“It’s Not Necessary”: Japanese Students Judgments of Historical Significance
Yusuke Tatara
Abstruct
This study aims to reveal Japanese students’ ideas about historical significance.
Everyone has the ideas about which part of history is important and worth
studying, learning, or remembering. Previous study in this area has revealed
that the tendency of judging historical significance differs from one country
to another. For example, students in the United State chose significant
topics such as the creation and development of U.S. freedoms and opportunities
(Barton & Levstik(1998)). Students in Northern Ireland, on the other
hand, focused on topics such as death, hardship, and remembrance(Barton(2005)).
However, Japanese students’ idea about significance has not been investigated.
This study used task-based, semi-structured interviews with 39 junior
high school students. In the interview task, students were asked to select
10 important cards from a set of 40 historical cards developed by the researcher,
and to explain the reason for their selection.
Findings indicated that Japanese students used several criteria. The most
common one is “Continuity and Necessity”: They chose the pictures which
include the long-lasting cultures and customs which the student thought
necessary for the current society. The second common one is “Relationship
with Foreign Countries”: They chose the events which deepened the relationship
with foreign countries, and the events which caused importing new technology
or culture into Japan. The third one is “WWII and Peace”: The most selected
card was WWII and the second most selected one was Constitution of Japan,
and most of them who selected these cards emphasized peace after WWII.
On the other hand, using these criteria, the students disregarded several
topics of history. One of these topics is individuals’ resistance that
ended in failure. The student who focused on the resistance of a historical
figure finally quit selecting the card, because the student found that
the purpose of the resistance was not achieved while the historical figure
was alive. Another disregarded topic is wars other than WWII. The students
had the belief that Japan became a peaceful country after WWII so strongly
that they thought other wars were relatively meaningless.
The present study provides the basis for history teachers in Japan to
encourage students to learn history in a meaningful way.
• Barton, K. C.(2005). “Best not to forget them”: Secondary students’ judgments
of historical significance in Northern Ireland. Theory & Research in
Social Education, 33, 9-44.
• Barton, K. C., & Levstik, L. S. (1998) “It wasn’t a good part of
history”: Ambiguity and identity in the middle grade students’ judgments
of historical significance. Teachers College Record, 99, 478-513