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Discusses treatment of the United States in Chinese textbooks. Focuses on a world history text and a political economics text for high school seniors. Reports that the Chinese texts present the United States as an imperialistic bastion of capitalism. Suggests that a more balanced presentation is necessary to prepare students for the global era. (DK)

Contains a translation of the second volume of a two-volume world history textbook for senior secondary students published in China in 1978. This volume covers the period from 1848 to World War II. Particular attention is given to uprisings, rebellions, revolutions, and the development of the Communist movement. (AM)

This article examines the anti-Japanese textbook issue, a diplomatic controversy from 1914 to 1937 between Japan and China over whether the Chinese government was inciting hatred against Japan by promoting school textbooks with offensive and xenophobic content. I argue that the issue represents a legitimation process, whereby Japan's concern about the content of these textbooks was determined by, and fluctuated with, its need to mobilise domestic and international audiences for its China policy in changing geopolitical contexts. Such an approach helps to explain why the anti-Japanese textbook issue persisted for more than two decades after 1914 and why Japan's approach to the matter inconsistently oscillated between interventionist and non-interventionist principles. More broadly, the article illustrates the value of paying closer attention to the internal inconsistencies of Japanese imperialism rather than merely its expansionist tendencies, and of analysing education and the writing of textbooks in early modern East Asia not just as a means of nation-building but also as part of Japan's efforts to build its empire in a broader, transnational context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the image of China and how China has been approached in the 9th, 10th and 11th grade Turkish history textbooks of secondary school was evaluated. Within the scope of the study, compulsory history textbooks, Turkish Culture and Civilization History textbook, Contemporary Turkish and World History textbook published by the Ministry of National Education of the Republic of Türkiye were examined. By considering the basic factors that create the image of China in Turkish history textbooks, how China has been represented in the textbooks and positive, negative statements were analyzed. In the study, which was designed as a qualitative research, document analysis was used as data collection technique and descriptive research model was used as a research model. As a result of the research, the name of China is mostly mentioned in the section of China's relations with pre-Islamic Turkish states. However, the interaction of the Chinese with the Huns and Göktürks and the construction of the Great Wall of China were frequently included in the history textbooks of secondy education. While the image of China stands out in Turkish history textbooks through historical events, no direct negative images of China have been identified. The mention of One Road One Belt Project in the 9th grade textbook is an indication of a positive image of China. The history textbooks are affected by the relations between the two countries periodically in history, and as a result the image of China changes in line with periods and historical events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing tension between mainland China and Taiwan has a cultural aspect closely related to national identity. We focus on recent history curriculum changes in the mainland and in Taiwan and find that education authorities on both sides have implemented master narratives for content selection in and organization of history textbooks. In mainland China, the master narrative of pluralist unity constructs a geographically consistent Chinese nation throughout history, which bolsters the state's current claim to a territorial integrity including Taiwan. In Taiwan, the master narrative of multiculturalism becomes the essence of Taiwanese identity, and weakens Sinocentrism in Taiwanese official historiography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nation-building in modern China at the beginning of the twentieth century had to manage the strain between ethnic nationalism and the claim of a multi-ethnic national identity. This study focuses on how history textbooks defined China and addressed this paradox. Based on the qualitative content analysis of eight popular middle school history textbooks about imperial China, this paper demonstrates how Han nationalism and the multi-ethnic nationality of China evolved in the textbooks. While these two features of national concept contradict each other, the thesis of Hanhua may serve as a bridge between them within the symbolic framework of Chinese nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Christian educators like Wang were slower than others to respond to the 1911 Revolution (182), and even after Wang revised his textbooks for the Republic of China, they did not reflect or depict socio-political changes in the Republic to the same degree as other textbooks (250). As her major focus, Bai contextualizes the opus of Wang Hengtong, a Christian convert and educator at the turn of the century. While Bai sees some revolutionary potential in the Christian message, she also suggests (in my reading of this book) that the Christian message limited Wang's creativity, in comparison to Du Yaquan's I Huitu wenxue chujie i . [Extracted from the article]

