History Textbook Controversy Research Articles

Global convergence or national identity making?: The history textbook controversy in South Korea, 2004-2018

ABSTRACTPrevious research has documented a worldwide shift in the teaching of history that looks beyond nation-state based history instruction in favor of a post-national curriculum that imparts knowledge of diverse identities, cultures, and global issues. In South Korea, however, the construction of national identity in history education continues to be a key function of its civilizing mission because of the uncertainty over inclusion of North Korea within South Korea’s calculus of who constitutes Koreans. This article analyzes the domestic politics of history education in South Korea, with particular attention paid to the controversies surrounding the nationalization of history textbooks. In 2015, the administration of President Park Geun-hye announced plans for its own history textbook to “correct” ideological bias in the private history textbook market. Questions of nationhood, ethnicity, and identity took bitter shape in history textbooks, where portrayals over historical events were revised to underscore competing visions of state legitimacy vis-à-vis the global political order. Hence, we highlight that the South Korean textbook controversy not only challenges transnational convergence in history education but questions a conventional understanding of history education as decisively national or global rendered visible by the complicated and fraught histories of East Asian societies.

Japanese history textbook controversy at a crossroads?: joint history research, politicization of textbook adoption process, and apology fatigue in Japan

ABSTRACTJapan’s kyōkasho mondai (history textbook controversy) is at a crossroads. This article tries to exemplify it through the analysis of three issue areas at three levels (international, domestic, and societal). Internationally, the study looks into the failure of much anticipated joint history writing projects with China (2006–2010) and South Korea (2002–2005, 2007–2010). Domestically, this study problematises the recent politicisation of the textbook adoption system through the analysis of the Yokohama and Tokyo cases. The article also discusses the role of Nippon Kaigi (The Japan Conference), an influential rightist lobbying group, in this process. In this conjunction, at the societal level, there seems to have been the growing sense of frustration and resignation with China / South Korea among the Japanese public (i.e. apology fatigue). All these suggest that there has been an underlying change in the landscape of history textbook controversy in Japan, which also cogently shows the on-going practical difficulty in building trustworthy relationships between Japan and China / South Korea. This study tries to offer a contextual understanding about the underlying conditions for (and, hence, the changing societal expectations about) textbook production, content and reception.

Responding to Globalization: Nationalism and Public Education in the South Korean History Textbook Controversy

Responding to Globalization: Nationalism and Public Education in the South Korean History Textbook Controversy

The History Textbook Controversy in Japan and South Korea

This paper deals with the history textbook crisis of 2001 following the authorization of the revisionist textbook from the Society for History Textbook Reform. Our purpose is not to delve into that textbook but to examine both the reactions it sparked in South Korea, where it was deemed to be the tip of the iceberg of a wider problem affecting all Japanese history textbooks, and the response that supporters of the revisionist textbook gave to South Korean criticisms. Beyond the mutual charges of “distorting” history, the comparative analysis of the controversial issues reveals far less discrepancies than the diplomatic row triggered by that crisis may have suggested. Comparison with succeeding editions of the textbooks indicates that both sides have drawn the conclusions to avoid a similar crisis.

Political partisanship, bureaucratic pragmatism and Acadian nationalism: New Brunswick, Canada’s 1920 history textbook controversy

During a time of post-war sensitivity to Canadian nationalism and patriotism, public feeling was aroused in 1920 New Brunswick regarding a world history textbook with a new chapter about the First World War. The American author made no reference to Canada’s war efforts. The subsequent public discussion focused on issues of patriotism, citizenship, history education and schooling, but it eventually dissolved into longstanding conflicts over language and religion. This case study investigates how questions about history education were interpreted through the lens of the political partisanship of the newspaper editor, the bureaucratic rationality of the educational administrator, and the Acadian nationalism of the Roman Catholic Bishop. The controversy depicts a loosening but not breaking of postcolonial ties, and uncovers the political nature of public memory, along with the complex intertwining of religion and language rights within schooling, history education and citizenship in post-war Canada and New Brunswick.

Media Discourse on the Japanese History Textbook Controversy of 1982 From the Perspective of Foreign Policy and Media Frame

This paper’s purpose is to consider a media-foreign policy nexus on the history perception issues of Japan-South Korea relations. Previous studies demonstrate that the media tends to cover the pronouncements of political elites and that the media faces certain difficulties when covering secret foreign policy processes. This proves that the media has a negligible effect on the foreign policy process. However, in terms of a linkage between foreign and domestic politics, the media more likely focuses on public opinion in its coverage of foreign policy. With regard to Japan–Korea relations, previous studies indicated the importance of the media in the issue of history perception. This paper focuses on the Japanese history textbook controversy of 1982 and examines how the media covered the debate from the perspective of justification.

