Transnational Curriculum Studies: Reconceptualization ... · informed by four sets of questions...

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Transnational Curriculum Studies:Reconceptualization Discourse in South Koreacuri_500 531..554

YOUNG CHUN KIM

Chinju National University of Education

ABSTRACT

Creating transnational spaces of curriculum inquiry calls for dialogic encounters between East and West.This article makes visible, both for Western and non-Western curriculum scholars, the historical devel-opment of curriculum studies in South Korea over the last 3 decades. Focusing on reconceptualistapproaches to curriculum, the article argues for a reconfiguration of Western discourses in terms of localand regional knowledges. Beginning with the initial translation of Western texts in the 1980s and movinginto the contemporary production of Korean texts on Korean practices of curriculum and schooling, thepaper offers a case study in the creative challenges of merging global and local priorities. Writing“regional tales,” it is argued, sets a critical example for Western curriculum scholars while at the same timeinviting links to curriculum studies and researchers in other non-Western countries.

INTRODUCTION

International curriculum inquiry might best be understood as a process of creating transnational “spaces”in which scholars from different localities collaborate in reframing and decentering their own knowledgetraditions and negotiate trust in each other’s contributions to their collective works. For those of us whowork in Western knowledge traditions, a first step must be to represent and perform our distinctiveapproaches to curriculum inquiry in ways that authentically demonstrate their own localness.

Gough (2003, p. 68)

Oh, East is East, and West is West.And never the twain shall meet.

Kipling (2008, p. 233)

In the aim of creating, as Gough suggests above, transnational spaces of curriculum inquirythat are collaborative, reflexive, and grounded in local knowledges, curriculum scholars inNorth America may be curious about the development of curriculum studies in non-Westerncountries. In particular, they might be interested in knowing whether Western reconceptual-izations of curriculum theory (Kridel, 2000; Marsh & Willis, 2007; Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, &Taubman, 1995) have travelled to Korea. Although detailed reports about curriculum studiesin different regions of the world are not often available internationally, information is emerg-ing from Brazil (Lopez, Macedo, & Paiva, 2006), Mexico (Diaz-Barriga, 2005), and othercountries (Pinar, 2003, 2010; Trueit, Doll, & Wang, 2003).

© 2010 by The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of TorontoCurriculum Inquiry 40:4 (2010)Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UKdoi: 10.1111/j.1467-873X.2010.00500.x

This article tells the tale of Korea’s recontextualization of Western theories of curriculumstudies and enables Western scholars to learn more about practices of curriculum outside theirown sphere of influence. South Korea’s geographical location, its distinctive educationaltraditions, and its political relationship with the West make it a unique case. First of all, SouthKorea is geographically located in the “Far East”—far from Europe, and separated from NorthAmerica by the Pacific Ocean. Its geographical isolation and distance afford some Westernersthe impression that South Korea is “Oriental” (Said, 1979), psychologically separate, andculturally exotic. Perhaps our location also enables some Westerners to think of South Koreaas a preserve of esoteric Eastern ideas and traditions. Korean culture has indeed been influ-enced by Eastern philosophies such as Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. In particular,Confucianism has been a major part of Korean history, life, and culture. However, South Koreais today very much embedded in economic globalization and in the cultural, social, interna-tional, and interracial consequences that globalization brings.

This article looks specifically at the development of “reconceptualization discourse” (RD) inSouth Korea. By reconceptualization, I refer to the rethinking of traditional curriculum per-spectives introduced by William Pinar in the United States in the 1970s (see Pinar et al., 1995,chapter 4)—a rethinking that continues to reverberate in contemporary curriculum studies( Janesick, 2003; Malewski, 2010; Marsh & Willis, 2007; Marshall, Sears, & Schubert, 2000;Schubert, 1986). As non-Western curriculum scholars, we understand this shift in Westerncurriculum theory as a historical event that has grown to encompass a broad range of perspec-tives including postcolonial, poststructuralist, deconstruction, multicultural, feminist, andqualitative approaches. By discourse, I refer to the discussions inspired by this shift both in theWest and the East, but more specifically by its introduction to South Korea in the 1980s and itscurrent rearticulation in the Korean context. Michael Apple’s radical interpretation on repro-duction of school knowledge was the first influence to stimulate the curriculum studies ofKorea toward reconceptualization discourse. Clandinin and Connelly’s theorization of teacherexperience, narrative inquiry, and curriculum as lived experience is, for example, understoodas a major influence on the discourse of reconceptualization in Korea. Other significantinfluences include the analysis of school culture inspired by Paul Willis and Stanley Aronowitz’s(1982) Learning to Labor and Jean Anyon’s (1980) Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work,and the qualitative work of curriculum scholars such as Patton, Guba, Pinar, Lather, Eisner, vanManen, Bullough, and Merriam.1

Writing this Korean tale not only offers Western curriculum scholars insight into interna-tional practices of curriculum, but it also constitutes an invitation to non-Western colleagues toinvestigate their own intellectual histories and present circumstances, especially as influencedby global flows of ideas, concepts, and practices. By reporting on the Korean experience, I hopeto contribute to the establishment of a subfield on “national histories of reconceptualizationdiscourse” as a specific instance of an apparently growing interest in disciplinarity (Anderson& Valente, 2002; Messer-Davidow, Shumway, & Sylvan, 1993; Pinar, 2007). Such tales of localregions enable us to understand how curriculum knowledge circulates globally and is recon-textualized locally; that is, how it is creatively reformulated according to local traditions, needs,and aspirations rather than simplistically applied. Such tales also illustrate the significance ofstory and narrative as modes of curriculum inquiry (Clandinin, 2000; Grumet, 1988; Hatch &Wisniewski, 1995; Knowles, Coles, & Presswood, 1994; Kridel, 1988; Sykes, 2001).

Such a specialty seems especially appropriate during a time of escalating globalization ineducation (Apple, Kenway, & Singh, 2005; Spring, 2008; Suarez-Orozco & Quin-Hillard, 2004).Writing a regional tale, I argue, will contribute to the internationalization of curriculum studiesand encourage curriculum studies scholars worldwide to investigate their regional historiestoward the realization of curriculum studies as international text (Pinar et al., 1995). However,

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I also argue that writing regional tales needs to go beyond the simple collection of historicaldevelopments or genealogical narratives. In this article, I offer a critical and reflexive approachto reconceptualization discourse based on postmodern and postcolonial paradigm inquiries(Lather, 1991; Pinar et al., 1995; Slattery, 2005). Similar to hooks’s (1993) “yearning” for“liberating scenes,” my yearning in writing this article is to position myself—and Koreancurriculum studies—differently from previous “importers” of Western theories (RD included).I do not want to use RD as another panacea for Korean scholarship and schooling. Instead,I employ it as a catalyst for creating a Korean curriculum language opposed to traditionalistWestern-influenced curriculum studies and for producing indexical and indigenous languagesthat are not imitations of those created by curriculum reconceptualists in the West. This seemsto me to be the “spirit” of U.S. approaches to curriculum reconceptualization: to deviseconcepts particular to new situations that, while influenced globally, remain inescapably local.

