division of Language, Human and Social Sciences Education aims to develop educators who will redefine people’s language activities and patterns of life and behavior under the shared concept of “human beings and culture,” and who will possess the necessary quality for applying the results of academic research to the school setting in education.

Knowledge of science, mathematics and technology is extensive and appears to change a lot on a surface level because it includes changes in the nature and the evolution of technology. In this situation, teachers need to be able to look down on the excitement and usefulness in mathematics and science, truth of diversity-carrying nature, forces of nature, and wisdom and innovative ideas to control the forces of nature so that they can find a problem and think through the process of finding a solution to it with their students and lead them to achieving a higher goal. In order to increase their teaching performance to a higher level, teachers need to understand the relationship between a practical and realistic problem and important points behind it and also comprehend experimentation, laboratory work, production technologies, and problems in teaching and learning those. The goal of the Division of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education is to cultivate educators who are able to create the meaning and methods of learning nature and technology fruitfully in the school setting continuously.

Musical, artistic, and bodily expressions, to express oneself and feel what others express, is essential for our self-development. It has been more important for children to enrich their learning as well as their life. The research on these means of expression, in other words, creating something new from the past and conveying our knowledge to the future. The Division of Fine Arts, Music, Health and Physical Education defines its shared concepts, “expression” and also “sensibility”, “aesthesia”, “tradition”, “creation”, “appreciation” and aims to develop these as necessary qualities for prospective educators who will play the core role in future education. Furthermore, the division aims to cultivate talented individuals who possess the power of execution which applies the results of the academic research to real educational settings.