• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.633-642
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• 2016

This study looked into Japan's recognition of Korea in early modern era with particular focuses on discourse on Korea and contents in textbooks in those days. In doing so, the topics of nationality, historical recognition, and social aspects in Korea were established and discourse on these topics in educational journals and the contents of textbooks and teaching manuals projected with such discourse were investigated. As for nationality, a strong propensity to negative recognition was clearly observed, represented by the words lazy, enervate, and uncivilized. They defined Korea's history of passive, other-directed nature and described such incompetent national management resulted in negative nationality. Their recognition of Korean history went further away, stating Korea was incapable of maintaining its independence and was a threat to peace of Japan and Asia, hence the forced merger by Japan. The criteria for Japan to assess Korean society were Western civilization and they defined Korean society as a pre-modern society with lower levels of civilization and culture. Discourse in Japan over Korea in early modern era were strongly influenced by Japan's pride as a modern state and its dominating ideology of imperialism and such discussions were spread among students through textbooks and teaching manuals.