As a Korean curriculum scholar of RD and a member of the International Association for theAdvancement of Curriculum Studies,2 my research on Korean curriculum studies is broadlyinformed by four sets of questions that I hope will make my purpose more concrete and alsoinspire scholars in non-Western nations to discuss the local value, meanings, and contributionsof curriculum reconceptualization in their own countries from a postmodern and postcolonialperspective:

(1) What does it mean to do curriculum reconceptualization in non-Western locations?How can/should curriculum studies be reconceptualized locally and as different fromWestern curriculum studies?

(2) What curriculum questions and topics are more worthy and valuable in non-Westernlocations? Which Western questions remain valuable and important in non-Westernsites? How can Western questions be redefined and attuned to local contexts?

(3) How and in what ways can Western curriculum discourses be questioned, even doubted?Should we choose a receptive or resistant academic orientation when we witness thatWestern RD does not address our local situation? At the same time, can we blindly believein the trustworthiness of local narratives and findings?

(4) How can we reconceptualize the meaning of “reconceptualization” in our local context?Reconceptualization discourse in Korea and elsewhere should be more than a simplemimicry of Western reconceptualization. It must be reborn as a field of liberationand postcolonial curriculum inquiry. If so, what might this field be called? “Post-reconceptualization” (Cary, 2007), “Reconceptualization of Reconceptualization,” or“De-Reconceptualization”? On what grounds (philosophical, sociological, and cultural)can it grow as a new field if we reject Western conceptions of reconceptualization and tryto escape from the authority of Western RD?

These questions provide a broad context for the regional tale of Korean curriculum recon-ceptualization developed in this article. Divided into two main sections—(1) the historicalcontext of RD in Korea and (2) the present terrain and new directions—the article examinesthe influence, recontextualization, and reconfiguration of Western discourses on curriculuminquiry in South Korea.

CURRICULUM STUDIES IN SOUTH KOREA: HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Korean curriculum studies began in the early 1950s, after Korea was emancipated fromJapanese colonization (S. Hur, 2002). In the published accounts of education before theemancipation, historians focus mainly on the philosophy of education in different periods, the

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development of school subjects, and school activities (H. Jeong, 2005; D. Soh, 2009). They tendnot to examine questions of curriculum.

The curriculum studies was established as a discipline of education after 1945 becauseKorean scholars who had studied curriculum field in the United States after emancipation, andbegan to disseminate the inquiry in South Korea as a new field in educational research. Thus,since then, South Korean curriculum studies have been influenced principally by U.S. curricu-lum studies. The first Korean curriculum scholar was Bummo Jung. A former advisee of RalphTyler at the University of Chicago, Jung(1956) wrote Curriculum, a book based on Tyler’s(1969) Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction. Jung’s students and followers becameuniversity professors and established an academic group that promoted Tyler’s rationale forSouth Korean curriculum studies in the 1960s and 1970s.

S. Hur (2002) characterizes the 1970s as the “age of [the] shaping of Korean curriculumstudies” (p. 7). During this period, many references to North American ideas and theories ofcurriculum were disseminated in Korea, prominent among them Jerome Bruner’s (1977) TheProcess of Education and Hilda Taba’s (1962) Curriculum Development, both of which were trans-lated into Korean. These volumes have been taught as classics in South Korea ever since.Among the concepts imported was mastery learning based on Benjamin Bloom’s theorizationon Mastery Learning (1973): It became very popular and circulated as new a form of teachingand learning. During this period, I was a middle school student and remember that myclassmates and I studied science, mathematics, and English with complementary workbookstitled, “Mastery Learning.” Given the increasing emphasis on curriculum studies, the KoreanDepartment of Education allowed universities to open the graduate major in Curriculum, andthe first volume of the Korean Journal of Curriculum Studies was published in 1974.

In the 1980s, Korean curriculum studies focused on three areas: (1) school curriculum,(2) instructional design theories, and (3) non-Tylerian discourses. The first two areas were partof traditionalist3 curriculum studies; the third area was new. Scholars who returned from NorthAmerica and Europe disseminated the sociology of school curriculum, also known as the newsociology of education. Given these circumstances, it was perhaps predictable that reconcep-tualist ideas would be imported in the late 1980s. The apparently gracious acceptance of theseideas is not surprising given that the history of South Korean curriculum studies has beeninfluenced by shifts in North American curriculum studies (Y. H. Lee, 2002a). Carrying on thetradition, reconceptualization was initially read, shared, and circulated as a powerful newknowledge for Korean curriculum studies.

A number of curriculum scholars in Korea began energetically working to apply Pinar et al.’s(1995) definition of reconceptualization as “a shift in the field’s fundamental mission fromcurriculum development to understanding curriculum” (pp. 186–187). Indeed, reconceptual-ist ideas were taught, disseminated, and researched as a way of understanding Korean school-ing. Korean researchers learned, for example, that based on new ideas from North America,curriculum could be improved and changed by analyzing school culture, the hidden curricu-lum, and the ideologies of textbooks. As a result, today Koreans appreciate that traditionalistcurriculum perspectives are not the only discourse in curriculum studies.

The appearance of RD in South Korea led Koreans to question curriculum “development”as the single best system (Tyack, 1974). Today Koreans are surrounded by more complex andmultiple approaches to curriculum (e.g., reproduction, lived experience, emancipation, anddeconstruction) including the shift to counter-hegemonic practices akin to Lather’s (1986)postmodern formula: “Research as praxis.”

However, despite these important shifts, the major theme of curriculum studies in Korea hasbeen “curriculum development.” It has been the main undertaking of curriculum inquiry inSouth Korea since the 1950s, and many educational researchers still think that curriculum only

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involves developing curriculum. Scholars who are also curriculum developers influence most ofthe decisions made by the Association of Korean Studies for Curriculum Studies (KSCS),including annual conference themes, and research initiatives undertaken with the governmentDepartment of Education. In the next sections of the article, I look more closely at thesediffering perspectives through a discussion of the historical development of curriculum studiesin Korea. The discussion is organized into three periods—the production of translated texts,the production of Korean texts, and the analysis of school curriculum.

Translated Texts

Korean curriculum studies was not a home-grown field; it was imported. The appearance ofRD in South Korea began in the 1980s with translations of Western texts. This importationwas consistent with earlier formulations of Korean curriculum studies, themselves borrowedfrom conceptions devised in the West (Y. C. Kim, 2005a). Because Korean curriculum studiesafter 1945, as mentioned previously, has been influenced by North America, it was notstrange for Korean scholars to translate Western texts and introduce Western theory toKorean researchers and teachers. In addition, possessing advanced knowledge of the Westthrough translation assigns local researchers with more academic power and prestige. In arelatively few years, RD became a “trendy” concept among some Korean scholars. The firstwave of translators generally included scholars in the sociology of education or curriculumstudies who had trained in the West (especially in the Unites States, Canada, and England).Thanks to these early translations in the 1980s, a considerable number of books first writtenin English have since been republished in Korean. These translated texts have been assignedto students of education and curriculum studies as required reading for graduate studies andteacher education. For some Korean faculty and students, RD became “the sign of the times.”

Table 1 lists significant Western texts that were translated and published in South Koreafrom the 1980s to the 2000s. Such a wide selection is direct evidence of a strong academicinterest in Western concepts and scholarship; these texts have provided the intellectual stimu-lus for a reinvigorated Korean curriculum studies.

