Designing History in East Asian Textbooks: Identity Politics and Transnational Aspirations

by Mnller; Gotelind

• ISBN13: 9780415602525
• ISBN10: 0415602521
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-03-08
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This book analyses the efforts throughout East Asia to deploy education for purposes of political socialization, and in particular in order to shape notions of identity. The chapters also examine the trend of 'common textbook initiatives', which have recently emerged in East Asia with the aim of helping to defuse tensions arguably fuelled by existing practices of mutual (mis)representation. These are analysed in relation to the East Asian political context, and compared with previous and ongoing endeavours in other parts of the world, particularly Europe, which have been keenly observed by East Asian practitioners. Written by a group of international education experts, chapters discuss the enduring focus on the role of curricula in inculcating homogenous visions of the national self, and indeed homogenized visions of significant 'others'.Including contributions from scholars and curriculum developers involved personally in the writing of national and multi-national history textbooks this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Asian education, Asian history and comparative education studies.ãGotelind Müller is Professor of Chinese Studies, University of Heidelberg, Germany

Table of Contents

Notes on contributors	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Contesting East Asia, identities and education: historical contingencies	p. 7
The predicament of compiling textbooks on the history of East Asia	p. 9
Teaching 'the others' history' in Chinese schools: the state, cultural asymmetries and shifting images of Europe (from 1900 to today)	p. 32
The construction of 'self and Western and Asian 'others' in contemporary Japanese civics and ethics textbooks	p. 60
Learning to love the motherland: 'National Education' in post-retrocession Hong Kong	p. 85
Telling histories of an island nation: the academics and politics of history textbooks in contemporary Taiwan	p. 117
History writing in school textbooks: practical considerations	p. 135
New curriculum reform and history textbook compilation in contemporary China	p. 137
The 'others' in Chinese history textbooks: a focus on the relationship between China and Japan	p. 147
Rewriting history in a textbook in contemporary Japan	p. 163
Self-assertion, revisionism and historical reconciliation: conflicts and perspectives	p. 181
The 'Tokyo Trial view of history' and its revision in contemporary Japan/East Asia	p. 183
Historical conflict and dialogue between Korea and Japan: a focus on Japanese history textbooks	p. 207
Historical reconciliation between Germany and Poland as seen from a Japanese perspective: the thoughts of a Japanese historian and their development	p. 229
Mediating textbook conflicts	p. 245
Concluding remarks	p. 277
Index	p. 283
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