An Alternative Explanation for Anti-Japanese Sentiment in China: Shifting State-Society Interaction in China's Japan Policy

The historical turbulence between China and Japan started from the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, and culminated in Japan's invasion of China during World War Two (the Second Sino-Japanese War) between 1937 and 1945. A series of wars caused huge human and material losses in both countries, and both experienced comprehensive transformations during and after the wars. The impact of this historical turbulence is so long-lasting that it still influences both countries' social psyche. Moreover, it continues casting a long shadow upon the current Sino-Japanese relations. The recent turbulence in Sino-Japanese relations partly stems from the historical turbulence. It is much less violent but can also be emotional and worrisome. It started from the early 1980s (the Japanese history textbook controversy in 1982 and the 1985 anti-Japanese student protests in China), and culminated in the anti-Japanese mass demonstrations in multiple Chinese cities in 2005 (Bush 2010; Gries 2005; Reilly 2012; Stockmann 2010; Weiss 2008). In addition to dramatic demonstrations on streets, there are also other forms of movements, such as war reparations movements, in which Chinese war victims demand reparations from the Japanese state and companies (Rose 2005; Xu and Fine 2010; Xu and Pu 2010). Although the tension has existed for many years and surfaced from time to time, the eruption of the nationwide anti-Japanese movements in China in 2005 still shocked many outside observers. Many scholars have tried to explain the anti-Japanese sentiment within current Chinese society that underlies and drives these social movements. Through careful reexamination of the existing literature, this article proposes an explanation for the anti-Japanese sentiment from a perspective that stresses the shifting state-society interaction in China's Japan policy. Specifically, the totalitarian Chinese state's neglect and suppression of genuine social concerns regarding Japan in earlier years, followed by a relatively liberalized state that tolerates societal participation in Sino-Japanese relations, are an importance source of the anti-Japanese sentiment recently observed in China.

Framing of News through Editorials and Articles : An Analysis of the Asahi and Yomiuri Shimbun regarding the 2001 History Textbook Controversy

Framing of News through Editorials and Articles : An Analysis of the Asahi and Yomiuri Shimbun regarding the 2001 History Textbook Controversy

The Past in Peril&mbash;Greek History Textbook Controversy and the Macedonian Crisis

The conflict between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia over the name and historical heritage of Macedonia, which in the early 1990s erupted in a diplomatic and political crisis, can in part be analysed as a “history war.” In this article, the Macedonian conflict’s roots in and impact on debates concerning the contents of history education in Greece, at the time of the crisis, are examined, along with the conditions of textbook production against the backdrop of the political conditions which gave rise to revision. Using samples from Greek press and educational journals, professional and identity political interests are analysed as boundary-work, brought about by the need for various advocates of “national values” in history education to demarcate themselves from extreme nationalism, in the name of science and patriotic duty.

Yoshiko Nozaki. War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan, 1945–2007: The Japanese History Textbook Controversy and Ienaga Saburo's Court Challenges. New York: Routledge, 2008. 224 pp. Paperback $39.60. Hardback $150.00.

Yoshiko Nozaki. War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan, 1945–2007: The Japanese History Textbook Controversy and Ienaga Saburo's Court Challenges. New York: Routledge, 2008. 224 pp. Paperback $39.60. Hardback $150.00.

War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan, 1945–2007: The Japanese History Textbook Controversy and Ienaga Saburo’s Court Challenges by Yoshiko Nozaki. New York: Routledge, 2008. 198 pp. $150.00 (cloth); $34.00 (paper). ISBN 978‐0‐415‐37147‐6.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewWar Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan, 1945–2007: The Japanese History Textbook Controversy and Ienaga Saburo’s Court Challenges by Yoshiko Nozaki. New York: Routledge, 2008. 198 pp. $150.00 (cloth); $34.00 (paper). ISBN 978‐0‐415‐37147‐6.David Blake WillisDavid Blake WillisSoai UniversityFielding Graduate University Search for more articles by this author Soai UniversityFielding Graduate UniversityPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Comparative Education Review Volume 54, Number 1February 2010 Sponsored by the Comparative and International Education Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/650713 Views: 83Total views on this site © 2010 by The Comparative and International Education Society. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan, 1945–2007: The Japanese History Textbook Controversy and Ienaga Saburō's Court Challenges (review)

War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan, 1945–2007: The Japanese History Textbook Controversy and Ienaga Saburō's Court Challenges (review)

NOZAKI, Yoshiko, <i>War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan, 1945-2007: The Japanese History Textbook Controversy and Ienaga Saburo's Court Challenges</i>

NOZAKI, Yoshiko, <i>War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan, 1945-2007: The Japanese History Textbook Controversy and Ienaga Saburo's Court Challenges</i>

