ABSTRACT
This chapter complements the Chinese case discussed in the former chapter with the Japanese one. The author argues the case for including ‘civics’ and ‘ethics’ textbooks as important media for identity constructions alongside history textbooks. It is noted that the notorious Japanese right-wing history textbook of the Tsukurukai was accompanied by the latter’s ‘new’ civics textbook, which aimed at redefining Japanese identity in terms of projected images of contemporary society, social order, gender relations and the individual. However, it is argued that mainstream textbooks also present an ideologically-skewed image of Japanese society, and its relations with ‘others’. In civics textbooks, topics are often presented within a context that implies the idea of ‘historical development’ and clearly depict images of ‘self ’ and ‘other’ according to models taken from European or North American history. The chapter addresses the question of how ‘others’ are constructed and represented in textbook narratives and how ‘Japan’ is related to various ‘others’. It also looks at how a ‘common’ East Asian narrative is envisaged and to what extent a shift in the representation of the ‘total other’ (Europe/US) or ‘relative other’ (East Asia) can be observed.