As this table shows, the texts translated were quite varied, ranging from the early work ofBowles and Gintis to the later work of hooks and Peters and Burbules. These translated texts arestill read today; several will probably be read in the future. Apple’s (1990) Ideology and curricu-lum and Giroux, Penna, and Pinar’s (1981) Curriculum and Instruction have, for example, beenused since the 1990s as textbooks in many universities such as Hanyang University, YonseiUniversity, and Seoul National University. These translated texts shaped the formation of a newacademic community I might loosely term “scholars of RD.” These scholars participated earlierin various translation projects that disseminated reconceptualist ideas; their academic careersbecame associated with the fate of RD in Korea. Incumbent upon these scholars was theexplanation of these texts and the adaptation of the ideas to the specificities of Koreaneducation. The very act of translating Western knowledge constituted an accumulation andexpansion of Korean curriculum knowledge. Through the explanation of Western curriculumconcepts, even mimicry functioned as a productive cultural act in the creation of the newKorean curriculum studies.

Production of Korean Texts

The dissemination of Western reconceptualist ideas through translated texts also allowedKorean scholars to theorize RD from their own perspectives and publish books and articlesbased on their study of these texts (B. Kim, 2007; K. Lee, 2006; Y. H. Lee, 2007; M. Park, 2005).


This era of the production of Korean texts began in the late 1980s and continues to the presentday. For example, Kiseok Kim’s historic book on cultural reproduction and schooling waspublished in 1987 and Young Chun Kim’s extensive qualitative research on Korean elementaryschools was published in 1997. In addition, Young Chun Kim (2006) edited the book After Tyler:Curriculum Theorizing 1970–2000. The book’s contributors generously introduced Westernideas of reconceptualization to Korean audiences and elaborated their significance to theKorean curriculum field. Table 2 provides examples of Korean texts.

Korean scholars revised reconceptualist ideas by using their own knowledge and selectingbetter examples for Korean readers. I would argue that such creative “reconceptualization”advanced RD in Korea by introducing new themes and background knowledge including thediverse philosophical and sociological theories referred to in the translated Western texts. Ineffect, theorizing RD in Korean contributed to the reconceptualization of Korean curriculumstudies, now increasingly linked explicitly to Korean contexts and experiences. Korean authorsrecognized the advantages and disadvantages of Western theories of reconceptualization,revising them so they could be more easily read by a Korean audience. Korean authors wroteKorean texts which consisted of content that included more persuasive and relevant examples,data, and stories.

This shift in Korean writing from “translation” to “creative production” was stimulated bytwo developments. First, using multiple imported resources not only augmented Korean knowl-edge of Western ideas, but also enabled Korean scholars to shift from a receptive and passiveposition to a more active and productive position. They were not simple imitators of Westerntexts anymore, but intellectually independent scholars who, like Western scholars, rewrote RDbased on their own creative ideas. Second, this radical change in RD in South Korea quickly ledto the composition of a second wave of texts focused less on translated works and more attuned

TABLE 1Major Texts on Education and Curriculum Translated Into Korean

Ideology and Curriculum. Apple, 1990Cultural Politics and Education. Apple, 1996Educating the “Right” Way. Apple, 2001Schooling in Capitalist America. Bowles & Gintis, 1997Power and Criticism. Cherryholmes, 1998Narrative Inquiry. Clandinin & Connelly, 2000Teachers as Curriculum Planners: Narratives of experience. Connelly & Clandinin, 1988Perspectives on Curriculum. Doll, 1993Enlightened Eye. Eisner, 1991The Educational Imagination. Eisner, 2002Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire, 1970Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals. Giroux, 1988The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence. Giroux, 1999Theory and Resistance in Education. Giroux, 2001Curriculum and Instruction. Giroux, Penna, & Pinar, 1981Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. hooks, 1994.The Sign of the Burger: McDonald’s and the Culture of Power. Kincheloe, 2002 Poststructuralism and

Educational Research. Peters, 2004Understanding Curriculum. Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taubman, 1995What is Curriculum Theory? Pinar, 2004Education, State and Crisis. Sarup, 1982Researching Lived Experience. Van Manen, 1990Learning to Labor. Willis & Aronowitz, 1981Knowledge and Control. Young, 1971

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to the expectations of Korean students of education. Korean students had difficulties compre-hending certain concepts, sometimes because they were too complicated, but sometimesbecause the translation was inadequate. Additionally, Western texts referenced Westernexamples, leaving some Korean readers feeling alienated by the context.

Confronting these difficulties, Korean scholars wrote according to their perception of thesituated needs of Korean readers. As native speakers, they were able to explain reconceptualistideas in local terminologies. Perhaps more importantly, they labored to make the texts moreinteresting to Korean readers through the juxtaposition of Western theories and Korean cases.Simple inclusion of Western theories without reference to Korean educational life renderedWestern theories too difficult and too foreign. With copious reference to the Korean situation,this second wave of texts addressed Korean readers directly by engaging their everyday knowl-edge and rendering RD accessible.

Table 2 provides a list of selected Korean texts. As their titles make evident, each textemphasizes different elements of reconceptualization while providing a range of specificallyKorean references recognizable to Korean readers. Their topics vary from critiques of Tyler’sapproach (M. Kim, 1991) to the promotion of postmodernism (M. Park, 2005). I have listed thetexts in three categories: general texts, texts on educational theory, and texts on curriculum.Notably, most of the texts were written as “general” texts providing introductions to RD andrelated knowledge. The main topics included definitions of RD and elaborations of thepurposes of reconceptualization, including references to work by Western scholars. The textslisted under “educational theory” were more complex. Since theoretical knowledge has longbeen respected in Korean pedagogy, Korean scholars seriously studied the theories cited assupportive of reconceptualization. They wrote books on phenomenology, hermeneutics, andfeminist theories. Kiseok Kim’s (1987, 1994) research is noteworthy as his two-volume workelaborated the concept and role of “cultural capital” in relation to modern schooling. Finally,the texts listed under “curriculum” focused specifically on curriculum studies. These texts

TABLE 2Major Korean Texts on Curriculum and Education

General TextsPrivate Education of Korean Nation. J. Han, 2005Theories of Korean Educational Capital. J. Han, 2007Research on Sociology of Education. W. Jeong, 1997Studies of Sociology in Education, Vols. 1 & 2. K. Kim, 1987, 1994Schooling and Inequalities. W. Oh, 1990Educational TheoryPhenomenology and Education. S. Cho, 2002Habermas and Education. K. Han, 2008Reconceptualizing of Educational Phenomena. S. Hur & H. Ryu, 1998Feminist Pedagogy. S. Kwak, 2008Educational Hermeneutics. S. Sohn, 2001Feminism and Educational Thought. H. Yoo, 2004CurriculumHermeneutics and Education. M. Choi, 2005The Hermeneutical Reconceptualization of Curriculum and Teaching-Learning Process. B. Kim, 2007A Critique on Technical Mode of Curriculum Development. M. Kim, 1991After Tyler: Curriculum Theorizing 1970–2000. Y. C. Kim, 2006Phenomenology and the Curriculum Reconceptualization Movement. K. Lee, 2006Knowledge as Power/Contract and Curriculum. Y. H. Lee, 2007Postmodern Paradigm and Significant Issues of Curriculum Development. M. Park, 2005Understanding Curriculum: A Historical Approach. S. B. Park, 2001


helped Korean readers to better understand the new terrain of Korean curriculum studies afterthe importation and recontextualization of RD.

