On 2013/07/3
> From: Sven Saaler
> Date: 2013/07/31
>
> Ok, here are the numbers (from Makita, Tetsuo (2000):
> Nihonjin no sensô to heiwa-kan. Sono jizoku to fûka,
in NHK Hôsô
> Kenkyû to Chôsa 2000:9, pp. 2–19 (the following is on
p. 10-11).

As time permits, I will look for this survey, but without seeing it, one point seems clear. It is rather dated. Even if the survey was done close to the date of publication, it will presumably be something close to
15 years out of date. Given this, it is not surprising that the Internet does not figure prominently. I was teaching at a prominent private university at that time. Most faculty did not have Internet access in their offices. Homes and schools with Internet connections were exceedingly rare. Kobayashi Yosninori and the Group to Create a New History Textbook were only just getting wound up. I have not checked, but my guess would be that the manga my students sometimes cite came later than the publication of this survey.

A further reason for doubting the relevance of a survey this old is the fact that official guidelines for the national curriculum were changed substantially in 2003-2004. Aside from reducing the overall public school content at all levels by one third or so, the changes produced a notable shift from public to private schools, at least from the middle school level. This shift had a distinct class character because of the cost of private schools. I have seen data that suggests that in some posh neighborhoods, up to eighty percent of middle schools students are in private rather than public schools.

The likely consequence of this is that kids from affluent backgrounds and those aiming high in the university pecking order may well learn little or no Japanese history because it is not a required university entrance exam subject and the type of private school that takes affluent would-be high achievers is inherently exam driven in a way that other schools are not. Although I have only just begun to read in this area, Japanese commentary suggests that such private schools can deviate quite substantially from the official curriculum without the MOE complaining.

I know I am repeating myself, but since discussions of the history textbook issue seem based on the idea that "if it's in the textbooks, they learn it, if it's not in the textbooks, they don't learn it" -

(1) You have to survey teachers to know what they are teaching;

(2) You have survey the kids to find out what they are learning;

Rather than concentrating on the textbooks, people should be looking at the NHK version of Japanese history. Judging by what my students cite in response to my survey questions, costume dramas like those on Sakamoto Ryoma or the Shinsengumi have vastly more impact than five or six lines about the comfort women or other similar issues in a textbook that may not be used at all and if it is used, only for the period up through Meiji. For those somewhat older, the novels and TV series based on the works of Shiba Ryutaro have probably done far more to shape the popular image of late Meiji Japan than anything that is or is not in textbooks that Japanese may or may not read when they are 13, 14, or 15 years old.

I would also note that I find it "amusing" when foreigners advise the Japanese government about what it should or should not be doing with approved history textbooks. I try to imagine them telling the Russian Republic not to rehabilitate Stalin, the PRC to come clean on Mao, the ROK to deal with collaboration, or even telling the Texas State Board of Education where to get off. (See http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/21/ho
w-texas-inflicts-bad-textbooks-on-us
for a description of a system that puts the MOE to shame when it comes to politicizing history education.)

EHK