The Concept of Care in Curriculum Studies

Juxtaposing Currere and Hakbeolism

Jung-Hoon Jung

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317384618
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Curricula

The question at the heart of the book is what might an education with self-care and care-for-others look like? Juxtaposing self-understanding through the method of currere and the historical character of hakbeolism (a concept indigenous to Korea referring to a kind of social status people achieve based on a shared academic background), this book articulates how subjective reconstruction of self in conjunction with historical study can be transformative, and how this can be extended to social change. Articulating how having one's own standard can be a way of making one's life a work of art, the author looks at how Korean schooling exercises coercive care, disconfirmation, and the "whip of love" for the children's own good. Emphasis is given to the internalized status of these practices in both students and teachers and to teachers' and parents' culpability not only in exercising but also in reproducing these practices through themselves.

Going beyond describing and analysing the educational problem of academic (intellectual) achievement-oriented education based on aggressive competition, this book suggests ways to address these issues through autobiography (using the method of currere to reconstruct one's subjectivity) and an ethic of care.

1
Hakbeolism

The problems with standardized tests are universal educational concerns. In Korea, these problems have unique elements that require historical interrogation. Tenth-century Korea provides a clue to this emphasis on testing: hakbeolism, a uniquely Korean concept of symbolic capital based on hierarchical status or on the reputation of the school a person graduates from. Those graduating from the same educational institution gain social capital while also helping and relying on each other. Hakbeol is thus obtainable, for many, via high test scores on university entrance examinations. This chapter analyzes the test-focused nature of Korean education and its links to the historical, cultural, and political issues that are closely related to hakbeolism.

What Is Hakbeolism?

Hakbeolism is a concept that is indigenous to Korea. Hakbeol is a kind of social status people achieve based on a shared academic background. It is also “a group of people who help and rely on each other, who are from the same school” (Hakbeol, 2015). That is, it is a group of alumni who share the “societal status or reputation of their school” (J. K. Lee, 2003, p. 21). Strictly speaking, their university’s reputation rather than their ability or knowledge thus determines how they are judged by others.

While hakbeolism is similar to credentialism—in both, people place value on others’ credentials—these phenomena are different. In-sook Nahm’s (2011) differentiation is helpful for readers in the West:

In the transition from a status society to a credential society, credentials become the most reliable criteria by which to evaluate others’ abilities. A credential society is a society in which credentialism functions as a predominant ideology. … Credentials are social products and achieving them is an effective way to be successful in the society. This phenomenon functions as a major impetus for the movement in American social status. America is a “functional credential society” since it is focused on the functional attributes and abilities of the credentials, whereas Korea is a “symbolic credential society” in that it values the particular schools from which people graduate (Kim, 1995)…. To be successful in Korean society, a person must put symbolic credentials above functional credentials.

(p. 105, personal translation) ¹

In its emphasis on symbolic credentials as essential to better, higher status and more social opportunities—indeed, to success in life—hakbeolism cannot be conceived of as the same as Western credentialism. This may not be convincing enough for those who have not experienced hakbeolism. Thus, I provide three aspects of hakbeolism that might help the readers in the West to understand hakbeolism.

What makes hakbeolism an indigenous concept specific to Korea? First of all, the origin of hakbeolism makes it unique; the succeeding section provides the historical details. Secondly, hakbeolism carries positive association with social stratification and discrimination (Kim, 1995; Kim, 2004; Kim, 2007; T. H. Kim, 2011; J. K. Lee, 2003). Lastly, while credentialism is a more general and broad concept in a way that it can be achieved from various schools and institutions, which confer certificates, hakbeolism is strongly associated with formal educational institutions such as elementary, middle, and high schools, and universities. Interestingly enough, in terms of hakbeolism, graduate schools do not count as much as undergraduate schools. For example, one who graduates from an undergraduate program at Seoul University holds better capital than others who graduate only from graduate programs at the university. I think that this shows the acknowledgement of the society for passing exams (the university entrance examinations in this case, because the exam to enter graduate schools at the university is not as difficult as entering into its undergraduate programs).

Koreans tend to believe that belonging to a better hakbeol by earning a diploma from a highly ranked university will provide them with greater social capital. And it does. In his problematization of the cultural function of hakbeolism as social capital in Korean society, Young Chun Kim (2010) argues that hakbeolism has become “one of the most powerful [forms of] social capital in South Korea” (p. 543) because of its influence on individuals’ social success. Children from upper socioeconomic families, Kim posits, are more likely than others to enter good universities and obtain hakbeol. Sang Bong Kim (2004) states this argument more strongly: “The society of Korea is not stratified into upper class, middle class, and working class; rather, it is stratified by hakbeol, with that of Seoul University as the royalty, the hakbeol of Yonsei and Korea University as the nobility, and the rest of the subgroups as the plebeians” (p. 30). Without factoring in hakbeol, Sang Bong Kim argues, there is no explanation for the social authority and capital enjoyed by those belonging to certain hakbeols.