Analysis of School Curriculum

Importing reconceptualist ideas not only stimulated academic production and the intellectualadvancement of Korean curriculum studies, but it also inspired South Korean scholars todiscuss the potential impact of these concepts on Korean school curriculum practices. In sodoing, they began to analyze Korean curriculum from the perspective of reconceptualization.The interest in RD moved from translation to recontextualization to pedagogical adaptation tothe Korean school curriculum. In this context, pedagogical adaptation involves the use ofreconceptualist ideas and research to improve Korean schooling. Concepts such as the hiddencurriculum, school culture, and gender discrimination enabled Korean teachers and practi-tioners to critique in new terms their own schools, curriculum, and teaching methods.Reading the experiential data generated by this research on schooling inspired teachers tochange their classroom behavior, indeed the overall learning environment, and specificallystudent management. I still remember a classroom teacher’s e-mail stating that he would notuse corporal punishment anymore after reading the portrayal of a teacher’s behaviour in thebook Tales of Four Schools: Classroom Life and Instructions in Korean Elementary Schooling (Y. C. Kim,1997). He explained that this book had influenced him more than any other in-servicetraining program.

This third approach was radical. Prior to RD, school curriculum practices had not oftenbeen studied as sites of curriculum inquiry. In this new perspective, the direction of curriculumstudies in Korea slowly moved from “curriculum development” to “understanding curriculum”in classroom contexts and alternative practices. Drawing especially on the perspectives ofinterpretative and critical approaches, Korean scholars attempted to redefine and reinterpretthe features and roles of Korean schools. Among these features were:

• school culture ( J. Lee & J. Choi, 2007a; Y. S. Lee, W. Jung, & K. Park, 1988; N. Park, 2002)• curriculum implementation (M. A. Kim, 2007; S. Kim, 2008; M. Sohn, Y. C. Kim, &

H. Kang, 2007)• textbooks ( J. Joo, 2006; Y. Yoo, 2004)• classroom teaching (C. Hur, 2006a; S. J. Kim, 2006; Y. C. Kim, 1997)• teachers’ lives (Y. C. Kim, 2005a; KNUE, 2005; J. W. Lee, 2008; N. Park, J. Park, & J. Moon,

2008)

The analysis of Korean school curriculum advanced the Korean field by producing localknowledge. This new effort to study “inside” Korean schooling allowed curriculum scholars toglimpse what had not been systematically studied before. Through thick description andsophisticated analysis, the familiar world of Korean schooling became unfamiliar. Using post-positivist curriculum methods, Korean scholars began to observe, describe, and analyzeKorean schools and curriculum, and engage in a wide range of research approaches oncurriculum practices. Such increased scholarly production changed the field from a discus-sion of traditionalist curriculum ideologies at somewhat superficial levels toward a genuineunderstanding of the meaning of curriculum-as-planned and curriculum-as-lived (Aoki, 2005[1985/1991], pp. 231–232). New understandings of Korea school curriculum emerged fromsite-based research. To illustrate this new development, I review three major research trendsthat have occupied school research in South Korea from the 1990s to the 2000s. These trends

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understand curriculum variously as 1) ethnographic text, 2) reproductive text, and 3) teachertext.

Researching Curriculum as Ethnographic Text. As the title implies, this type of research employsethnographic methods to understand school curriculum and includes concepts such as thickdescription, everyday life, and school culture. Because the “inner life” of Korean schooling hadnever been a prominent research concern in the past, ethnographic portrayals of Koreanschooling and curriculum provided opportunities to learn about the experience of teachersand students inside classrooms (Y. C. Kim, 1997; Y. H. Lee, 2002b). “Mundane” knowledge ofclassroom settings and school life now merited academic attention, providing importantresources for critically examining the everyday problems of Korean education. An importantexample of research conducted in this field can be found in Qualitative Research in Education:Methods and Applications (Y. S. Lee, & Y. C. Kim,1998). The ethnographic research on Koreanschools in this volume helps Korean scholars and students to advance their knowledge of bothresearch methods and Korean schools.

The major contribution of ethnographic research was a new understanding of the everydaylife of school curriculum and teaching. For the first time Korean curriculum scholars appre-ciated how students learn inside classrooms and how teachers teach in actual schools (Y. Cho,2001; Y. S. Lee, 1991). Also, they were able to discern the significance of the physical, cul-tural and social structures of Korean schools for students’ learning and development(Bronfenbrenner, 1970). More specifically, the elaboration of the “hidden curriculum” inKorean schools helped educators to recognize that students learn values in addition to schoolsubjects, especially competition, compliance, and passive ways of thinking. The research find-ings (C. H. Kim, 2001; M. Kim, 1986; Y. Lee, 1990, 1992) required Korean educators to bemore attentive to school life and culture, thereby extending their inquiry beyond the formalcurriculum. For example, Y. S. Lee’s (1992) study of Korean elementary schools was the firstto recognize the influences of the hidden curriculum on classroom teaching and studentlearning in Korean schools. It identified the following predominant traits: uniformity, author-ity, obedience, outcome-based evaluation, a culture of corporal punishment, and a culture ofcompetitive learning. Table 3 provides a list of key ethnographic studies of Korean schoolcurriculum.

Researching Curriculum Through Reproduction Theory. School-based studies using reproductiontheory made clear the extent to which Korean schools were engaged in social reproduction(Institute of Elementary Schooling Culture, 2003, 2005; M. Kim, 1986; I. Lee, 1991). Guidedby the question “Whose knowledge is surreptitiously reproduced and reinforced as dominantand normal?” Korean scholars observed and analyzed classroom discourses. As in the West,various aspects of the Korean curriculum (student experience, textbooks, teaching practices,

TABLE 3Selected Korean Ethnographic Studies of Curriculum

Understanding of Elementary Instruction. Y. Cho, 1999Everyday Lives of Korean Elementary Schooling. Institute of Elementary Schooling Culture, 2005A Study on School Culture in an Academic High School. C. Kim, 2001A Study of Hidden Curriculum in Elementary Social Studies. M. Kim, 1986Tales of Four Schools: Classroom Life and Instructions in Korean Elementary Schooling. Y. C. Kim, 1997Understanding of Korean Elementary Schooling Culture. J. Lee & Y. Choi, 2007Looking at Elementary Teaching. N. Park, 2002


classroom activities) were critically examined and reinterpreted through Marxist and Neo-Marxist critical theories (K. Kim, 1994; H. Koh, 1990).

This research showed that the Korean school curriculum played a crucial role in reproduc-ing the dominant social order. Specifically, it indicated that the political ideologies associatedwith Korean governments during specific periods were strengthened through forms of indoc-trination in the content of the school curriculum (Y. Jang, 2005; C. Park, 2007). I was a studentduring the 1960–1980 period when Korean nationalism was strongly emphasized in manytextbooks in many subject areas. To demonstrate loyalty to South Korea, we had to take aformal class called “Military Practicum.” Values such as cooperation and showing respect toSouth Korea were major themes of Korean language, social studies, and other subjects. Inextracurricular classes, we were asked to sing the national anthem before the first class began;we had to bow to the South Korean flag at the beginning of every lesson. Indeed, since 1945,Korean national curriculum reform has been driven by the ideological commitments of eachnew government. These commitments were included in newly developed school curricula,especially in new textbooks and curriculum guides. As in the United States (see T. Yu, 2003),“moral education” was devised to inculcate group solidarity and anti-communism among SouthKorean students ( J. Yang, 2008, p. 9). In addition, values that sustained the dominant socialorder were emphasized in social studies, Korean language study, and other related subjects.The idea of nationalism was extensively emphasized as the primary virtue of Korean citizenship.

