Abstract
Memory wars in Asia still revolve around Japan. Much has been discussed on the so-called kyōkasho mondai (history textbook controversies), yet, not much has been explored on the domestic social function of history textbooks per se. Emphasizing creators of history narratives (and their production), the field tends to overlook the audience, or, receivers in the process. In this article, by referring to the original interviews with Japanese college students, I question the very assumption of the creator–receiver connection. How are history textbooks perceived as a source for promoting Japanese people’s underlying historical consciousness? How have they been utilized in schools? Are they useful? If so, how? If not, why? I argue that in the case of Japan, how people reflect upon history issues is not necessarily the function of school history textbooks as often assumed, making a strong case for the importance of receivers in the analysis of public discourse.
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Notes
In 2001, Ministry of Education (MOE) in Japan was merged with Science and Technology Agency, and it is called now as Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. In this study, I use MOE to refer to the Education Ministry before 2001.
Notable exceptions are Peter Cave’s (2003, 2005) elaborated comparative studies on history teaching in Japan and England based on his classroom observations of six junior high schools and 10 high schools and “semistructured” interviews” (Cave 2005: 308) with 16 teachers and 22 first-year college students in 2000.
Although it was later confirmed that “this particular revision had never taken place, and the mistaken report was a product of the circumstances” (Ducke 2002: 47), the progressives immediately utilized the accusation to criticize the Ministry of Education, and the Chinese and Korean media soon joined in. See also Buruma (1994), Johnson (1986), and Ijiri (1990).
In the 1990s, Japanese attitudes towards the so-called history problem changed dramatically (cf. Seraphim 2006; Ishida 2000). Unlike the postwar victim mentality (i.e., ordinary people were deceived by militaristic leaders) that had been widespread and embedded throughout the postwar years (Gluck 1993; Yoshida 1995), the dominant beliefs in the 1990s marked the sense of regret and a new recognition and admittance of Japan as a former aggressor (cf. Seraphim 2006; Seaton 2007). Because of the activism of and interaction with the victims of their state’s aggression, more Japanese people came to internalize the country’s past wrongs as Japan’s national problem, which was something as yet unseen under the framework of the victim mentality that was still prevalent in the early 1980s (cf. Schwartz, Fukuoka, and Takita-Ishii 2005). Japanese people were now cognizant of Japan’s damaged image among its Asian neighbors in this period: Japan was a country that had not reflected enough upon its invasion of Asia (Gluck 1990).
Overall, the market share of Tsukurukai’s history textbook from 2002 to 2006 was 0.039%. See Table 2 in Saaler (2005: 66). Also important is the issue of the intended audience for Tsukurukai’s history textbooks. As many point out, they sold rather well in bookstores (Nelson 2002). This seems to render an important implication. If those Tsukurukai authors did not have students in mind in the first place, in other words, they were very successful in stirring the public inside and outside of Japan.
For the recent anti-Japan movements in China see, for example, He (2007).
Audiences (or, “cultural receivers”) are certainly “active meaning makers” (Griswold 1994: 14). However, different people react in different ways (Griswold 1994: 81), and, empirically, it is important to bear this diffusive nature of cultural reception over time and space. It is also pointed that audiences make meanings based on what Jauss (1982) calls “a horizon of expectation”—expectations formed through individuals’ previous cultural and social experiences (cf. Griswold 1987, 1994).
More concretely, focusing on college students, I employed a discriminate sampling technique and interviews were conducted so as to reach theoretical saturation (Glaser 1978; Glaser and Strauss 1967; Strauss and Corbin 1990; Small 2009) in each conceptual category this study tries to delve into, and in that sense, I believe that the interview data helps maximize our understanding about the topic in question. Within this sampling logic, “the key is to conceive of every individual … as a single case” (Small 2009: 26; emphasis added). Each new interview, although systematically conducted, adds new questions based on the new understanding obtained through previous interviews. Those “increasingly refined questions” (26) will illuminate different aspects of categories under research so that “the category development [become] dense” (Strauss and Corbin 1990: 188).
One may question my selection of college students (instead of high school students) for interview. This is a deliberate decision. With the interviews, what the study tried to delve into was the perceived significance of school textbooks. In other words, what is investigated is respondents’ perception. Since the study deals with the respondents’ historical memories, college students are better positioned to reflect upon the impact of school history textbooks on their own development of historical understandings and consciousnesses.
Snowball sampling is “the well-known practice of asking interviewees to recommend other interviewees” (Small 2009: 14).
