School Anti-bullying Policies in Korea: Development and Limitations

Abstract

The topic of school bullying has been seriously reported and discussed in Korea from the mid-1990s, with the several suicidal cases of bullying victims were reported. Korean government has dealt systematically with the problem of school violence and bullying, and established a series of corresponding system that covers prevention, reporting, and follow-up of a school violence act. This study purports to review the development of Korea's school anti-bullying policies and investigate their limitations as a process evaluation. After the School Violence Act was enacted in 2004, several countermeasures has been arranged systematically. The legislation stipulated that victims must report their cases to the school authorities or the police, and school districts are mandated to organize an Autonomous School Violence Solution Committee. The 117 School Violence Report Center was enlarged and School Police Officer program was adopted. The prevalence rate of school violence in Korea had been decreased after 2012. It can be said that the overall occurrence of school violence have reduced but school violence still occurs among a significant portion of students. Even if visible incidence of school violence has decreased, not only the emergence of new types of school violence but also the invisibility and severity of school violence can be strengthened. And in dealing with the school violence cases, the ambiguity of the criteria on the identification of school violence and bullying and arbitrariness of decision making process can be problematized. The judgments on punishment should be made in precluding the arbitrariness of individuals as much as possible and in accordance with the unified detailed instructions. In order to execute the anti-bullying policy more effectively, there is a need to pay attention to the problems that appeared in its policy implementation processes.