Gender-related issues were also now researched in Korea; for example, analyses of textbookcontent, subject matter construction, and classroom management. The major findings indi-cated that the daily lives and educational development of women are considered less importantthan those of men (K. Choo, 1985; C. Hur, 2006b; J. J. Kim, 1985; M. Min, 2002; Y. Yoo, 2004).In addition, Korean female students are indoctrinated to be passive and docile by internalizingand representing desirable behaviors such as obedience, patience, and respect for their hus-bands. Such discriminatory and oppressive practices are still evident today, even in the first yearof Korean elementary schooling (Y. C. Kim, 1997). In addition, using Thorne’s approach togender analysis (1993), Changsoo Hur (2006b) also documented Korean women’s experiencesof gender stereotyping in secondary schools.

The problems arising from a gendered curriculum have been recognized since the 1990s bythe Korean government. One of the major projects administered by the Department of Womenand Welfare is to critically assess the discriminatory content and practices taught in Koreanschools and replace them with a more “gender-fair curriculum” ( J. Kim & S. Wang, 1999).However, even though the formal curriculum emphasizes gender equity, the deep-rootedpreference for boys remains embedded in the cultural life of Korean schools. Interestingly, thehistorical doctrine of Korean Confucianism (which considers boys superior to girls) is stilldelivered and reproduced through classroom interactions between teachers and students bymeans of a not-so-always-hidden curriculum. The emancipatory voices and actions for women’srights have become, however, one of the leading discourses in Korean society in the 21st

century.

Researching Curriculum Through Inquiry on Teachers’ Lives. As the term teachers’ lives implies, thepurpose of this method is to study Korean teachers’ lives and their lived worlds from post-positivist perspectives. These perspectives differ dramatically from “process-product” researchparadigms (Floden, 2001). The process-product approach to classroom teaching behaviourshas been prevalent in Korean quantitative research, educational administration, and teachingeffectiveness research. It is still one of the most important topics in Korean curriculumresearch. It is common to read research that purports to measure teachers’ effectivenessthrough program implementation and teaching behaviour.

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The new paradigm is not concerned with the “effectiveness” of teaching behaviour butrather with the understanding of teachers’ lives and worlds. Researchers believe that classroomteachers’ attitudes about what and how to teach are seriously influenced by their everydayschool environment. For example, Y. C. Kim’s (2005a, 2005b) books Starry Night: KoreanTeachers’ Lives and Their World I and Starry Night: Korean Teachers’ Lives and Their World II includereports that teachers with high expectations abandoned their educational philosophy due topeer pressure and the hierarchical order of the school administration. Korean researchers havecome to recognize the significance to teaching of teacher’s lives in large part due to readingWestern scholars such as Ayers (1993), Bullough (1989), Goodson (1992), and Sykes (2001).Reading the work of these scholars enabled Korean scholars to recognize that teachers them-selves can be understood as “curriculum makers” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988).4 Furthermore,studying teachers’ lives and learning about their professional expertise is considered verysignificant to understanding the classroom dynamics of school curriculum and, therefore, inutilizing “understanding” for curriculum improvement. Finally, curriculum scholars recog-nized that the classroom teacher is not simply a passive implementer of curriculum but a keydecision maker in the enactment of school curriculum.

Without knowing about teachers’ individual, social, and cultural lives, it is not possibleto formulate suggestions that might lead to curriculum improvement. Since 2000, Koreanresearchers have paid sustained attention to studying teachers’ lives and their teachingprofession (D. H. Kim & K. Park, 2003; S. J. Kim, 2006; Y. C. Kim, 2005a; Kim, 2005b; Y. C.Kim, J. Jung & Y. Lee, 2006; J. Lee & Y. Choi, 2007a, 2007b). The areas studied include 1)Korean school culture, 2) teachers’ responses to the pressures of national educationalreform, 3) teaching for university entrance examination, 4) teachers’ lives in isolatedregions, 5) marginalized teachers’ stories, 6) successful teachers’ stories, 7) first-year teach-ers, and 8) Korean teachers’ personal practical knowledge (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988). Inaddition, Kwangju National University of Education has established a Center for the Cultureof Elementary Schooling that has produced considerable research on classroom teachers’lives (J. Lee & Y. Choi, 2007a). Teacher development has been heavily researched in cur-riculum studies, teacher education, and educational administration through life historyapproaches (Y. C. Kim, J. Jung, & Y. Lee, 2006; H. K. Lee, 2005; J. Lee & Y. Choi, 2007b;J. W. Lee, 2008).

As a consequence of these research initiatives, many teachers have been encouraged to sharetheir classroom stories, students’ stories, and school stories based on their autobiographicalexperiences (W. Jang, 2009; S. J. Kim, 2006; C. Lee, 1998). These revealing tales are chieflynegative, often critical of working conditions in schools. The most representative tale in thisgenre is The Death of a Baby Bird by Chiseok Lee (1998). Lee candidly reported teachers’practices of categorizing students and the prevalence of misunderstandings, even conflict,among many teachers. As the subtitle, A Shameful Diary of Teaching by a Classroom Teacher,foretells, the book reveals various negative cultures of Korean schooling: principals’ apparentlyomnipotent power, sexism, and the inappropriate or questionable use of school budgets. Thisbook reminded readers of Western texts such as Alex Kotlowitz’s (1991) There Are No ChildrenHere and Jonathan Kozol’s (1967) Death at an Early Age.

Inquiry into teachers’ lives seems destined to become even more popular in Korea as manyclassroom teachers cite such studies as contributing to their professional development. Indeed,research on teachers’ lives has received considerable attention from classroom teachers as wellas from scholars of education. Classroom teachers have used action research to study theirschools and classrooms and have reported on ideas for improvement in master’s theses,doctoral dissertations and professional books (D. S. Lee, 2009; O. Kim, 2010; S. Kim, 2008;Park, Park, & Moon, 2008).


The use of qualitative methods such as ethnography, action research, narrative inquiry,autobiography, and participant observation indicate the extent to which reconceptualistideas have been both historically incorporated into South Korean curriculum studies andcreatively recontextualized. Combined with critical inquiries into curriculum as a means ofsocial production and reproduction, these methodologies have helped Korean curriculumscholars to uncover local practices of school knowledge and determine new focuses ofresearch. In the next section, I turn to the present context of Korean curriculum studies andtrace the reverberations of RD through postcolonial and multicultural perspectives. I alsoconsider the place and future of RD in relation to traditionalist curriculum studies in SouthKorea.

