Toward Academic Decolonization in Critical Curriculum Studies: Learning from the Japanese History Textbook Controversy over "Comfort Women"

Abstract

"Whose knowledge is of most worth?" is a question that critical scholars of school knowledge and education policy have posed for some time (Apple, 1979, 2000, 2006a; Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991; Ball, 1990; Buras, 2008; Buras & Apple, 2006; Cornbleth & Waugh, 1995; Lipman, 2004; McCarthy, 1998; Whitty, 1985). This line of analysis has shown how a particular kind of knowledge becomes legitimized ("officialized") in schools, the process both shaping and shaped by the larger unequal power relationships and history of social movements. Drawing on Antonio Gramsci's notion of "hegemony" and Raymond Williams's notion of "selective tradition", these scholars have demonstrated that while the dominant groups are more likely to shape the content and form of school knowledge to maintain their dominance, they do not achieve total domination. Hegemony is won through partial incorporation of subordinate groups' experience and interests through which the dominant group generates their acceptance of its rule (Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991, pp. 9-10).