I am mostly referring to secondary education but it has always seemed to me that any history since WWII, at least American history, is covered in a fraction of the time compared to other events in history. I'd be interested to know if this is also true in other countries.
I'm curious because IMO I feel most of our society has very little empirical knowledge (other than what our parents have imparted on us) of what has happened in the last 60 years. Educators tend to spend weeks on the revolution, the civil war, Jefferson, Lincoln and Washington but when it comes to Vietnam, political/racial tensions in the 60s/70s, Nixon, Reagan and even Clinton, the majority of younger people who didn't live through it really have no clue.
I'm very interested in the reasons for why this might be. Bias of the people writing the curriculum? Is the jury still out? While I love all history, it seems to me that some of the most important history is that which directly affects why our society is the way it is today.
Please let me know if this has been answered before or if this is suited for a different sub.
Historian James Loewen attends to this question in his book for popular consumption: "Lies My Teacher Told me". The short answer is: the recent past in too well known, and therefore too controversial. he studies the number of pages in history text books dedicated to to recent past, first in books from the 1980's, then a second sample from the 00's in order to compare how many pages they dedicate to the recent past.
"On average, the textbooks [from the 1980's] give forty-seven pages to the 1930's, forty-four to the 1940's, and fewer than thirty-five pages to each later decade. Even the turbulent decade of the 1960's -- including the civil rights movement, most of the Vietnam War, and the murders of Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evans, Malcolm X, and John Robert Kennedy -- got fewer than thirty-five pages." Lowen p. 260
As you can see, when the 1960's was fresh in the minds of parents who had lived through it, history books devoted roughly 25% fewer pages covering it. However, when the 1960's faded from the recent past, textbooks began to give it a new emphasis of focus.
"Textbooks in 2006-2007 show quite a different approach. Now the 1960's are no longer recent history, so textbooks can give them the emphasis they should have received, fifty five pages. (That total is greater than for any other decade of the twentieth century.) But today's texts, published between 2000 and 2007, give short shift to the new recent past, the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Now they devote forty-nine pages to the 1930's and forty seven to the 1940's, but fewer than twenty to the 1980's and 1990's (Even tossing in the first years of the new Millennium)." ibid
The unfortunate conclusion from this trend is to recognize that K-12 recent history will always be sterile and lackluster because of the socio-economic forces that shape the textbook publishing process. Conventional High School history is supposed to be non-political, but current events are always political and remembered as such. Textbook publishers don't want to take a side on current events because they don't want to risk alienating the parents of potential students.
"Some parents are Democrats, some Republicans, so what authors say about the impeachment and trial of Bill Clinton will likely offend half of the community." Lowen p. 261
These political concerns, along with many others are ripe in the minds of textbook publishers as they endlessly revise their books in order to parade before skeptical school boards nation wide. This process is so politicized, and so lucrative, that the history that is allowed into K-12 history books could hardly be called history. All notes and evidence is take from James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told me, and I encourage any with an interest in american history, or the history regarding the education of history, I invite you to check it out.
Loewen, James W. Lies My Teach Told Me. New York: Touchstone, 1995, 2007.
The other answer is that we don't know what was actually important in recent history. We need time to pass to understand that.
Take the Clinton administration for example. One of the initiatives that was pushed and passed was NAFTA. Was that good or bad policy? Was the increase of Mexican emigration due to NAFTA? Was/is that emigration good or bad for the US and Mexico? It is just to soon to tell. You can make educated arguments one way or the other but when we haven't decided on how we are going to classify millions of aliens it is very difficult to draw a conclusion as to the success of a policy. And does the policy (or lack of policy) have any real significance in determining the direction of our country. We just don't know yet.
The other thing is that there's also just an issue of time. Most secondary classes that cover American history 1492-present are trying to get through a lot of material in a school year and if they fall behind at any point earlier in the course then they have to get through the later material faster-especially if they're an AP class and they practically need to finish the coursework by mid or late April to have a few week's review time. So by the end of the year(when recent history is covered) there's a rush just to get through everything.
When I did history at school (primary and secondary education) in the UK we didn't cover post WW2 history until it became an elective subject when we were aged 16-18. We covered US civil rights up until the 1960s. We also covered the cold war with a concentration on US and USSR relations and British decolonisation in this period.
At this stage the history teaching was less didactic and more focused on independent learning; being able to select and evaluate sources, being able to construct a narrative etc. For students new to history that could get confusing, you really need a bit of a background first before you tackle modern history other wise the sheer amount of source material and differing views available can be overwhelming.
A side note - I have often spoken to Americans who seemed to cover LESS US 20th c. history than I did at school, whilst we did specialise specifically in US history during my A level course that still surprises me and I wonder why it is? Is it because there's not enough time devoted to history teaching? Is it not given priority? Are students being taught about English Kings and Queens instead of about Reconstruction? Is it too controversial for the classroom?