This research aims at clarifying about handling of traditional music in music textbooks by comparing the 2002 edition (based on the government guidelines for teaching 1998) with the 2012 edition (based on the government guidelines for teaching 2008). The materials for analysis are junior high school music textbooks and teacher's manuals which were published by Kyoiku Shuppan and Kyoiku Geijyutsusya in 2002 and 2012. Analytic viewpoints are subject matter name, the number of subject matters, teaching materials name, the number of teaching materials, classification, contents of instruction and teaching method, domain, and element.
The textbooks published in 2002 has many appreciation domains and folk song accounts for a large portion of the contents of study. The textbooks published in 2012 has many expression domains and the elements of the traditional music included in the contents of study increased.
In the contents of instruction, as shown by the government guidelines for teaching, Japanese traditional music came to be thought as important also with textbooks, and it became clear that it can learn now deeply.