‘Historical Thinking’ as a Language of Resistance in 1980s South Korea

This study analyzes how the concept of “historical thinking” emerged, was transformed, and was appropriated within the political and social context of 1980s Korean history education discourse. Specifically, it traces how “historical thinking” functioned as a language of resistance against the rise of pseudo-historical narratives and state-centered history education. In the 1980s, history education scholars sought to counter political intervention and nationalist historiography by attributing academic rigor and inquiry to “historical thinking,” adopting a strategy of “depoliticization.” In contrast, history education activists appropriated the term as a tool for critiquing dominant ideologies and advancing a people-centered historical perspective. By the 1990s, however, “historical thinking” was reduced to a procedural and formalized concept through its institutionalization in curricula and textbooks, and it gradually lost its resistant and practical dimensions amid professionalization and the importation of foreign theories. This trajectory demonstrates that “historical thinking” is not a fixed educational goal but a historical construct shaped by specific political and social conditions and the strategic needs of different actors. Accordingly, discussions of “historical thinking” should be preceded by historical inquiries into who invoked the concept, in what context, and for what purposes.