Edward Vickers

History education and national identity in East Asia

Visions of the past are crucual to the way that any community imagines itself and constructs its identity. This edited volume contains the first significant studies of the politics of history education in East Asian societies.

Education and identity formation in post-communist Europa and East Asia: Introduction

Only twenty years ago the communist states in Eastern Europe and East Asia were remarkably similar in terms of both their dominant ideologies and their economic structures. In both regions the Communist Party exercised supreme control over the economy, politics and cultural life. Public education was geared towards delivering technicians and professionals faithful to party and state and satisfied with the narrow range of intellectual pursuits permitted by the authorities. The humanities (history, literature) and social studies (geography, civics) in particular served to nurture unconditional loyalty to communist ideology, while suppressing heterodox views. However, since the mid-1980s, crisis in the command economy and a failure to keep pace with the West in technological development have motivated or compelled political elites in both regions to liberalise their economies and engage in market reforms. This, however, is where the similarities between the two regions end. From the late 1980s the two regions have followed radically different trajectories. While China and Vietnam have restricted reform to the economic sphere, the former Warsaw Pact countries matched their new economic liberties with greater freedom in the political and cultural arenas. This freedom set in motion an uncontrollable chain of events that not only led to the demise of communism but also to the disintegration of several multinational federal states. From the ashes of these states—the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia—a multitude of new sovereign nations arose, most of which had little or no recent history of independent statehood. With the exceptions of Belarus and Turkmenistan, these new states have—at least formally— embraced the principles of liberalism, democracy and the rule of law. At the same time, the post-communist states in Eastern Europe have sought to win international recognition and prestige by joining bodies such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe (COE), intergovernmental organizations that promote and monitor democracy, human rights, freedom of speech and interethnic tolerance. Almost all of these states have signed international treaties committing them to pursue liberal-democratic policies and have invited the OSCE and the COE to undertake joint projects aimed at reforming and democratizing their national education systems. Some states have moved beyond this and have voluntarily ceded some decision-making autonomy by Compare Vol. 37, No. 3, June 2007, pp. 267–275

Re-writing museums in Taiwan

This inter-disciplinary volume of essays opens new points of departure for thinking about how Taiwan has been studied and represented in the past, for reflecting on the current state of ‘Taiwan Studies’, and for thinking about how Taiwan might be re-configured in the future. As the study of Taiwan shifts from being a provincial back-water of sinology to an area in its own (albeit not sovereign) right, a combination of established and up and coming scholars working in the field of East Asian studies offer a re-reading and re-writing of culture in Taiwan. They show that sustained critical analysis of contemporary Taiwan using issues such as trauma, memory, history, tradition, modernity, post-modernity provides a useful point of departure for thinking through similar problematics and issues elsewhere in the world. Re-writing Culture in Taiwan is a multidisciplinary book with its own distinctive collective voice which will appeal to anyone interested in Taiwan. With chapters on nationalism, anthropology, cultural studies, media studies, religion and museum studies, the breadth of ground covered is truly comprehensive.

Introduction: history, politics and identity in East Asia

Abstract The strength of nationalism in East Asia has in recent years attracted a great deal of attention, both among the scholarly community and in the media. However, with the notable exception of Japan, little attention has been devoted to the subject of history education. As a result, the ways in which history education across the region both influences and is influenced by the politics of nationalism and identity is poorly understood. The purpose of this special issue is to begin to address this gap in the literature, and this introductory chapter briefly surveys the historical and ideological context within which debates over history education have taken place, highlighting some of the similarities and differences between European and Asian experience in this field. It concludes with a summary of the themes and issues covered by the remaining chapters in this issue.

The Re-education of Hong Kong: Identity, Politics and History Education in Colonial and Postcolonial Hong Kong

Visions of the past are crucual to the way that any community imagines itself and constructs its identity. This edited volume contains the first significant studies of the politics of history education in East Asian societies.

Introduction: History, Nationalism and the Politics of Memory

Visions of the past are crucual to the way that any community imagines itself and constructs its identity. This edited volume contains the first significant studies of the politics of history education in East Asian societies.

