역사교육의 정치적 성격과 다양성 논의

This study was planned to examine whether the history community and the history education community made proper responses in the process from the controversy over the authorization of "Korean History" textbook by Kyohak Publishing to the controversy over the government designation of history textbooks. The investigator believes that there are two confrontation lines in those controversies. The academic circles made very active responses in the first line whose goals were to keep certain textbooks from getting authorized in an unfair manner and prevent the government designation of history textbooks. Once the true nature of massive hostile force whose presence was revealed outside the academic circles was confirmed, they addressed their internal cracks and conflicts and have confronted the force in such solidarity. There has been, however, another line within the academic circles, and it has something to do with whether the old academic circles have no problem in terms of essence of historical studies and history education. The investigator cited "politicity" and "diversity" as the aspects where the two lines are linked together and as the keywords that both the history and history education community should place importance on in the future. What is the essence of history education? The answer first should include a pursuit of intrinsic values of history education itself such as historical thinking and insight cultivation. History education can be a means of pursuing extrinsic values within the scope of its essential elements not being damaged. All sorts of various political and social forces have their requirements for history education as well as the history, history education, and education communities, which phenomenon is not wrong itself since all types of historical studies and history education cannot escape from the contemporary perspectives that inevitably contain the political judgments of each force. They should be, however, careful as excessive contemporary perspectives and political judgments can distort historical facts and further hinder the pursuit of intrinsic values of history education. When someone insists that certain content should not be taught to students, his or her insistence reflects the speaker``s objectives of history education, which include his or her political positions. A political(or contemporary) perspective is projected onto the arguments that history education should cultivate national consciousness, have the students take pride in South Korea, help them enhance their quality as democratic citizens, and encourage them to have historical self-examination. It can be controversial which of the values is more important and which method of history education and what textbook content will be helpful. What is problematic is an attitude of advocating one``s own arguments as the "right" truth and disparaging those of others as "political" biases. Such an attitude also violates the value of diversity. It will be a hollow attempt to emphasize only diversity without considering the political nature of history education.