ERIC Number: EJ1482735
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Aug
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0013-189X
EISSN: EISSN-1935-102X
Available Date: 0000-00-00
"Othering" through War: Depiction of Asians/Asian Americans in U.S. History Textbooks
Minju Choi1; Li Lucy2; Patricia Bromley1; David Bamman2
Educational Researcher, v54 n6 p318-327 2025
Using computational methods, we investigate a data set of 874,125 sentences from 30 U.S. history textbooks used in California and Texas schools to consider how they discuss Asians/Asian Americans. Only 1% of all sentences in our sample has any mention of Asians. Most of these sentences focus on Chinese and Japanese, and when individuals are named, they are usually White. The most prevalent topics in which Asians appear are about war. Discussions of wars are a centerpiece of history textbooks, but the dominance of such narratives is especially high for Asians relative to other ethno-cultural groups. The sentiment of verbs used to describe Asians is strikingly negative. Asians are described more negatively than others in both war and nonwar contexts.
Descriptors: Textbooks, Textbook Content, History Instruction, United States History, Asians, Asian Americans, War, Language Usage, Racism
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: https://sagepub.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: California; Texas
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Stanford University, Stanford, CA; 2University of California, Berkeley, CA

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