Historical Issues in East Asian International Order from an Educational Perspective

In spite of the fact that historical issues are challenges of political education, Japanese educational studies have not been able to properly deal with them. One of the reasons is that Japanese educational researchers have accepted without question the presence of nationalistic understanding of history as the most important cause of the difficulties in East Asia, while supporting textbook lawsuits over the last few decades. On this point, it is unreasonable to compare Japan with Germany which is more progressive in terms of overcoming its past, and to conclude that the undemocratic nature of the Japanese culture has bred such a social situation. Austria, which is deemed to be culturally closer to Germany than Japan, has likewise experienced history problems repeatedly since the 1980s. What this suggests is that the degree of progress made in efforts to critically examine history is dependent on the country's international environment rather than on its own culture. This understanding corresponds with a recognition that has gained increasing acceptance over recent years, which is that Japan is not necessarily the sole party at fault in these historical conflicts in East Asia. Needless to say, this does not release the Japanese and Japanese educational research from their special responsibility to deal with these issues. What is demanded of Japanese educational research today is to reveal what sort of axis of conflicts has been formed over the understanding of history in each of the post-war East Asian countries, and how they interact with each other across national borders. By seriously addressing this task, Japanese educational research will be able to construct a new research field that can respond to the expectations of peoples beyond East Asia who either already have faced or may face similar problems in the future. (Contains 9 notes.)