Representations of war: A cross-national comparative analysis of the Vietnam War in high school history standards.

Using a difficult history framework, we analyzed the high school history standard sets for the 50 United States and the District of Columbia and the Vietnamese national history standards. We conducted a cross-comparative content analysis to answer the question: How do Vietnamese and U.S. high school history standards represent the Vietnam War and each other? Our analysis revealed that Vietnam includes the United States more often and in a broader historical context than the United States includes Vietnam; that standards reify the notion that the Vietnam War was pivotal in each nation's unique cultural and political trajectories, yet the two countries rationalized their engagement in the war for different ideological reasons; and that there are substantial and surprisingly similar omissions of difficult history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]