Dierkes (2005: 258) also warns against a progressive interpretation of the new policy direction after the first textbook controversy and maintains that, although the 1982 textbook dispute and its aftermath are “important issues in themselves,” it is critical to heed that they “have generally taken place within a context of broad acceptance of the established narrative.” Even in the “improved” textbooks such as Kaitei Atarashii Shakai—Rekishi in the early 1980s, it is to be noted that the description of Japan’s invasion was very simple with only a few sentences. A relatively large footnote further develops the topic; however, it is not beyond the framework of unreflective empiricism.
It is noted that different ideological inclinations of interviewees did not register for differed assessments of how they read their history textbooks.
Names of interviewees are pseudonyms.
While my interviewees’ perceived understanding of textbook style is for the most part consistent with the conventional understanding of Japanese history textbooks (most elaborately laid out by Dierkes and Cave), most of the interviewees did not remember which textbooks they used. None of them could name the history textbooks they used in junior high school, and only nine (9) students remembered the high school history books they used a couple of years before. Among them, eight (8) named the Japanese history textbook by Yamakawa. Yamakawa has the largest share of high school Japanese history textbook (57.5%) (Saaler 2005). Yet, their perceived impression about the style of textbook description was remarkably similar.
Hinomaru is the Japanese national flag. Its direct translation is sun circle; it has a large red circle on a white background. Kimigayo is Japan’s national anthem. Literally, the title refers to “the reign of the Emperor” and the song wishes a long-lasting prosperity under the reign of the Emperor. For the progressive intellectuals (especially school teachers affiliated with Nikkyoso teachers’ union), Japan’s Kimigayo anthem and Hinomaru flag are symbols of Japanese imperialism and its invasion in Asia in the prewar years.
Similarly, in Hood (2001: 99), “The irony of the [history textbook] debate is that many children, based upon conversations that I have had with students, appear to remain unaware and unsure of what the ‘correct’ way to phrase certain events is. The situation is further confused by the fact that this area of history (regarding the events in the Pacific War) are barely covered in lessons, if covered at all, as they appear so late in the course that they usually come after the entrance examinations.”
For the Kyoto Museum for World Peace, see http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/mng/er/wp-museum/english/index.html.
Although it is beyond the scope of this study to further explore why and how teachers do this and how extensive this has been practiced, the issue seems worthwhile and deserves further research.
The relative decline of the Nikkyoso’s mobilization capacity should be noted. The late 1980s marked a political struggle among the Nikkyoso leadership, which eventually lead to an organizational schism in 1989 in which the moderate leadership split from the more extreme Zenkyo (Aspinall, 2001). The 1989 separation represented the point of no return for Nikkyoso and its membership rate in 1990 dropped to 36.9%. The slide continued, and it slipped quietly below 30% in 2004 (29.9%). In September 1995, Nikkyoso officially announced its retreat from the anti-Hinomaru/Kimigayo campaign along with the Japan Socialist Party’s policy change on the issue. A year before this, Prime Minister Murayama of the JSP in the Diet publicly accepted Hinomaru and Kimigayo, thus dropping out from his party’s anti-flag/anthem campaign. In August 1999, the lower house passed the legislation that legalized the Hinomaru flag and Kimigayo anthem and defined them as Japan’s national symbols.
For Sakura Channel, see http://www.ch-sakura.jp.
I appreciate the insight by an anonymous reviewer of the journal on this point.
In this context, the study also raises questions about the nature and practical impact of official as well as unofficial trilateral projects between China, Japan, and South Korea to jointly produce history textbooks. While this study does not necessarily deny the possibility of joint history writing as a means for peacebuilding (Wang 2009), it is questionable if those textbooks written by like-minded (often liberal) intellectuals exert more influence than the current textbooks.
In this very sense, therefore, collective memory as “the properties of the ‘collective consciousness’” is “a matter of social interaction” and “ontologically distinct from any aggregate of individual consciousness” (Olick 2003: 6).
I appreciate the points suggested here by an anonymous reviewer of the journal.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Lisa Baglione, Darryl Flaherty, Mikyoung Kim, Susan Liebell, Falk Pingel, Sotetsu Ri, Becki Scola, Zheng Wang, and anonymous reviewers for their insights and helpful comments. Special thanks go to Barry Schwartz and Bin Xu. Their insightful suggestions helped me articulate the theoretical framework of the paper at the initial stage of the project. The earlier version of the paper was presented at History Education in Conflict and Transitional Societies, US Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C. (organized by Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, December 2, 2010), and I appreciate the invitation by the project organizer, Karyna Korostelina, and her comments on the paper. This research was funded by Saint Joseph’s University Summer Research Grant (2009).
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Fukuoka, K. School History Textbooks and Historical Memories in Japan: A Study of Reception. Int J Polit Cult Soc 24, 83–103 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-011-9113-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-011-9113-0