Is There Any Difference in Tolerance

This chapter presents the findings from the quantitative and qualitative data collection on students’ attitudes on tolerance. Drawing on Walzer’s classification of tolerance, the chapter distinguishes between passive tolerance, which is understood as an attitude of inaction and indifference that does not go beyond the granting of rights, and active tolerance, which is about actively engaging with another group and recognising and endorsing that group’s culture. No differences are found between the students in the faith and non-faith schools in either passive or active tolerance. Differences are found between the individual schools, however, with the MI school students showing less tolerance, and in some cases intolerance, of dissent and diversity when beliefs, behaviours or lifestyles contravene religious beliefs and teachings.

The Students’ Experience of School

This chapter looks at how the students perceive the four educational aspects of the school which might impact on tolerance (cognitive sophistication, contact, values socialisation and identity construction). The analysis of the student data suggests that the students’ perspective of the school is often formed relative to other familiar contexts, such as their home environment. Overall, the students’ perceptions of their educational experience showed a high degree of similarity. The school which showed the greatest degree of distinctiveness was the MI school. The additional information of the two chapters focussing on student perceptions and experiences (Chap. 4 and this chapter) lead to a revision of the provisional hypotheses of Chap. 3.

The Students’ Religious Identity

This chapter considers, from the student’s perspective, whether the schools (including the non-faith schools) might impact on their students’ attitudes of tolerance through the formation of a religious (social) identity, as well as the extent to which the school is involved in the creation of the social identity. The school’s role in the formation of the religious identity appears to be complex, with student responses indicating that attendance at a faith school does not necessarily increase identification with the faith.

Comparative education in Asia: inaugurating the APJE-CESA affiliation

This special issue of the Asia Pacific Journal of Education (APJE) inaugurates its formal affiliation with the Comparative Education Society of Asia (CESA). This initiative is motivated by our shared desire to promote stronger “Asian” voices in the field of academic educational research, thereby helping to address a persistent East-West imbalance in the global academic debate that extends well beyond the field of Education. This imbalance is not necessarily, as some have appeared to suggest, the outcome of any conscious “hegemonic project” on the part of Western scholars, some of whom are among its most prominent critics (see Lim & Apple, 2016). But it does underline the continuing need for a stronger platform within Asia for communication amongst educational scholars and dissemination of their research. Moreover, redressing the East-West balance in this way is something from which all educational researchers – “Western” or “Asian” – ultimately stand to benefit. This vision of strengthening “Asian” voices in the field of educational research crucially informed the establishment of the CESA over 25 years ago (in 1991), and was also reflected in the slightly later (1995) decision to give the former Singapore Journal of Education a wider remit as the APJE. From its founding, the CESA has always seen as one of its central tasks outreach to communities of scholars in Asian societies where Comparative Education as a field is less developed. It has aimed to draw scholars in regions too frequently consigned to the periphery of international debate into fuller engagement with the wider community of academic educationalists throughout Asia and worldwide. This aim is clearly congruent with the APJE’s role as one of the leading Asia-based education journals published in English. Recognizing our common goals, the Boards of the APJE and CESA have concluded that we can pursue them more effectively together. In concrete terms, this collaboration will take two forms. Firstly, starting with the CESA’s next biennial conference (in Siem Riep, Cambodia, in May 2018), the APJE and CESA will organize an intensive pre-conference writing workshop for a small group of scholars, with the aim of coaching them through some of the key steps involved in preparing a paper for publication in English in a peer-reviewed journal. The model for this will be the excellent writers’ workshops organized by Compare, with the support of the British Association of International and Comparative Education (one such workshop was run in conjunction with the CESA’s 2016 conference in Manila). Secondly, each biennial conference of the CESA will henceforth be linked to a special issue of the APJE. The process of compiling this special issue will begin before the conference, on a theme related to that of the conference but more tightly focused. It is expected that most, if not all, of the papers featured in these special issues will be based on presentations delivered at the CESA conference; indeed, the conference itself will constitute a crucial opportunity for authors to receive feedback on early drafts of their papers. The pre-conference writers’ workshop will also provide some authors with the opportunity to receive more systematic advice on submitting papers for publication in the APJE special issue, or in regular issues of this or other international, peer-reviewed journals. This inaugural special issue features several papers presented at the CESA’s latest conference in Manila, in January 2016. It is less tightly themed than future special issues will be, since the process of compiling it followed the decision taken at that conference (by the CESA Board) to propose a tie-up