Family Life Education in South Korea

Abstract

Family life education (FLE) in South Korea (officially the Republic of Korea; Korea hereafter) has developed and expanded within a short period of time, mirroring the country’s rapid changes in the past few decades. In this chapter, we first present the background of FLE in Korea by providing an overview of the socioeconomic, historical, and cultural contexts along with recent demographic changes related to families (e.g., the decline in fertility rates to the world’s lowest level, the increase in transnational marriages between Korean men and non-Korean wives). The second part focuses on the main providers of FLE programs, Healthy Family Support Centers and Multicultural Family Support Centers, that were created as a result of new family policies developed in the 2000s. It is discussed how these Centers and related organizations design, implement, and evaluate FLE programs and what types of programs they provide. FLE is also explained in other contexts including government-initiated parenting education; FLE in secondary and higher educational systems; FLE in academic, religious, and other nongovernmental settings; and FLE-related certification. Finally, current challenges of FLE in Korea and future directions are discussed. Throughout this chapter, the focus is on FLE programs with structured curriculum except for FLE in the formal education system because they are the most typical type of FLE in Korea.