Othering” Through War

Depiction of Asians/Asian Americans in U.S. History Textbooks

Bibliographic Data

ID9733889
AuthorsMinju Choi (0000-0002-0759-2294, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, corresponding author), Li Lucy (0000-0002-6021-7370, University of California, Berkeley, CA), Patricia Bromley (0000-0001-9596-677X, Stanford University, Stanford, CA), David Bamman (0009-0003-1171-9408, University of California, Berkeley, CA)
Year2025
Volume54
Issue6
Pages318-327
Publication date2025-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEducational Researcher (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-189X • E-ISSN: 1935-102X
PublisherAmerican Educational Research Association (AERA) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.3102/0013189x251327190
OpenAlexW4408886540
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited28

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

Depiction · Dominance (genetics · Linguistics · Narrative · Sociology · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · Gender Studies · History · Innovative Teaching Methodologies in Social Sciences · Psychology

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access