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This article compares the history curricula of Hong Kong and Singapore since the 1980s with respect to their treatment of Japan, particularly its involvement in World War II. It examines the role played by Japan as one significant "Other" against which its former victims define themselves. As well as being cast as a wartime aggressor and agent of local "victimhood," Japan has also been hailed as an economic and military model worthy of emulation. By comparing portrayals in school history textbooks and their shifts over time, the author shows how images of Japan have been used by state elites in these two former British colonies to construct significantly divergent official visions of "postcolonial" identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines changes between 1992 and 2010 in Japanese junior high school history textbooks’ representations of imperial Japan's colonialism and aggression in Asia, using documentary study and interviews with actors in the textbook production process. Following a trend to increase textbook material on Japan's wartime aggression in the mid-1990s, after 2000 publishers approached this topic in contrasting ways, some expanding and some reducing their coverage, with dramatically varying results in terms of market share. Publishers’ decisions on content were related to their market position and to changes in local textbook adoption procedures that have increased the decision-making power of appointed boards of education at the expense of teachers. Increased market share since 2000 is associated primarily with a progressive pedagogy in tune with recent curriculum reforms. The recent spotlight on textbook adoption has exposed weaknesses in the system, such as inadequate representation of the local community and insufficient guarantee of teachers’ expert input in the adoption process. With the introduction of new textbook approval criteria requiring their conformity with the patriotic emphases of the revised Fundamental Law on Education of 2006, the content of future textbooks will clearly be strongly influenced by both approval and adoption processes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines the author's experiences teaching Pacific History and English to Japanese students. The author, an American who grew up in the Marshall Islands, examines the historical and geographic relationships between Japan and Oceania. He explores postcolonial curriculum initiatives, particularly what he cites as an "archipelagic" view of cultural studies and history. The author describes a course at the University of Tokyo he devised following several discussions with Pacific islanders entitled "A sea of islands connects us: contemporary Pacific Islander perspectives on empire, war, and globalization." The author discusses the syllabus of the course including definitions of Oceania, studying indigenous scholars, and decoding regional maps.

History praxis can transform perceptions of the 'other' by reshaping ideas about events transpiring between groups. Nevertheless, peace education research has rarely examined history teaching. This article addresses the potential for teaching peace through history teaching. After laying out a conceptual framework for understanding the importance of teaching peaceful values in history, as well as providing a background of history teaching in the US and Japan, an analysis is given of qualitative interviews with junior high school teachers regarding history teaching in Japan and the US. Findings revealed teachers in both countries feel expected to teach mostly historical facts, find it difficult to give satisfactory coverage to events in which their country engaged in immoral acts, and are expected to teach a curriculum generally favourable to the national state. The countries differed in that American students are presented with extensive coverage of their country's activity around the world whereas Japanese students are not, and Japanese students are taught that war is an immoral act of which their country is historically guilty whereas American students are not necessarily taught this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses Japanese historiography. Three divisions of historical scholarship that became fixed in history teaching according to the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Education of Japan in 1894; Infusion of world history as a subject of social studies at Japanese schools after the collapse of the Japanese Empire in August 1945; Book on modernization by W. W. Rostow that challenged the traditional Marxist stages of development and which Japanese Marxists disagreed with; Organization of a workshop called Comparative History and History Education which was designed to reevaluate the writing of history.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including citizenship education, civic education in Japan, and history in the school curriculum.