Korean Curriculum Studies: Defining the Present Terrain

Despite its genesis in the West, RD has enabled Korean scholars to shift their attention awayfrom Western curriculum theory to the formulation of Korean theory focused on Koreanpractices. As suggested in the previous section, reconceptualist ideas have contributedto Korean curriculum studies in three main ways: (1) stimulating a more complex and diverseunderstanding of curriculum, (2) generating alternative research methodologies, and(3) inspiring a general increase in research on curriculum practices. These contributions havebeen crucial in shifting the long tradition of Tylerian approaches to curriculum in South Koreaand in opening new research directions. For example, curriculum is now being studied asphenomenological experience (D. H. Kim & H. Kim, 2003; K. Lee, 2006), as currere (H. Han,2009; H. Lee, 2002), as emancipation (C. Hur, 2006b; B. Kim, 2007) and, from postmodern andpostcolonial perspectives, as the reproduction of “white” knowledge and culture ( J. Joo, 2006;Y. C. Kim, 2005). These new orientations are well represented in major journals of educationin Korea through research based on three central RD concepts: currere, lived experience, andpraxis.5 The popularity of qualitative methods is also evident in conference presentations. The2008 fall conference of the Korean Curriculum Studies Association (KSCS, 2008) was, forexample, the first formal conference in Korea to choose post-positivist curriculum methods asthe conference theme and to support presentations on autobiographical, phenomenological,and arts-based research methods.

The three major influences of reconceptualization mentioned above suggest the “Korean-ization” of RD. What I mean by the “Koreanization of RD” is the development of an indigenousor context-specific theme for Korean curricular practices alongside the ideas of Western RD.Koreanization is the search for new language, concepts, and terminologies to help Koreansunderstand Korean practices differently from the perspective of Western RD which someregard as a meta-narrative implying totality, universality, and absoluteness. What I dream forthe Koreanization of RD is the development of regional/local curriculum discourses andmethodologies which better understand, represent, and analyze Korean practices.

Postcolonialism and the Koreanization of RD

Reconceptualization has itself been reconceptualized from a postcolonial perspective, enablingits theorists and practitioners to search for more situated and indigenous forms of knowledge.In this redefined field, Korean researchers work to formulate/discover topics of research thatmight be able to answer questions specific to Korea’s own curriculum phenomena. In addition,these researchers now feel authorized to relate Korean intellectual traditions to Westerncurriculum theory. Driven by postmodernism and postcolonialism, this latest trend is taking

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Korean conceptualizations of curriculum studies in new directions that include respecting theKorean context, creating curriculum questions that are meaningful for this context, andconstructing situated answers without Western references.

Using Western references is connected to conventions of writing. According to LaurelRichardson’s (1990) Writing Strategies, the convention in academic writing is to begin bynaming major figures and theories in the field. It is the most common strategy in human andsocial science writing (Bazerman, 1987). As Korean curriculum researchers, we follow thisperspective. We start our writing with the ideas and names of recognized scholars and possiblyconclude with ideas similar to these scholars. However, this practice of writing can make itdifficult for Korean researchers to transgress the boundaries of curriculum research and tosee Korean practices differently from the West. I dream of a day when we Koreans do notneed to start with Western curriculum scholars’ names and their theories in order to legiti-matize our own academic writing. Curiously, this alternative practice of writing, as with otherpostcolonial practices, has been stimulated by Western ideas of multiplicity, difference, anddeconstruction.

I would suggest three leading examples of postcolonial research that illustrate the Korean-ization of RD. First, J. K. Lee’s (2003) work problematizes the cultural practice of Hakbeol inKorean society. According to Lee (2003, p. 17), Hakbeolism means that people judge each otheron the basis of educational background rather than on ability or point of view. In Korea,Hakbeol is an important form of social capital that influences career achievement and socialsuccess, but is also a mechanism that establishes and reproduces inequality. The major ideahere is that social networking and communication are determined by the degree of formaleducation a person has and, specifically, by the prestige of the university attended and whetherit is foreign or domestic. Hakbeol is an indigenous practice that influences social and educa-tional networks within Korean society.

Since Hakbeol is one of the most powerful forms of social capitals in South Korea, Koreanparents want to send their students the prestigious universities because entering the universitiesguarantees their future success in Korean society. Korean parents’ perpetuation of the socialfunction of Hakbeol has pushed their students to study harder. They devote a significant portionof their salaries to private tutoring for their children.

From middle to high school, the emphasis is on preparing students so that they will receivesatisfactory SAT scores. Students’ life and learning at school is characterized by learning abouttest taking skills, excessive competitiveness, and rote learning.

Social recognition and appreciation of Hakbeol has also changed how the school is orga-nized. The most common example is the establishment of a “superior class.” Even though suchteaching is not permitted by the South Korean Department of Education, it is used extensively,albeit secretly, in South Korean schools. Students in South Korea prepare to become candi-dates for these superior classes from the moment they enter elementary school. The student inthe superior class are chosen and taught by a particular school’s selection system, and receivespecial tutoring programs for entrance into prestigious universities.

South Korea is a country in which excessive competition is prevalent to obtain the socialcapital of Hakbeol and students’ school lives are structured for that purpose. Even though schoolteachers and administrators acknowledge the “whole child” or “educated person” as thepurpose of South Korean education, they feel the need to satisfy parents’ request, and pressure,to prepare their children for prestigious universities.

When considered as a postcolonial area of research, the following questions become impor-tant: (1) How does the idea of Hakbeolism influence Korean schooling and curriculum imple-mentation? (2) What is the students’ currere under the influence of Hakbeolism? (3) What kindsof indigenous research concepts and methods should be used to study schooling driven by


Hakbeolism? (4) If Hakbeolism is an indigenous concept, how did it develop through Koreanhistory? (5) How can postcolonial Korean curriculum researchers reconceptualize Hakbeolismwithin or beyond the bounds of social and cultural reproduction of education? (6) How canKorean scholars create international discourse and dialogue? (7) How can Korean scholarsKoreanize the discourse about Hakbeolism when their scholarship has been so heavily influ-enced by Western curriculum researchers and writers?

The second example is Young Chun Kim’s (2007) research on Hakwon titled “Secrets ofacademic success of Korean students: Stories of Hakwon.” Hakwon are private institutes of educa-tion often referred to as “cram schools” or “shadow education.” The issue here is that eventhough most Korean students from elementary to high school attend Hakwon every day afterschool to further their education, this national phenomenon has never been researched incurriculum studies, perhaps because it has never been discussed as an important theme inWestern fields of education. However, the real issue is that Korean students evaluate theseinstitutes as better places of learning than school (Y. C. Kim, H. Song, Y. Joo, & I. Hwang,2008). I judge that these institutes offer a very unique site for developing new methods oflearning and evaluation that can improve students’ academic achievement. Following year offieldwork, Kim has discovered what makes Hakwon (private institutes) better than Hakkyo(public schools). According to Kim’s analysis (2007) there are four major characteristicsregarding the effectiveness of Hakwon education: (1) the importance of learning by repeti-tion; (2) a tracking system based on the idea of individualized instruction; (3) continuousassessment; and (4) sharing ideas and information on student’s progress between theHakwon and the student’s parents. As an indigenous educational practice in South Korea andin other countries such as Japan, Taiwan, China, and Singapore, Hakwon needs to be studiedas an important regional curriculum issue.

A third area of postcolonial research by South Korean scholars focuses on alternative formsof schooling. The research is based on some South Koreans’ consciousness of the crisis in, anddiagnosis of, the pitfalls of Korean schooling, and active aspirations to search for alternativeschools to realize the original purpose of public schooling. Some South Korean parents andstudents do not believe that objectives related to the “whole child” or “child with creativity,imagination, and problem solving skills” can be reached within the current South Koreanpublic school system, and therefore seek new kinds of schools and alternative teachingmethods. There is a belief among these South Korean citizens that students’ school lives inthese alternative learning environments will be more educational, happier, and less competi-tive, and thus more likely to realize the aforementioned educational objectives.