In a 2004 study produced by the Korean Women’s Development Institute (KWDI; see Park, Jung, Kim, & Park, 2004), 21.5% of respondents identified hakbeolism as the strongest source of discrimination in Korea, well ahead of other reasons for discrimination. ² Only seven years later, Tae Hong Kim (2011), a researcher at KWDI, surveyed 948 adults and found that 29.6% felt credentials or hakbeol was the strongest source of social discrimination. These surveys indicate not only that hakbeolism is pervasive, but that it is a growing social problem. In fact, 46.5% of respondents in Chong-Hyun Lee’s (2007) study feel intimidated in their daily lives by people who belong to a more prestigious hakbeol. What interests me about these studies is not the actuality of hakbeol—even though its strong impact on society clearly matters—but rather, people’s perception of it. The hakbeol phenomenon has been acknowledged and criticized in Korea, but ironically, it is also desired and pursued by many, perhaps in the same way that people criticize capitalism but want to have more money.

The predominant criticism of hakbeolism, which is mostly from a sociological perspective, focuses on social inequity issues in terms of educational experiences and the centralization of social power. These studies provide highly detailed information about how deeply hakbeolism affects social structures and people’s psyches. In his Hakbeol Society (2004), for example, Sang Bong Kim takes a sociological and psychological stance in critiquing hakbeol, arguing that it is a kind of “corruptive collective subjectivity fallen into the bottomless pit of inauthenticity” (p. 193). ³ According to Kim, authentic collective subjectivity has its rationale when both my subjectivity and yours remain alive and are actualized within our collective identity. In my view, however, subjectivity influenced by hakbeolism loses its vitality, since hakbeol is established at the expense of individual subjectivities. Within a hakbeol collective, individuals surrender their power of subjectivity to the collective.

Why is hakbeolism at odds with subjectivity? Hakbeols are an extended form of family, modernized clans. Historically, Korean society was a clan society, but the notion of clans significantly weakened during the Japanese colonial period, the Korean War, and the subsequent dictatorships (Kim, 2004, pp. 179–183). This modernization process, Kim (2004) argues, transformed the traditional form of family: “People who moved to cities in order to work lost their connections, the clans that used to link them to each other and to their society” (p. 183). Not surprisingly, a person who feels anxious about this process may try to become part of a clan-based community to replace that loss of family (Kim, 2004). Hakbeols thus help to reduce what Kim calls the common “regressive phenomenon” (p. 193) that Koreans affected by modernization have felt as their family ties have weakened. Kim’s (2004) point is that hakbeolism assuages a kind of social and individual immaturity by submerging individual subjectivities in the “corruptive collective subjectivity” (p. 193) in which subjectivities conform to the collective subjectivity. ⁴ The root issue here, from my perspective, is simply the loss of people’s awareness of their individual subjectivity, a problem that I turn to in the following sections.

The Birth of Hakbeolism

Jung Kyu Lee (2003), another Korean sociologist studying hakbeolism, traces its origins to 958 AD, near the beginning of Korea’s Goryeo Dynasty (918–1392). This date marks the implementation of the gwageo, the highest-level state examination used to recruit high-ranking officials. ⁵ The relationship between examiner and examinee, one that would last for the rest of their lives, was considered as important as that between father and son (Korean Studies Promotion Service, 2015). Thus, for example, when the examiner (father) became successful, the son shared in that success. The gwageo was in that sense also a way to build political parties. In different areas and forms and to varying degrees, this phenomenon lasted almost 1000 years, until the Gabo Reform in 1894.

While the social effects of this system are important, J. K. Lee (2003) points out that the gwageo was not the only way that officials were recruited. There were other systems: the umso (蔭敍), a “protected appointment system” (p. 48) used during the Goryo and Chosun dynasties to select persons from high-ranking families whose ancestors had made contributions to the country in founding the dynasty, and the chungeo (薦擧), the system by which officials could recommend a certain number of people for certain official positions. Because of the political struggles between kings and powerful families throughout the dynasties, the umso and chungeo were used by families to pass on their family power, whereas the gwageo was used by the king to reduce the power of these families. Thus, we should not attribute hakbeolism to the gwageo alone; rather, all three systems contributed to the growth of hakbeolism because they all privileged a few not according to merit but to personal connections. Nevertheless, although the gwageo was abolished more than a century ago, its basis for selection most clearly contributes to today’s hakbeolism.

