A Critical Discourse Analysis of Energy-related Contents in National Textbooks of China, Japan, and Korea

Abstract

Climate change has increased concern for sustainability around the globe. In particular, energy-related issues have been receiving significant attention, as energy-related issues such as energy use, energy security, energy security, and the energy crisis are intrinsically related to the sustainability of our human society. Among the various academic attempts to address these concerns, educational efforts have garnered attention from experts in diverse fields due to the realization of the importance of involving citizens and future stakeholders in the green movement. Therefore, this study examines how energy-related contents are designed and delivered in the national educational environments of China, Japan, and Korea, which are major energy-consuming countries in Asia. With a comprehensive understanding of energy as the force that runs the earth and provides links for humanity ― not merely a means to sustain economic development ― it is argued that the concept of ecological citizenship, which questions industrialism, is a desirable educational goal. The concept promotes the development of ecological empathy and the nurturing of green political thought and green competence. However, national education sometimes inhibits the development of such a normative virtue because it is often regarded as the arrangement of a desired ideology prepared by a dominant power. Hence, with this theoretical background, the questions arise of how energy-related texts are written and what the explicit and implicit implications of the texts are. China, Japan, and Korea are all well known for their centralized educational systems in which the curriculum and textbook systems are all controlled by governmental agents. As all three nations cover nine years of compulsory education, a total of 111 middle-school science and social studies national textbooks are collected and 46 of them are finally selected as those with energy-related content. The present research adopted a critical discourse analysis approach so as to interpret implicitly and explicitly embedded messages of energy-related texts. In other words, the study views texts in national textbooks as a discourse that is promoted by mainstream politics. Through this study, it is concluded that as climate change is becoming a global concern, the three nations are all devising countermeasure strategies in accordance with their social, political, and economic cultures. These strategies are then projected onto the curricula and textbooks. What is found in this study is a standardized means of explaining energy and energy issues that is also in line with national social and political cultures. For example, general concerns about energy issues with respect to environmental problems, issues related to finite resources, the need for new and renewable energy sources, and the safe and efficient use of electric energy are common contents emphasized in all three nations' textbooks. Different contents, such as population growth in the case of China, the energy-crisis experiences in the case of Japan, and the green growth paradigm in Korea also seem to be related to the different national interests and conditions. Also, science textbooks tend to contain more energy-related content than social studies textbooks do, often entailing an optimistic attitude toward science and technology. No integrated explanation of energy and energy-related issues is provided, and energy is chiefly described as a power-providing source that is essential for sustaining the status quo. In particular, nuclear energy-related contents, in all three cases, are limited not only in terms of how much space is allocated but in terms of how the related contents are described. It is argued that such results illustrate the natural characteristics of nuclear energy being an authoritarian technology. Furthermore, other voices that place emphasis on social justice and ecological empathy are negated in the textbooks. Thus, it can be assumed that the interests of the discourse as reflected in the examined energy-related contents lies in maintaining the current dominant system

therefore, students are naturally considered as willing recipients of legitimate knowledge, individual energy consumers with the responsibility to exercise efficient energy use, and often as future scientists who can develop advanced energy technologies. These results suggest that not one of the nations is prepared to implement the concept of ecological citizenship in an educational setting. Of course, opportunities for multiple readings still exist and therefore a more precise investigation of texts in national schoolbooks with various methodological approaches and more questions about framing energy-related issues are encouraged research topics for future studies. The present study will hopefully contribute to the process of questioning the role of current education systems as well as the mainstreams strategies to approach energy-related issues in the light of sustainability.