Legitimising the need for another curriculum reform and policy framing: the case of South Korea

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper examines how the initiation of a national-level curricular reform invites different educational ideas and how such ideas attain legitimacy through policy narratives that confer meanings about school knowledge, schooling, and the nation using the case of the South Korean national curriculum reform of 2015. By critically analysing curricular proposals presented during the agenda-setting stage of the 2015 National Curriculum Reform (2015 NCR), this project sought to identify problem-definition structures of suggested educational ideas. The analyses of political communications during the early stage of the 2015 NCR were organized and presented as the following four policy narratives: Metaphors of Competition, Bread and Butter Worries, The Unhappy Protagonist, and A Place for Common Experience. This study found that policy narratives within the 2015 NCR reinforced the neoliberal ideology, Western world–centric power relations, and the authority of the state. Ultimately, the analyses of this study encourage researchers and educational leaders in different national contexts to pay attention to policy narratives that drive the transformation to a new authorized curricular text because these narratives confer or renounce status and power to particular knowledge, skills, values, and practices.