This article explores national curriculum change initiated by the South Korean state by examining the 2015 curriculum reform. Relying on interviews with policy actors who participated in the curriculum-making process, I aimed to understand how certain reform ideas within an institutionalized, state-led curriculum change made--or failed to…

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the South Korean government has initiated education reform in the national curriculum and teacher education. Teacher professionalism is considered crucial to the reform components of developing competencies and agency of students by policy elites at the Ministry of Education. Hence, this study uses the frame analysis…

In this paper we examine changes to the national calculus curriculum of South Korea, where mathematics performance often serves as the mark of academic excellence. We describe relevant cultural traditions of mathematics education in South Korea, including the history of curricular changes in calculus at the secondary level. We then investigate how…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the continuity of reading passages of Korean high school English textbooks with the 2015 Revised National Curriculum using CohMetrix, a software that analyzes English texts in a range of linguistic features. Twentyone English textbooks were analyzed: 11 High School English, five High School English I,…

This study adopted the modified Delphi method to build key competence indicators for the course subject 'Environment' in the secondary school curriculum in South Korea. 15 Delphi panelists participated, and were provided a three-stage questionnaire survey. The findings classified eight secondary school 'environment' curriculum key competencies…

This paper examines how the initiation of a national-level curricular reform invites different educational ideas and how such ideas attain legitimacy through policy narratives that confer meanings about school knowledge, schooling, and the nation using the case of the South Korean national curriculum reform of 2015. By critically analysing…

The purpose of the study is to analyze 'systems of reason' that govern the discursive practices constructed in terms of lifelong learning under the name of education reform. This study examined the notion of lifelong learning as a cultural thesis describing modes of life for producing (future) citizens through an analysis of documents from the…

Many Korean scholars have praised progressive initiatives in the current Korean National Curriculum (KNC) and Korean National English Curriculum (KNEC), although they also state that the actual teaching practices have changed little. With each new iteration of the KNC it is apparent that the Korean Ministry of Education (MOE) is encouraging a…

This article explores three Korean teachers' experiences of carrying out practitioner inquiry as a means of providing meaningful teaching under the test-centred schooling regime in Korea. Practitioner inquiry is a concept that includes multiple genres of educational research such as action research, teacher research, and self-study that aim to…

Computer education has been provided for a long period of time in Korea. Starting as a vocational program, the content of computer education for students evolved to include content on computer literacy, Information Communication Technology (ICT) literacy, and brand-new computer science. While a new curriculum related to computer science was…

This article analyses and compares the motivations and (re)actions of the education authorities and parents in South Korea and mainland China towards schooling reform. The focus is on two policy initiatives -- Free Semester Programme in South Korea and Comprehensive Practical Activity Curriculum in China. Applying the theoretical constructs of…

The Korean government has been interested in developing creativity in education and has attempted to increase the creativity of schools since the mid-1990s. This study critically reviews the efforts of the Korean Government over the past 20 years. The study analyses government documents and related department website materials published since…

Background: Within the last half century, the Korean national curriculum has undergone seven periods of reform, each at intervals of just 6-8 years. The most recent "seventh curriculum" was developed in 1997, and implemented in schools from 2001. Continual curriculum change has been driven by national and social needs, keeping in line…

The idea of cosmopolitanism is emerging as an explicit aim of the Korean educational system. Over the course of its 5,000-year history, Korea has been characterized by a largely homogeneous population. In recent years, however, it has begun to face the challenges of a multicultural society, and thus the notion of cosmopolitanism plays an important…

This study investigates Korean English teachers' responses to the current English Language Teaching (ELT) policies and reveals the attributes of their professional identity from their responses. Data collected from different narratives demonstrate that the teachers value the principles of communicative language teaching, but are not supportive of…