Rethinking historical consciousness under ideological education: master narratives, institutional evaluation and marginal effects in China
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines the marginal effects of ideological control in history education by comparing the master narratives embedded in Chinese high school history textbooks with the interpretations offered by 29 first-year university students who completed their secondary education in China. Despite the growing body of research on history education and ideology, there remains limited empirical work on how state-sponsored historical narratives are actually interpreted by students. In this article, we treat textbooks as a form of hegemonic memory apparatus and analyse the extent to which this hegemonic memory is reproduced, adapted or questioned by learners. Our findings are threefold. First, the textbooks construct modern Chinese history primarily through a humiliation narrative and a rejuvenation mission narrative, which emphasise the moral superiority and historical role of the Chinese Communist Party. Second, students show strong emotional engagement with these narratives but do not fully internalise the class-based and stereotyped historical judgements presented in the text. Third, when ideological control is intensified and historical conclusions replace detailed accounts, students tend to develop scepticism and a greater awareness of the need for independent historical reasoning. Rather than assuming that official narratives are simply internalised, our analysis shows that hegemonic memory does not automatically become dominant memory among students. Instead, its educational influence displays clear marginal effects, suggesting that overly rigid ideological framing may constrain the long-term persuasive capacity of official historical narratives in shaping students’ historical consciousness.
Authors: Wang Ying, Song Zhou, Lu Ye, Yanxi Li
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7204853731