As a practical response against the current state of the Korean public school system, varioustypes of schools have appeared during the 2000s. Some examples are as follows: (1) smallinformal schools in rural areas, (2) home schooling, or (3) schools based on real-life experi-ence and freedom. Some parents have chosen to immigrate to the United States, Canada,Australia, or New Zealand for their children’s education. Often mothers stay in these foreigncountries to care for their children while fathers stay in South Korea to earn the money neededto support this two-country alternative. A few studies have documented this exodus for educa-tion (W. Oh, 2008; N. Park, 2003).

With this new wave of knowledge emerging from postmodern and postcolonial perspectives,some South Korean scholars have begun to reject Western curriculum theories as meta-narratives. For some time, South Korean scholars have turned to these theories with the hopethat they would provide the answers to the matters of curriculum in South Korean schooling.Instead, They are beginning to appreciate the value and importance of Korean references andknowledge. They are now studying the old Korean scholars in educational philosophy andother related disciplines (Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, etc.) to uncover earlier ideas

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about curriculum-related topics. For example, they conduct research in Korean history, and tryto recover the philosophy, social thoughts, and political theories relevant to curriculum knowl-edge, and relate its meaning and significance to the new scholarship of postcolonial curriculumtheorizing in South Korea.

From that perspective, they question the relevance of Western curriculum theorise to Korea,again by employing Western ideas. For example, Y. C. Kim (2005) questioned the validity of RDin Korea by introducing Lather’s (1993) concept of “postmordern validity.” Kim used theconcepts of “ironic validity” and “simulacra validity” to emphasize the importance of localdiscourse, which is, studying/answering Korea’s own curriculum questions. J. Joo (2006)analyzed South Korean history textbooks and concluded that images of “Oriental” societies(Said, 1979) were described as negative and inferior. J. J. Lee (2006) and M. Oh and J. Lee(2004) applied ideas of Neo-Confucianism in South Korean curriculum discourse to Westernpostmodern curriculum theorizing. this courageous analysis represented one of the firstattempts by Korean scholars (with non-Western philosophical backgrounds) to participate inWestern curriculum studies. the authors studies Zhu Xi’s Eastern philosophy and related hisconcept of human subjectivity to postmodernism. Zhu Xi was the pioneer philosopher ofNeo-Confucianism: he theorized that human are not “rational and complete” but “incomplete,emotional, and relational.” The best way to characterize his theory of life, reality, and the worldis with the term “Ge-Wu-zhi-zhi” (self-cultivation). According to Zhu Xi, the mind is alwaysrestrained by diverse forces from within and without. For restoring the mind, we need contin-ued efforts to govern the internal and external forces that sway our mind. Ge-Wu-zhi-zhi is theway to overcome the limitations of the mind. Thus, for Zhu Xi, the purpose of education andcurriculum studies is to guide students to uncover their true selves and to understand the worldthrough self-cultivation (M. Oh & J. Lee, 2004, p. 103).

Multiculturalism and the Koreanization of RD

The position of RD in South Korean curriculum studies will likely be strengthened in the nearfuture because topics related to RD (such as race, gender, and culture) increasingly attractSouth Koreans’ attention. Owing to the increasing number of multicultural families in SouthKorea, multiculturalism and globalization in education are now becoming very practical issuesin South Korean society. Since the 2000s, South Korea has been experiencing social anddemographic changes, among them international marriage, an increase of foreign workersfrom south Asian countries, and a more internationalized market.

These social and cultural changes require educators and curriculum scholars to discussmulticulturalism as the most pressing inquiry for South Korean schooling and society. In thiscontext, critical issues such as race, ethnicity, culture, and equality are being more widely andintensively researched in South Korean curriculum studies. As a local response, Western bookson multicultural education (Banks, 2007; Bennett, 2010; Sleeter & Grant, 2009) have beentranslated into Korean (O. Kim, J. Kim, & I. Shin, 2009; K. Mo, C. Choi, & M. Kim, 2008;S. Moon, Y. C. Kim, & J. Jung, 2009). Generous funds have been given to a project on theeducational issues facing children of international marriages. A number of internationalconferences on multicultural education and globalization were held in 2009 (Ansan Multicul-tural Education Forum, 2009; Conference of the Department of Education of KyungnamProvince, 2009; First Annual International Conference of the Korean Association for Multicul-tural Education, 2009). Starting in 2010, a new course called “Understanding MulticulturalEducation” will be a required class for all elementary school teacher candidates at the 11National Universities of Education.


Traditionalist Paradigms and the Koreanization of RD

The emergence of new research directions will enable Western scholars to recognize that RDhas played important roles in extending, changing, and redefining previous curriculum dis-course in South Korea. However, tracing the historical contributions of RD does not imply thatit has become a dominant discourse. Due to its long history of traditionalist curriculum studies,Korean curriculum studies are still primarily occupied by traditionalist scholars.

In spite of these disciplinary circumstances, the historical and social geography of Koreancurriculum studies is slowly changing over time. Many will agree that Korean curriculumstudies is experiencing a proliferation of paradigms. RD has played a key role in changing theway Koreans think about what constitutes curriculum studies. Even so, it is not clear if détenteafter the “paradigm war” will arrive any time soon (Gage, 1989). Perhaps there will be tradi-tionalists who will switch allegiance to RD. There is at least one instance of this: Since the early2000s, Professor Daehyun Kim at Pusan National University has been using phenomenologyto study students’ lived experiences of the formal curriculum (Y. C. Kim, 2010). Severaltraditionalist curriculum researchers also participate in RD by translating Western books onreconceptualist ideas (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Connelly, 1988; Pinar et al., 1995; Polking-horne, 1988) into Korean and by writing on topics of reconceptualization in Korean journals(H. Kang, 2007; K. J. Lee & K. J. Kim, 2005).

Other forms of intellectual engagement with RD among traditionalist curriculum research-ers surface in textbooks, as well as in public conversations at conferences. One telling pieceof evidence was the October 2009 newsletter of the KSCS Association in which plans wereannounced to publish two types of books: 1) those focused on developing curriculum, and 2)those devoted to understanding curriculum. In these ways, traditionalist curriculum research-ers also contribute to the dissemination of RD in South Korea.

CONCLUSION: DECOLONIZING CURRICULUM STUDIES

We could never guess whether our transnational encounters were by chance or predetermined in thelegacy of colonialism. However, what we do know is that we (have) desperately needed each other todecolonize and mobilize our academic works for us, our communities and the politics of living togetherharmoniously in transnational localities.

Rhee & Subreenduth (2006, p. 545)

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great judgment Seat;But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth.

Kipling (2008, p. 233)

This tale of South Korea offers Western scholars a case study in the reconceptualization ofcurriculum inquiry elsewhere. To portray the history of RD in South Korea, I identified threekey periods: 1) production of translated texts, 2) production of Korean texts, and 3) analysis ofschool curriculum. Reconceptualist ideas are, then, not restricted to the West but have beenimported into South Korea. I hope this tale functions as an invitation to curriculum scholars inother non-Western countries to narrate their local histories for scholars East and West as partof a new research field in global curriculum studies (Cary, 2007; Eppert & Wang, 2007; Pinar,2003).

