Analysis of Social Innovator Attributes in Bahrom Character Education

Abstract

Recently, there has been a growing interest in social innovation serving as a new approach to social problem solving, and universities have gained much attention as social innovation actors. Since its establishment, Seoul Women’s University has been implementing Bahrom Character Education curricula as required courses, with the educational goal of “raising talents contributing to social value realization.” The purpose of this study is to examine the historical changes of Bahrom Character Education, to analyze the social innovator attributes from the curricula, and to investigate its implications on the social innovation education practices of today’s universities.</br>To meet this end, the six major publications and research reports on ‘Bahrom Character Education’ were selected and analyzed. The findings convinced us that (1) each stage of Bahrom Character Education reflected the needs of the era, (2) the educational philosophy of “raising talents contributing to society” were embedded in the curricula, and that (3) action-oriented social problem solving courses helped the students to contribute to authentic social changes. Moreover, thematic analysis highlighted seven social innovator attributes: ‘collaborative self-understanding’, ‘collaborative self-management’, ‘sense of community’, ‘empathy and communication’, ‘comprehensive problem solving ability’, ‘citizenship’, and ‘leadership’, all of which shows that the curricula of Bahrom Character Education include key characteristics of social innovation education.</br>The current study suggests that universities should make step-by-step as well as long-term growth goals for social innovation education and that the whole campus should establish social innovation education-friendly environments. However, in order to accomplish this, all university members should come to a consensus about the matter, and further provide psycho-social, administrative and financial support at the school level.