Education Fever : : Society, Politics, and the Pursuit of Schooling in South Korea / / Michael J. Seth.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Asian Studies Backlist (2000-2014) eBook Package
• VerfasserIn: Seth, Michael J.,
• Place / Publishing House: Honolulu : : University of Hawaii Press, , [2002]; ©2002
• Year of Publication: 2002
• Language: English
• Series: Hawai'i Studies on Korea
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (320 p.)

In the half century after 1945, South Korea went from an impoverished, largely rural nation ruled by a succession of authoritarian regimes to a prosperous, democratic industrial society. No less impressive was the country's transformation from a nation where a majority of the population had no formal education to one with some of the world's highest rates of literacy, high school graduates, and university students. Drawing on their premodern and colonial heritages as well as American education concepts, South Koreans have been largely successful in creating a schooling system that is comprehensive, uniform in standard, and universal. The key to understanding this educational transformation is South Korean society's striking, nearly universal preoccupation with schooling-what Korean's themselves call their "education fever."This volume explains how Koreans' concern for achieving as much formal education as possible appeared immediately before 1945 and quickly embraced every sector of society. Through interviews with teachers, officials, parents, and students and an examination of a wide range of written materials in both Korean and English, Michael Seth explores the reasons for this social demand for education and how it has shaped nearly every aspect of South Korean society. He also looks at the many problems of the Korean educational system: the focus on entrance examinations, which has tended to reduce education to test preparation; the overheated competition to enter prestige schools; the enormous financial burden placed on families for costly private tutoring; the inflexibility created by an emphasis on uniformity of standards; and the misuse of education by successive governments for political purposes.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 Korean Education until 1945 -- 2 Establishing the Educational System, 1945-1951 -- 3 Expanding the Educational System -- 4 Coordinating Education with Economic Planning -- 5 The Entrance Examination System -- 6 The Costs of Educational Zeal -- 7 Education and State Control -- 8 Democratization, Prosperity, and Educational Change -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author