Comparing Issues Surrounding Turkish and Japanese History Textbooks

Abstract

Can memorial landmarks be used to reveal historical consciousness? The historical mural in Québec City is a landmark that might allow such a thing. This article provides a synthesis of two parallel studies having as forefront this mural. They were conducted with the participation of high school students coming from five different regions of Quebec. The sample for the first study was made up of French Canadians (n=34) and the second of First Nation's people (n=6). They consisted of interviews with individuals lasting 20 to 40 minutes. During the interviews, students were invited to talk about whether the mural's content properly depicted Québec society or not, and therefore give reasons why. The students were then asked about how they would represent Québec society if they had the chance to create a similar work of art. The results revealed three categories of answers, namely those who: 1) thought that a mural should refer to the past and, as such, try to complement it; 2) accepted the past, but would want to add the present; or 3) would eliminate the past and simply show an illustration of the present. The answers from the two sub-samples differed significantly.

Poetry in the Social Studies Textbooks in Turkey

“…Social studies aimed to promote patriotic values amongst young generations. Nationalism, secularism, patriotism, and republicanism remained in their positions in the social studies curriculum (Mauch & Tarman, 2016;Tarman & Acun, 2010;Tarman, 2011;Tarman & Ayas, 2011;Yiğit &Tarman, 2013). From 1968 to today, the social studies curriculum revised several times.…”