Teaching Hate? National History Education and Foreign Policy Attitudes

• In Event: Information and Attitudes toward Conflict and Cooperation

Abstract

To what extent do history textbooks shape students’ understandings of historical events and their foreign policy attitudes? We collect original data from 17 high schools and 34 classrooms in Seoul, South Korea, to examine whether anti-Japanese content in history textbooks affects high-school students' attitudes toward Japan. Additionally, we leverage a quasi-random textbook assignment process in South Korea to compare how the attitudes of students educated with a more right-leaning (pro-U.S., anti-North Korea) textbook differ from those educated with a more left-leaning (anti-U.S., pro-North Korea) textbook. Results demonstrate that while textbook content influences what kind of historical events students believe as "facts" and how favorably students perceive a country's past actions, these perceptions do not necessarily affect their current foreign policy attitudes. Rather, we find suggestive evidence that students’ policy preferences are more heavily influenced by the general political orientation of their neighborhoods and parents. Our findings indicate that individuals distinguish between an international actor's past and current actions, and that a history of conflict with another country does not necessarily lead to hostile attitudes toward the country.

Authors

• Soyoung Lee, Yale University

• Jeongmin Park, Princeton University