Column
2019 Textbook Seminar for Educators of USA
A Comparative Study of the Coverage of Korean History in American School Textbooks
Roger Beck
Eastern Illinois University, Emeritus Professor
In April 2019, it was my pleasure and great privilege to attend the Textbook Seminar for US Educators to discuss Korean history coverage in US middle and high school world history textbooks. The three other invited American educators were Ross Dunn (San Diego State University), Laura Mitchell (the University of California, Irvine), and Bram Hubbell, a teacher at Friends Seminary in New York City. Ross, Laura, and I are long-time friends from our involvement in the World History Association, and that organization’s history came full circle at this meeting as Ross was the WHA’s first president, and Laura is the WHA’s incoming president. I did not know Brian prior to arriving in Korea, but we became friends during our week-long time together sharing our interests in world and Korean history, education, and travel. I am extremely grateful to the Academy of Korean Studies for affording me this wonderful opportunity and especially to Dahee Kim and Thomas Shin for being such gracious hosts and guides.
My own involvement with textbook publishing began in the 1990s when McDougal-Littell, a major American publisher of secondary educational texts and materials, offered me the opportunity to co-author a new high school world history text. The outcome of this effort was World History. Patterns of Interaction, which is now in its third edition and is widely used in the United States and in other countries around the world. In 2004 John McKay, one of the authors of the college world history text, A History of World Societies, which was already in its sixth edition, requested that I take over the writing of the last four chapters of that text. I am currently responsible for six chapters and we are just beginning a new twelfth edition.
For my presentation at this seminar I was asked to review how Korean history is presented in American secondary school world history textbooks. In considering how best to approach this topic I decided to look first at the National Standards for World History, a set of teaching guidelines created in the mid-1990s at the University of California, Los Angeles, by the World History Curriculum Task Force coordinated by Ross Dunn. This would give me a baseline by which to evaluate the coverage of Korea in current world history textbooks.
The National Standards’ guidelines recognized nine eras in world history: 1) the Beginnings of Human Society; 2) 4000-1000 BCE; 3) 1000 BCE-300 CE; 4) 300-1000 CE; 5) 1000-1500 CE; 6) 1450-1770; 7) 1750-1914; 8) 1900-1945; 9) The 20th Century Since 1945. Within each of these Eras a set of Standards is presented that are intended to test a student’s ability to think historically in five interconnected dimensions: 1) Chronological Thinking; 2) Historical Comprehension; 3) Historical Analysis and Interpretation; 4) Historical Research Capabilities; and 5) Historical Issues-Analysis and Decision-Making. For each Era there are 2 to 7 Standards, and sub-standards under these. For each Standard there is a set of statements touching on historical events, developments, trends, and processes. If the student is able to respond to these statements in an appropriate and knowledgeable way than he/she is considered to understand the Standard.
There are no specific references to Korea for Eras 1, 2, 3, or 8, but eras where Korea are referenced include Era 4, “Expanding Zones of Exchange and Encounter, 300-1000 CE.” Standard 3A for Era 4 tests the student’s understanding of “China’s sustained political and cultural expansion in the Tang period.” To do this, the student will need to “Assess explanations for the spread and power of Buddhism in Tang China, Korea, and Japan,” which will require the student “to analyze cause-and-effect relationships.” Standard 3B for Era 4 asks the student to demonstrate an understanding of “developments in Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia in an era of Chinese ascendency.” Here the student will “explain how Korea assimilated Chinese ideas and institutions yet preserved its political independence,” which will require the student to “compare and contrast different sets of ideas.” For Era 6, “The Emergence of the First Global Age, 1450-1770,” Standard 5C asks the student to demonstrate an understanding of cultural trends in Asia between the 16th and 18th centuries,” by assessing “the influence of both new currents in Confucianism and Chinese art, architecture, and literary styles on cultural life in Korea, Vietnam, and Japan.” This requires the student to “draw upon visual and literary sources.”
I then compared the specific references to Korea, which are considered a minimal familiarity with the subject, in the National Standards, with the content relating to Korea in 10 standard middle school and high school American world history texts. I prepared a chart with the 9 Eras in columns across the top, and the ten textbooks in rows to the left. Under each Era I entered the topic of the reference from each textbook for that period. Thus, for my own text, World History. Patterns of Interaction, there is a brief discussion of Korea’s early history under Era 3, something that is not included in the Standards’ Era 3. For Era 6, Korea under Manchu Rule, and for Era 9, the Korean War and the division of North and South Korea.
All in all the ten textbooks essentially reference the same topics highlighted by the Standards. The topics that are most commonly covered, by frequency from most to least, are “Korean War,” “Two Koreas,” “Japanese Occupation of Korea,” “Three Kingdoms,” “Joseon (Chosun) Dynasty,” “China and Korea,” “Japan and Korea,” “Buddhism in Korea,” “Korean Pottery,” and the “Asian Tigers.”
It is clear from this comparative exercise that coverage of Korea in American world history textbooks is limited to a small number of topics that vary little from text to text. It is also evident that Korea’s history is rarely studied in and of itself, but as part of the history of China or Japan, or of the wider world (Korean War). By focusing on this question, however, it is possible to imagine other topics that might be considered were the textbook authors and publishers (who often have the final say, overruling the author) willing to include them. One such is to use South Korea as a case study for how its rapid transformation from a rural peasant society to a modern industrialized one has affected its environment, climate, and ecosystems. Another possible topic is that discussed by Bram Hubbell in his challenging presentation, an in-depth study of the Korean March 1st (1919) Independence Movement, in place of, or in addition to, the more commonly studied independence movements in Japan and China. A third example could be the issue raised by Professor Henry Em in his fascinating lecture at the seminar, that of the American occupation of South Korea toward the end of World War II. As he noted, the standard history of the Korean War suggests that the United States had little or no involvement in the Korean peninsula before 1950, when in fact, as the occupying power, America had been the de facto government in South Korea since 1945. A class could study this period from the Korean perspective and consider its short and long term consequences for Korea and for the world up to the present.
