A Comparative Study on History Education in Germany and South Korea

Hatred among people based on nationalistic sentiments leads to interstate conflict. Many governments have ardently pursued nation-building and justify nationalistic measures through ideologically constructed history teaching in schools. This phenomenon still exists throughout the world, but it needs to be stopped. The aim of this study is to find denationalization strategies by identifying didactical differences between nationalistic and anti-nationalistic history education. While existing studies mainly analyzed the narratives in history textbooks, this study examines didactic dimension such as the cognitive levels of learning goals, spatial scope of history taught, historical sources presented, learning activities, and nature of question items in assessment. Applying the methodology of comparative education, empirical data of curriculums, textbooks, and assessment at system-level for history teaching in Germany and South Korea are juxtaposed and compared. In Germany, European and world history occupy more significant proportion than its own national history. The main purpose of history education in curriculum is to develop critical historical consciousness and to create a historical culture that links the past, present, and the future, which are supported by various history competencies. Textbooks train students to compare and interpret controversial historical sources and focus on the average lives of ordinary people. Essay-type questions in Abitur test enable students to compose their own pluralistic history narratives through analyzing sources and evaluating the past. In South Korea, by contrast, the curriculum allocates more than 70 percent to Korean national history and aims primarily for students to develop a comprehensive understanding of the grand national narrative. Textbooks use historical sources as evidence that the Korean people and their culture are unique and excellent, with an emphasis on monarchs and great men. In assessment, multiple-choice CSAT tests confirm whether students have memorized historical knowledge in detail. Nationalist history teaching aims to create a one-sided understanding of the nation’s glorified past, while the opposite is to recognize the multiperspectivity of history and foster critical historical consciousness. Imposing a historical interpretation from a national perspective should be substituted by an analysis and evaluation of the past based on multiperspectivity. The implication of this study consists of practical suggestions for overcoming nationalistic history teaching and theoretical and methodical contribution to comparative analysis in history education. The pedagogical findings of this study that safeguard history education from the misuse of political instrumentalization would be applicable not only to South Korea but also to other East Asian countries or even countries in other regions that suffer from a vicious circle of conflict from past tragedies