This paper draws upon transitivity and Appraisal within Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to study the traumatic discourse of Nanjing Massacre in Chinese Mainland's and Japan's history textbooks. Through corpus analysis, this research finds that the Chinese discourse mainly uses effective process, relational process, verbal process to construe Japan's victimizering experience and China's victimhood, and employs negative Affect, opposite values of Judgment, negative Appreciation, Expand, Raise and Sharpen to construct a critical voice for the Japanese army and a sympathic tone for the Chinese. By contrast, the Japanese discourse largely uses pseudo-effective and middle processes, mental and existential processes to cover up Japan's victimizering experience, and employs negative Judgment, positive Appreciation, Contract and Raise to construct an almost uncritical voice for the Japanese army and the massacre. The difference in the representation and evaluation of Nanjing Massacre results from the politics of official memories in both countries. As China endeavors to strengthen its patriotic education by using Nanjing Massacre as an ideological weapon for national solidarity, Japan expedites its nationalist historiography move to recreate its normal national image by marginalizing the massacre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the history of English textbooks and the challenges they are facing in the current EFL contexts of Japan and mainland China. In these countries, English textbooks, and textbooks for all other subjects, can only be used in classrooms following governmental evaluation and approval. The main set of criteria for textbook evaluation is provided by the national curriculum, which also serves as a guideline for compiling textbooks; it illustrates the purpose and objectives of each subject, contains descriptions of achievement levels for each grade, as well as suggestions for teaching, assessing and compiling textbooks. In effect, textbooks are the direct materialization of the national curriculum implemented in real classrooms, particularly in textbook dominated English classes. This paper starts by discussing the significance of textbook research before presenting a historical review of English textbooks in Japan and mainland China. The focus of the review is to delineate the current challenge of underestimating the use of the first language in EFL textbooks. The final section draws trajectory maps of the two countries and explores a new approach to overcoming the challenge of creating engaging activities that incorporate both student's first language and target language in EFL classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent surge in public remembrance of the Second World War in China has been substantially undergirded by a centrally planned and systematically implemented discursive shift which has remained overlooked in the literature. This study examines the revised official narrative by drawing on three cases from China's school curriculum, museums and formal diplomacy. It finds that the once dominant trope of "national victimization" no longer represents the main thrust in the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) rhetoric on the Second World War. Under Xi Jinping, this has been replaced by a self-assertive and aspirational narrative of "national victory" and "national greatness," designed to enhance Beijing's legitimacy and advance its domestic and foreign policy objectives. By emphasizing national unity and CCP–KMT cooperation, the new narrative offers an inclusive and unifying interpretation of China's war effort in which the victory in 1945 has come to rival the 1949 revolution as the critical turning point towards "national rejuvenation." The increasingly Sino-centric and centrally controlled narrative holds implicit warnings to those challenging Beijing's claim to greatness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces and summarizes the articles in this Special Issue of the Journal of Educational Change on "Identity Grafting: Teacher and School Development in Chinese School Systems." (Lee, Managing Chineseness: Identity and ethnic management in Singapore, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2017). It begins with Fengqiao Yan's key thoughts and alternative views on the modernization of China's academic system. Next, it surveys Fei Yan et al.'s study, which examines Beijing teachers' and students' responses toward the recent history textbook reforms in mainland China to instill the Core Socialist Values of the Chinese Communist Party. Third, it examines Wing On Lee and Ji Qi's study, which maps the identity journeys of migrant Chinese communities in Beijing. Fourth, it summarizes Koon Lin Wong et al.'s study, which revisits the dilemma Hong Kong teachers face because of the obligation to implement the national education agenda. Fifth, it extends insights from Maxwell Ho and Daphnee Lee's study of student behaviors in financial literacy education to understand the underpinning identity influences of the recent waves of student protests in Hong Kong. Sixth, the paper introduces Daphnee Lee's study of the group dynamics of Singaporean Chinese teachers who engage in professional