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The similarities of the debates across nations is emphasized by Alan Luke who writes,
…which version of history, morality and ethics should count, in whose interests, and
to what ends. The debate is underway in an unprecedented array of local textual sites,
ranging from more traditional academic and print media forums, textbooks and
journals, to radio and television talk shows, internet chat groups and websites….
(1997, p. 343)
The United States is widely regarded as being the first nation to engage in very public debates
concerning the nation’s history as applicable to current understandings of a national culture
and then linking those to education. Beginning prior to the Clinton presidency, and gaining
momentum through his time in office (1993-2001), the culture wars of America can be seen
as a division between the politically right and the politically left. Deeply nation-specific
issues such as gun ownership, censorship and role of government played an important part in
the ideologically-driven debates. This is arguably most visible through the United States’
involvement in the second Iraq War, and as explained by Kincheloe (2008), there is
significant importance on focusing on winning the ideological contest in this.
Other nations have also engaged in their own specific history/culture wars. Briefly, some
examples include: Austria’s treatment of immigrants and refugees in contemporary times,
particularly by elected Parliamentary representatives, against the backdrop of the treatment of
Jewish people during the World War Two (WWII) era (Titscher, Meyer, Wodak, & Vetter,
2000); Japan’s remembering of events in the Pacific Battles of WWII especially regarding
what is known as the Rape of Nanking and related to current issues of Japanese sovereignty
and impact current relationships with neighbouring nations, such as China and South Korea
(Fogel, 2002).
A1.3 School Connections
Taking the types of issues related to a nation’s cultural history and linking these to the school
curriculum a clearly identifiable timeline is made of intersections between public
perspectives of curriculum content and changes in the school curriculum. This can then be
used (and has been by critical education researchers) as a way to investigate curriculum
changes, or at the least identify the source of pressures to change the curriculum, as a result
of nation specific history and cultural wars. Regarding the role of critical discourse analysis
in this, Woodside-Jiron writes that this:
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