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Composing non-Western narratives of curriculum reconceptualization presents local dis-courses; in so doing, it advances the field of curriculum internationally. The value of compos-ing local tales goes beyond the simple narration of intellectual history and advancement;potentially, it functions to usher in a future era of post-Western curriculum studies. Sincecurriculum scholars from different regions will bring diverse ethnic and indigenous perspec-tives to understanding curriculum (and RD specifically) internationally, composing an intel-lectual history of RD from a non-Western site constitutes, I hope, an act of critical examination,questioning, even transgressing fixed boundaries between Western and Eastern discourses.Curriculum studies scholars in ignored regions such as Asia and Africa must tell Westernersthat there are particular knowledges and traditions, perhaps not appreciated in the West, thatcomprise major resources for Asian and African thought and imagination on curriculum.

In addition, the theorization of non-Western experience can constitute projects of self-discovery, enabling one to appreciate and develop one’s own situated ideas and perspectives inthe formation of new curriculum knowledge. In recent Western curriculum studies, indigenousknowledge and research methods within postcolonial and multi-cultural perspectives havebeen emphasized (Denzin, Lincoln, & Smith, 2008; Eppert & Wang, 2007; Johnston, 2003;Kanu, 2006; Timothy, 2005). Such postcolonial efforts are acknowledged within discourses ofglobalization as well (During, 1998). For instance, chapter 2 of Kanu’s (2006) book is titled,“Indigenous Knowledge as Postcolonial/Anti-Colonial Resistance.” Semali and Kincheloe(1999) also discuss the possibilities of using indigenous knowledge in reviving the story ofresearch and in developing critical voices in non-Western regions. Smith (1999) has analyzedthe “positional superiority” of Western knowledge and requested scholars in other countries tosearch for alternative knowledge bases and research methods. She illustrated 25 researchtechniques in studying the Maori in New Zealand. Finally, Eppert and Wang’s (2007) Cross-Cultural Studies in Curriculum is an insightful and landmark volume in the area of postcolonialcurriculum theorizing. It is helpful, I think, for Western scholars to advance their ideas oncurriculum and teaching based on Western legacies and on triangulation with different nation-ally distinctive theories of curriculum.

This tale of Korea has certain limitations as well. First, it is not comprehensive: Other Koreantraditions of education and their influence on curriculum studies have not been addressedhere. For example, I have not discussed the powerful cultural meaning of education in Korea.Nor have I addressed in adequate detail the specific conditions of school life in Korea. Forexample, unlike Bullough’s (1989) observations in First Year Teacher, the major dilemma forKorean teachers is not classroom management, but rather the psychological stress of respectingthe traditional hierarchical order of Korean schools in which the rights and choices of seniorteachers and administrators are predominant. In another example, C. Hur (2006) found thatprivate education played a key role in influencing students’ gender development in Korea.

Finally, I hope that my article will encourage Korean scholars and scholars in other non-Western regions to theorize their indigenous knowledge and to use this knowledge to critiqueWestern meta-narratives, no longer accepting them uncritically. Ironically perhaps, RD encour-ages us non-Western scholars to respect our regional studies as more relevant and critical. AsLather (2006) notes:

Here hybrids make productive use of being left to authority and legitimization as we search for practicesthat open to the irreducible heterogeneity of the other. Facing the problems of doing research in thishistorical time, between the no longer and the not yet, the task is to produce different knowledge andproduce knowledge differently. (p. 52)

Thus, the Korean disposition of respecting Western knowledge (and specifically reconceptu-alization) as unquestioned truth and always trustworthy must be reconsidered and consistently


questioned. Writing this non-Western tale can constitute a moment of cultural resistance in theworldwide effort to decolonize curriculum studies, ushering in, perhaps, a post-colonial era inwhich the “empire writes back” (Aschcroft, 2002).

Reading non-Western tales may present a challenge not only to scholars of curriculum inthe East. It might well constitute a challenge to scholars of the West, encouraging a processof deconstruction and self-reflectivity on “objective” positions of Western knowledge andtheorization. The cosmopolitan spirit of postmodern and postcolonial sciences requires all toconsider what might have been excluded, decentered, and marginalized in present Westernknowledge. Scholars in the West might pose questions such as: “Why is Western curriculumknowledge not valid in this case (country)? In what ways should Western knowledge andideas not be considered a grand narrative?” When Western scholars of curriculum try to findanswers to these questions, then RD—and curriculum studies generally—can be character-ized as more culturally expansive, globalized, and situated, and begin to emerge as trulytransnational.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author deeply appreciates the academic suggestions and advice of Professor Dennis Thiessen and theother editors of Curriculum Inquiry. This article could not be qualitatively improved without their profes-sional expertise and insights on this topic. In addition, the author as a non-native speaker of English, isvery thankful for Ms. Arleen Schenke’s editing assistance. Her wonderful editing work allowed theoriginal manuscript to be reborn as a journal article for English readers.

NOTES

1. RD has been criticized by traditional curriculum researchers (Hlebowitsh, 1995; Jackson, 1992; Wraga,1998). It should be pointed out here that although W. F. Pinar—the architect of reconceptualization—was included as a contributing author in Jackson’s (1992) Handbook of Research on Curriculum, a seriesof references related to reconceptualization (school culture, teachers’ and students’ experiences, class,and gender issues) were made in the handbook, including by Jackson himself (1992, 32ff.).

2. As a representative of South Korea in the International Association for the Advancement of Curricu-lum Studies, I have participated in international conferences since 2002, and especially at Shanghai(2003) and Finland (2006). Seventeen Korean curriculum scholars attended the Shanghai Confer-ence. I recognized that knowing about curriculum studies in Asian, African, and European countriesin addition to North America would be important for the future. Sharing my ideas with foreignscholars from around the world and listening to their research stories fueled me to realize that myfuture direction in curriculum studies was not to follow the path of Western curriculum scholarsbut to create a new path of curriculum theorizing based on my local experiences and indigenousknowledge. Since then, I have been engaged in studying local phenomena and practices of Koreanschooling.

3. According to Giroux, Penna, and Pinar (1981, pp. 14–18), traditionalists ask what goals schools shouldseek to attain but not what goals specific socio-economic classes should seek to attain and in what waysschools as presently organized block the attainment of class goals. The traditionalist framework raisesquestions about the best and most efficient way to obtain a specific kind of knowledge (e.g., “culturalheritage”), create moral consensus, and provide a curriculum that keeps the existing society function-ing. The phrase curriculum development refers to developing plans for an educational program, includ-ing the identification and selection of educational objectives, the selection of learning experiences, theorganization of learning experiences, and the evaluation of the educational program.

4. While Clandinin and Connelly have clearly contributed to the reconceptualization of curriculum, theynot do see their work as similar to the reconceptualists described in Pinar (1975). The work of

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Clandinin and Connelly is understood in Korea as a major influence on RD due to their theorizationof teachers’ experience based on narrative inquiry and curriculum as lived experience.

5. Journals that publish studies related to RD include The Korean Journal of Sociology of Education, The KoreanJournal of Curriculum Studies, The Korean Journal of Open Education, and The Korean Journal of ElementaryEducation.

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