In conclusion, secondary texts are rather limited in their content and in-depth narrative as compared to college texts. Still, if the teacher is willing, and the necessary information materials are available, Korea’s role in world history could be more widely expanded and studied.
My own involvement with textbook publishing began in the 1990s when McDougal-Littell, a major American publisher of secondary educational texts and materials, offered me the opportunity to co-author a new high school world history text. The outcome of this effort was World History. Patterns of Interaction, which is now in its third edition and is widely used in the United States and in other countries around the world. In 2004 John McKay, one of the authors of the college world history text, A History of World Societies, which was already in its sixth edition, requested that I take over the writing of the last four chapters of that text. I am currently responsible for six chapters and we are just beginning a new twelfth edition.
For my presentation at this seminar I was asked to review how Korean history is presented in American secondary school world history textbooks. In considering how best to approach this topic I decided to look first at the National Standards for World History, a set of teaching guidelines created in the mid-1990s at the University of California, Los Angeles, by the World History Curriculum Task Force coordinated by Ross Dunn. This would give me a baseline by which to evaluate the coverage of Korea in current world history textbooks.
The National Standards’ guidelines recognized nine eras in world history: 1) the Beginnings of Human Society; 2) 4000-1000 BCE; 3) 1000 BCE-300 CE; 4) 300-1000 CE; 5) 1000-1500 CE; 6) 1450-1770; 7) 1750-1914; 8) 1900-1945; 9) The 20th Century Since 1945. Within each of these Eras a set of Standards is presented that are intended to test a student’s ability to think historically in five interconnected dimensions: 1) Chronological Thinking; 2) Historical Comprehension; 3) Historical Analysis and Interpretation; 4) Historical Research Capabilities; and 5) Historical Issues-Analysis and Decision-Making. For each Era there are 2 to 7 Standards, and sub-standards under these. For each Standard there is a set of statements touching on historical events, developments, trends, and processes. If the student is able to respond to these statements in an appropriate and knowledgeable way than he/she is considered to understand the Standard.
There are no specific references to Korea for Eras 1, 2, 3, or 8, but eras where Korea are referenced include Era 4, “Expanding Zones of Exchange and Encounter, 300-1000 CE.” Standard 3A for Era 4 tests the student’s understanding of “China’s sustained political and cultural expansion in the Tang period.” To do this, the student will need to “Assess explanations for the spread and power of Buddhism in Tang China, Korea, and Japan,” which will require the student “to analyze cause-and-effect relationships.” Standard 3B for Era 4 asks the student to demonstrate an understanding of “developments in Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia in an era of Chinese ascendency.” Here the student will “explain how Korea assimilated Chinese ideas and institutions yet preserved its political independence,” which will require the student to “compare and contrast different sets of ideas.” For Era 6, “The Emergence of the First Global Age, 1450-1770,” Standard 5C asks the student to demonstrate an understanding of cultural trends in Asia between the 16th and 18th centuries,” by assessing “the influence of both new currents in Confucianism and Chinese art, architecture, and literary styles on cultural life in Korea, Vietnam, and Japan.” This requires the student to “draw upon visual and literary sources.”
I then compared the specific references to Korea, which are considered a minimal familiarity with the subject, in the National Standards, with the content relating to Korea in 10 standard middle school and high school American world history texts. I prepared a chart with the 9 Eras in columns across the top, and the ten textbooks in rows to the left. Under each Era I entered the topic of the reference from each textbook for that period. Thus, for my own text, World History. Patterns of Interaction, there is a brief discussion of Korea’s early history under Era 3, something that is not included in the Standards’ Era 3. For Era 6, Korea under Manchu Rule, and for Era 9, the Korean War and the division of North and South Korea.
All in all the ten textbooks essentially reference the same topics highlighted by the Standards. The topics that are most commonly covered, by frequency from most to least, are “Korean War,” “Two Koreas,” “Japanese Occupation of Korea,” “Three Kingdoms,” “Joseon (Chosun) Dynasty,” “China and Korea,” “Japan and Korea,” “Buddhism in Korea,” “Korean Pottery,” and the “Asian Tigers.”
It is clear from this comparative exercise that coverage of Korea in American world history textbooks is limited to a small number of topics that vary little from text to text. It is also evident that Korea’s history is rarely studied in and of itself, but as part of the history of China or Japan, or of the wider world (Korean War). By focusing on this question, however, it is possible to imagine other topics that might be considered were the textbook authors and publishers (who often have the final say, overruling the author) willing to include them. One such is to use South Korea as a case study for how its rapid transformation from a rural peasant society to a modern industrialized one has affected its environment, climate, and ecosystems. Another possible topic is that discussed by Bram Hubbell in his challenging presentation, an in-depth study of the Korean March 1st (1919) Independence Movement, in place of, or in addition to, the more commonly studied independence movements in Japan and China. A third example could be the issue raised by Professor Henry Em in his fascinating lecture at the seminar, that of the American occupation of South Korea toward the end of World War II. As he noted, the standard history of the Korean War suggests that the United States had little or no involvement in the Korean peninsula before 1950, when in fact, as the occupying power, America had been the de facto government in South Korea since 1945. A class could study this period from the Korean perspective and consider its short and long term consequences for Korea and for the world up to the present.
In conclusion, secondary texts are rather limited in their content and in-depth narrative as compared to college texts. Still, if the teacher is willing, and the necessary information materials are available, Korea’s role in world history could be more widely expanded and studied.