learning communities to achieve change, and the cultural identity processes that explain why some teams of teachers resist educational change, while other teams of teachers can come to embrace it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the Chinese government has launched a national campaign to comprehensively revise history textbook in order to "fully implant socialist core values into youngsters" and ensure their familiarity and identification with "socialism with Chinese characteristics," specifically. Based on in-depth field interviews with teachers and students in a sample of senior high schools in Beijing, this article examines what impact this textbook reform has had on students' identity and values. We find that the ideological content and national discourse in the new textbook has been significantly strengthened compared to the pre-2003 versions. The changes have significantly reinforced positive views of the "China model," characterized by the country's splendid cultural and historical tradition and centralized governance, and increased nationalist and anti-Western sentiment among the Chinese younger generation. The implications of these findings are considered in the light of Lee's (Managing Chineseness: identity and ethnic management in Singapore. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2017) theory of identity grafting and the impact of state intervention on Chinese identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The teaching of history is an important way in which the older generation, who control education systems, curricula, content choice and so on, pass on to the younger generation ideas, especially the idea of nationhood, which they hope will form the basis for future national cohesion. The younger generation, however, receive these messages and interpret then through the lens of their own experiences, experiences that they do not share with the older generation. Consequently, the idea of history is re-formed and reformulated by each generation. This paper looks at the role of textbooks, principally history textbooks, in that process. The style of textbooks is to present history as uncontentious, a descriptive account of facts and events. In practice, however, textbooks can only present an arbitrary selection from history, and a crucial decision made by educators is when to start their account – the beginning of history – as this can radically affect the interpretation of events. This facsimile of neutrality stands in sharp contrast to the professional historians’ hope that the teaching of history can develop a critical sense of important and contested events in history. The discussion is illustrated with examples of how history is presented in China and Japan, and how the conflicting accounts serve the interests of the policies adopted by the older generation, but may have unanticipated consequences for the younger generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Author Barbieri-Low looks at the first emperor of China in a lively, well-written, deeply scholarly book that unpacks how we know what we know about this controversial despot, alternately celebrated and reviled through millennia of history. Particularly in today's global political climate, it is a welcome investigation into China's great unifier, Qin Shihuangdi, a key rallying figure for China's nationalism. In I The Many Lives of the First Emperor of China i , Anthony J. Barbieri-Low explores the commanding figure behind this ubiquitous invasion: the first emperor of Qin, Ying Zheng (259-210 BCE), also known as Qin Shihuangdi. [Extracted from the article]

Inspired by the dichotomous understanding of nationhood contributed by Brubaker (1992), this paper explores how Chinese nationhood is constituted by particular symbols in middle school historiography since the 1950s. In response to the analysis on the high school textbooks done by Baranovitch (2000), this study finds that the narratives in the middle school history textbooks have a similar transition from equating China to Han to defining China as a multi-ethnic nation. However, the analysis also demonstrates that the transition of the middle school history textbooks is not as complete and absolute as that of their high school counterparts. A textbook may follow different principles in nationhood configuration simultaneously. In the textbook narratives before the change, the jus sanguinis logic was dominant over the jus soli logic; in those in the textbooks after the change, Chinese nationhood was constituted by the jus soli principle and the jus sanguinis principle complementarily. This study questions the perception that a nation only consistently follows one philosophy in the symbolic consolidation of nationhood, and casts doubt on the understanding that jus sanguinis or jus soli logic is deeply rooted in the historical development of a nation and cannot change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is an attempt to trace and contextualize Chinese scholars' response--either positive or negative--to the "West-imported" concept of a "global view of history" after its emergence in China more than two decades ago. It also introduces how world historians in China are consciously employing this "global view of history" to compile their own world history textbooks, a practice that gave rise to a serious concern about world history methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]