War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan: The Japanese History Textbook Controversy and Ienaga Saburo's Court Challenges (review)

War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan: The Japanese History Textbook Controversy and Ienaga Saburo's Court Challenges (review)

Globalizing critical studies of ‘official’ knowledge: lessons from the Japanese history textbook controversy over ‘comfort women’

This paper discusses the Japanese history textbook controversy over ‘comfort women’ to tease out insights that help globalize the existing theoretical discussion of politics of school knowledge. I begin by documenting how the domestic struggles over Japanese history textbooks are empowered and disempowered by the regional and international power relations. Using the Japanese case, I first problematize the use of hegemony in critical scholarship wherein struggles over school knowledge have been defined within the framework of a nation‐state. Second, I call for situating the discussion of counter‐hegemonic strategies in the increasingly internationalized politics of education witnessed around the world. In sum, this study calls for broadening the application of the notions of hegemony and counter‐hegemony in critical education scholarship to take full account of the complex political dynamics of globalizations.

War memory, nationalism, and education in postwar Japan, 1945-2007: the Japanese history textbook controversy and Ienaga Saburo's court challenges

War memory, nationalism, and education in postwar Japan, 1945-2007: the Japanese history textbook controversy and Ienaga Saburo's court challenges

The Japanese History Textbook Controversy in East Asian Perspective

Controversy over the inadequate presentation of Japan's colonial and wartime past in the country's history textbooks is one of the most protracted, notorious, and politically relevant “history problems” currently troubling East Asia. This article provides an overview of the controversy's evolution since 1982, situating it in changing domestic and regional contexts, analyzing its particularities and interrelations with other controversial issues, and evaluating its impacts on textbooks and societies at large. It shows how increased domestic and foreign scrutiny and contestation have triggered cycles of greater openness, conservative counterreactions, subsequent backlashes, and renewed debate in the field of textbooks and have overall contributed both to reinforcements and to reconsiderations of foreign relations in the region.

Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization (review)

Reviewed by: Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization E. Taylor Atkins (bio) Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization. By Ian Condry. Duke University Press, Durham, 2006. xii, 249 pages. $79.95, cloth; $22.95, paper. It is difficult to imagine an expressive form more thoroughly "local," rooted in its point of origin, and yet so readily "global" in its portability and potential appeal than hip-hop. "Keepin' it real"—by which emcees mean maintaining, even fetishizing, its longstanding cultural roots in urban African America—is key to hip-hop aesthetics. It is a vision that far too often presumes a uniformity of black experience, that privileges particular ideas, behaviors, and forms of communication as "blacker" than others, and that thus either resists "hybridity" or accepts iconoclasts only on terms established in "ghetto life." On the other hand, as a musical form reliant more on programming skills than instrumental prowess, on rapid-fire rhyming rather than singing ability, hip-hop supposedly "democratizes" artistic production, making it possible for virtually anyone to express themselves—or "represent"—in the genre. This quality makes hip-hop accessible to wider swaths of humanity, regardless of their "street cred" in inner-city African America or lack thereof, and thus a potent site for that epochal process we call "globalization." It is precisely this tension between the "local" and the "global" that constitutes the thematic core of Ian Condry's superb ethnography, Hip-Hop Japan. The most theoretically ambitious of the recent spate of English-language scholarship on Japanese popular music, it aspires both to revise existing notions of globalization—exploring in detail how "localization and global connectedness can proceed simultaneously"—and to probe the limits of the "power of media industries" to control the transnational flows and development of popular music (pp. 18–19). Its exceedingly complex yet energetically persuasive argument makes Hip-Hop Japan a must-read for scholars in a variety of disciplines, regardless of degree of interest in either hip-hop or in Japan. Without sentimentality, Condry clearly views the days when anthropology could take as its object discrete, bounded "cultures" as long past. Though his command of contemporary Japanese society is impeccable, he tackles "borderless ethnography" with gusto and enthusiasm. In order to pursue an ethnography of hip-hop in Japan, Condry has necessarily mastered and gracefully integrated several distinct disciplinary literatures within the broader fields of Japan studies, African American studies, ethnomusicology, media studies, and the anthropology of globalization. His work thus sets a challenging standard for future generations of Japan anthropologists to meet. [End Page 239] Most American readers approaching Hip-Hop Japan will do so with an initial prurient (and self-satisfied) interest in the spectacle of stereotypically polite, well-behaved Japanese imitating African Americana and posing as in-yo-face ghetto thugs. The book acknowledges this fascination, engages it head-on, and dispenses with it appropriately, before moving on to discuss less obvious but more important issues raised by the presence of hip-hop in Japan. Individual chapters are devoted to rivalries over the definitions and soul of hip-hop, fandom and consumer culture, female assertiveness, linguistic politics, and the business of marketing hip-hop. Though the title hints at a Japanese hip-hop "scene," one of the book's most insistent themes is that hip-hop is understood and "performed" in diverse ways in Japan; although pioneer emcees openly pondered the Japaneseness of Japanese hip-hop, the idea of "representing Japan" has yielded to more circumscribed aspirations to represent specific communities, "families," political stances, and aesthetic positions (p. 161). Condry identifies and cautiously maintains a distinction between "party rap"—with its fluffier lyrical content, more akin to the "pop idol" phenomenon—and "underground hip-hop," which adopts a more aggressive oppositional stance on issues ranging from the history textbook controversy to critiques of Japan's "credentials society" (pp. 41–43, 95–98). While acknowledging considerable crossover between these two streams, Condry insists there is a meaningful distinction between them, and his sympathies clearly lie with the underground scene. This is, in part, because the underground scene provides a more provocative answer to his...

