In Search of Identity in Korean Sociology

Abstract

Let me start with my anguish over the selec tion of books. The editor asked me to write a review that would give readers a fair sense of what is and has been happening in sociology in Korea. He suggested that I look at the fea tured essays on the ten most influential books of the past 25 years in the May 1996 issue. In an effort to identify the most influential books, I first went through recent issues of major Korean journals in the field. I discovered that most references were to Western literature, particularly that written in English. Western literature also dominates the reading list for graduate courses at major universities in Ko rea. A number of the colleagues I consulted found it difficult to identify Korean produced books influential among Korean sociologists. It appears that Western authors have been enjoying far more extensive influence and readership than Koreans in the sociology COIIIs munity of this nation. Sociology was early recognized, in 1946, as a major discipline by the establishment of a distinct department at Seoul National University (SNU), then newly founded as a national center for higher learning in postcolonial Korea. Currently, however, less than a quarter of Korean colleges and universities 34 out of over 140 operate degree granting programs in sociology. Two thirds of these programs started after 1981. The directory of the Korean Sociological Association (KSA), which has grown from 14 founding tnembers in 1957 to a membership of over 600, shows that domestic graduate training has been highly concentrated in a few institutions, with approximately laalf of the faculty members in sociology holding foreign graduate degrees, for the most part, U.S. Ph.D's. Not until the latter half of the past decade did Korean universities begin to produce a substantial number of systematically trained doctorates in sociology. The paucity and short history of institu tionalized programs, however, should not be mistaken for an indication of the discipline's low status in Korea. Owing to the reputation and influence of sociology as a critical and pro gressive discipline, the establishment of soci ology departments was restricted under successive authoritarian regimes. Throughout the late 1980s, sociology majors took active roles in the student moveIllent for democracy and social justice. In the wake of the dramatic expansion of higher education by abrupt government promulgation in 1981, a young generation of sociologists made inroads into academia as junior faculty members at somewhat less