The Growth of Hakbeolism

The End of the Chosun Dynasty and the Japanese Colonial Period

The turbulent twentieth century greatly strengthened hakbeolism in Korea. Toward the end of the Chosun Dynasty (1392–1910), “commoners’ discontent with the exclusive social status formation increased” (J. K. Lee, 2003, p. 91). By this point, it had become possible for commoners to achieve nobility through success on the gwageo, so common people increasingly sought to obtain higher social status through education. This growing reason to pursue education was strengthened when the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945) opened up educational opportunities to all (J. K. Lee, 2003; Son, 1993). Educational background rather than one’s social status started to be critical to finding work and establishing social status. Japanese educational policy during this period was intended to make education a way for Koreans to achieve power: the “appropriate educational background was prerequisite to getting jobs and the Japanese colonial government had complete control over education, which their test system made possible” (Son, 2007, pp. 41–42).

Some sociologists, such as Jong-Hyun Son (2007), ascribe today’s educational fever and test competitiveness in Korea to this Japanese educational policy, because the Korean education system was modernized and institutionalized during this era. Although Son’s argument seems plausible to me as far as it goes, the much older gwageo and other selection systems discussed previously had already established the cultural norms of hakbeolism—the employment of entrance exams and textbooks, and the administrative role of the government in various exams—that these twentieth-century changes entrenched.

Centralization and Efficiency in Education After the Korean War

Notions of centralization and efficiency marked the Korean educational system after the Korean War (1950–1953). Trampled by powerful countries and socially and economically devastated during these years, Korea had to emphasize centralization, nationalism, and universalism in order to revive the nation. Unity in language, in the educational system, and even in ways of thinking was therefore highly valued. Political universalism, aimed at binding all Koreans into one collective, was considered “the only way to break through the national crisis”(Kim, 2008, pp. 148–149). ⁶ Solidarity was promoted as indispensable, regardless of the government in power; and given the country’s strong centralization, “anyone who thought differently or wanted a different kind of education was excluded” (Kim, 2008, p. 149). Justified by the Miracle on the Han River, ⁷ for instance, this approach saw the achievement of remarkable economic development within a relatively short period of time, a result that commended this approach to many.

To advance national solidarity, Jung Hee Park’s military government (1961–1979) pledged to pursue two policies: anticommunism and economic development. The combination was intended to ensure that the Korean people had clear evidence of the enemy outside of the country and that economic development would legitimize the government’s power. In the name of economic development, then, efficiency in conjunction with political solidarity became Korea’s most important social and educational value. While this solidarity and nationalism certainly were valuable in overcoming the national crisis after the Korean War, they discounted the people’s subjectivities and discouraged educational diversity: variety, differences, and discussions were rejected as inefficient (Y. Lee, 2003). These approaches also hampered the development of democracy itself, because political diversity is a prerequisite for democracy.

For the sake of efficiency in education, in the 1960s and early 70s the national Ministry of Education implemented Bloom’s taxonomy, Mager’s concept of behavioral objectives, Skinner’s behavioral psychology, and McClelland’s achievement motive theory, all approaches intended to “improve” educational efficiency by optimizing the transfer of knowledge and skills from teachers to students. Also in the 1970s the Ministry of Education introduced Jerome Bruner’s (1959) “theory of the structure of knowledge,” deciding that “Bruner’s theory corresponded to Piaget’s psychological schema” (Y. Lee, 2003, p. 547). Along with the already well-established Tyler-Bloom-Mager rationale that saw curriculum as a means to an end, the Korean government’s relatively narrow understanding and use of both theories ⁸ effectively ensured that within the Korean test-focused system, curriculum was extrinsically imposed. The notion of “curriculum development,” rather than “curriculum understanding,” continues to prevail in the understanding of the people about what education is or should be.

In the frame of curriculum development, university entrance examinations are still seen as efficiently summarizing students’ previous education; therefore, most educational experiences in and out of school continue to focus on test preparation. Of course Korean students do engage in other activities such as art, the playing of musical instruments, sports, or elocution that are not closely related to tests. But as students progress through schooling, these activities become secondary and eventually tend either to be sacrificed to improving academic achievement or to become test-driven themselves, components that may enhance university applications. ⁹

In Korea, the last three decades have produced some ostensibly democratic changes to improve education, including reduced school hours, additional alternative curricular activities, integrated subjects, the concept of a local curriculum, and a teachers’ union that argues for the implementation of the democratic and progressive educational policies legalized during Dae Jung Kim’s administration in 1991. Even earlier, beginning in the 1980s, some curriculum scholars in Korea started to question the Ministry’s reliance on Tyler, Bloom, and Mager (Y. Lee, 2003, p. 548) and to demand an alternative understanding of curriculum. They were interested in alternatives that were based on such notions ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Hakbeolism
• 2 The Reciprocity of Currere, a Reconstruction of Self, and Autobiographical Theory
• 3 An Ethic of Care
• 4 Self-Care and Self-Understanding
• 5 Care-For-Others
• 6 Self-Care and Care-For-Others
• Conclusion
• References
• Index