Politics, Memory and Public Opinion: The History Textbook Controversy and Japanese Society

Politics, Memory and Public Opinion: The History Textbook Controversy and Japanese Society

Politics, Memory and Public Opinion: The History Textbook Controversy and Japanese Society (review)

Reviewed by: Politics, Memory and Public Opinion: The History Textbook Controversy and Japanese Society Takashi Yoshida (bio) Politics, Memory and Public Opinion: The History Textbook Controversy and Japanese Society. By Sven Saaler. Iudicium Verlag, Munich, 2005. 197 pages. €28.00. Sven Saaler began this book while serving as the head of the humanities section at the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo. More [End Page 220] specifically, he conceived the idea for this project while helping to organize "Making History: The Quest for National Identity through History Education," a workshop hosted by the institute in September 2001. This workshop was, in turn, one of the many gatherings hosted by the institute in support of its research initiative on Japan in Asia, commenced in 1997 (pp. 7–8). Saaler is now an associate professor at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of the University of Tokyo. In his current monograph, he aims to provide insights into the ongoing controversy over history textbooks in Japan "by unveiling its backgrounds in politics and society, and by identifying the major actors and their respective motives and objectives" (p. 9). Saaler has divided his book into three chapters. In the first chapter, he analyzes "the re-emergence of nationalist historical revisionism . . . since the 1990s, its role in the textbook debate in 2000/2001, and its significance in contemporary Japanese politics and society" (p. 11). His second chapter examines "official and other politically sanctioned interpretations of Japan's recent history in museums and monuments" (p. 12). In chapter three, which is largely based on public opinion surveys, he argues that "the views promoted by historical revisionists are by no means broadly accepted in Japanese society" (p. 127). Readers will probably find chapter one most enlightening, as it presents a competent overview of the history and politics of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform (Atarashii Rekishi Kyōkasho o Tsukuru-kai). Established in late 1996, the society has challenged existing junior high school textbooks that, in the society's view, have painted an overly negative picture of Japan's conduct of the Asia-Pacific War and have "neglected the culture and traditions that Japanese are duty bound to pass on to following generations" (p. 40). Saaler examines the politics of key individuals in the organization, such as Nishio Kanji, a professor of German studies at the University of Electro-Communications, and Kobayashi Yoshinori, a popular cartoonist. He also details how the society struggled to win government approval for its junior high school history and civic textbooks, which are much less critical of Japan's wartime actions. Whereas the government required an average of only 25 revisions when it reviewed junior high school history textbooks submitted by the seven existing textbook companies, it required the society to revise 137 items. The society's civics textbook also encountered rigorous scrutiny; 99 revisions of this text were requested, while other publishers were asked to make significantly fewer changes (p. 60). Even after its textbooks were approved by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology in April 2001, the society encountered a series of harsh protests across the country. Lobbying organizations such as the Children and Textbooks Japan Network 21 (Kodomo to Kyōkasho Zenkoku Netto 21), founded in June 1998 by the activists who had supported Ienaga Saburō's lawsuits against the government, organized [End Page 221] an effective citizens' movement to discourage regional district boards from adopting the society's textbooks (pp. 64–67). As a result, only a trifling 0.039 per cent of Japanese junior high schools used the society's history textbook (p. 66). Although the society's history textbook was thus resoundingly rejected by educational authorities, the author also discusses the volume's spillover effect on subsequent editions of other junior high school history textbooks. Evidently as a concession to the society's conservative position, its competitors toned down their commentary on Japanese atrocities during the Asia-Pacific War. For instance, textbooks were more likely to omit controversial topics such as the military sex slavery and the numerical estimate of the death toll during the Nanjing Massacre. Saaler refers to Tawara Yoshifumi, the...