Moon, Rennie J., and Jeong-Woo Koo. 2011. “Global Citizenship and Human Rights: A Longitudinal Analysis of Social Studies and Ethics Textbooks in the Republic of Korea.” Comparative Education Review 55(4): 574-599.
I’ve been reading this on my lunch breaks at work (but not aloud, because people give you funny looks). Maybe if it sounds interesting, you’ll decide to read it as well, or, ask questions so that you don’t have to read it. J This is by no means a critical review; I just thought I’d share (it being the holiday season and all).
The gist of the article is that civic education in S. Korea has shifted from a nation-centric theme to one with an increased emphasis on global citizenship. They conclude that this is largely a result of textbooks becoming “more learner-centered, encouraging students to become self-directed, empowered individuals in a global society.” (574) to be honest, their results make sense and seem like a perfectly ordinary conclusion to me. It’s all the little things that add up to this along the way that I find intriguing.
Their first step is laying the foundation that mass-schooling everywhere is used to promote a strong national identity. So far, I agree. They then argue that the growing global human rights movements are influencing education systems as they focus on the inherent worth of human life. This creates a sense of “membership in both subnational and supranational groups within and beyond the state.” (575) human rights movements really are nothing new if you think about it. It reminds me of the parable about the Jew, the Samaritan, and what it means to be neighbors (if you haven’t heard this one, let me know and I’ll tell you the grand tale). Anyway, Moon and Koo are basically saying that the importance of human rights means that children are being taught about people beyond their physical, ethnic, and cultural borders- people as people and people as individuals. In order to teach about individual worth, you need to foster the individual student. Hence, student-centrism. My favorite part of their review/argument/intro comes a few sentences later when they add the qualifier that, of course, when you are discussing the growing priority of human rights, you can’t forget that there are global and local influences. This is my favorite because they’re alluding to the different “camps” in CIE- the neo-institutionalists and, well, the non-neo-institutionalists (a.k.a. culturalists). I smile because they are pretty much saying, “Yeah, we know you’re going to pick apart this next part, but that’s not the point of this paper, so we’re not going to discuss it anyway.” I went to a conference last spring where the leading scholars in this field had a virtual battle over their respective theories. There is something truly scary about an angry academic.
I like Moon and Ku’s reasoning as to why they chose S. Korea (primarily history, culture, government, and geography). I can picture how this study would turn out soooooo if they chose someplace like, say, Canada. The reason behind studying S. Korea as opposed to neighboring countries is that it has not needed to develop a strong national identity due to transitionalism. In this sense, S. Korea has used civics classes (in the past) to promote national identity, but it has not needed to create it.
That was just the intro. In the background for their study, they point out something I had never noticed but which totally makes sense.
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| (totally proud of myself for creating this in Paint- please excuse the typo) |
They ask three questions: “(1) When and to what extent do global citizenship themes appear in south Korean civics textbooks? (2) How do school textbooks discuss these new themes, and in what ways is this content learner-centered? (3) What internal and/or external factors help explain the changes?” (578) Moon and Koo offer several propositions, and no, these are not the kind of propositions that just came to mind.
Prop #1- “global citizenship themes will increase in response to cultural trends in the global institutional environment.” (578)
Prop #2- while global citizenship themes will continue to grow, “collective traditions and corporate society” aren’t going to magically disappear.
Prop #3a- “the level of student centrism in the content and design of ethics and social studies textbooks will
Prop #3b- “textbooks become more student-centered over time.” (594)
Prop #4- “Both global and local factors influenced the adoption of global citizenship education in South Korea.” (579)
When I first read these propositions, I wasn’t really paying attention, so I thought they had created five possible answers to their questions. I’ve never claimed to be the brightest bulb in the box. J
Next, they go about proving these props and explaining why they chose certain textbooks and methods. The methods make sense ( a mixed methods approach by classifying themes, coding keywords, interviews, averaging the number of keywords per page, etc.). I did have a couple of issues with the individuals they interviewed (7 academics, 13 people from NGOs, and 8 government officials). It would have been more comprehensive to see actual teachers included in the number, but I can cut them some slack since this was a top down approach looking solely at the creation and content of teaching material and not the implementation. Their choice of textbooks was already defined by the sheer fact that the government sponsors the textbooks (they do mention the Seventh National Curriculum which allows for some leeway in this), as opposed to the U.S. where textbook publication is a private industry. It is of interest to note that they chose to examine social studies and ethics textbooks rather than history textbooks. To me, this is an especially important distinction to make. I really wish they would have included history textbooks in their study, as these others will have a predetermined bias towards the authors’ propositions. I would probably make the same choice they did, for reasons of time and feasibility, but what if Michelangelo had decided to only paint grown up humans and left out all the little cherubs? The painting would be incomplete, much like this article. (ok, That was probably the worst example ever, but you get the picture- pun intended).
Rather than describe all their results and using lovely graphs and tables as proofs that they did not sit around one day drinking coffee and writing whatever they felt like, I think the following quotes sum up or make great observations about what they learned.
· “…rather than framing democracy as a global value, the primary intent of Korean civics text in the 1980s is to decry North Korean values in order to legitimate the South Korean national collective ideal.” (585)
· “The observed patterns suggest that national citizenship themes are not as prevalent as before, making space for the inclusion of new citizenship themes.” (587)
· “The fact remains that mention of global citizenship-themed words are not as frequent as their national counterparts and that mentions of all global citizenship-themed words are close to only one mention in every five pages. However, their sudden increase in coverage may imply a fundamental change in the nature of civics education in Korea.” (587)
· “Elements of student-centrism appear regardless of the type of content. Global and national citizenship themes in recent texts incorporate both content and pedagogical methods that legitimate the interests, choices, and perspectives of the student.” (589-590)
Before concluding, Moon and Koo explain the factors they believe lead to this thematic shift in textbooks. These include, but are not limited to, the Presidential election of Kim Dae-jung, his emphasis on human rights, the formation of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK), and international standards. Finally, they point out that all of their propositions were correct. They also make certain to clarify that global citizenship and nationalism do not cancel each other out and can coexist peacefully. I wonder if it’s a little too early to make that conclusion, but I suppose only time will tell.
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