Surveys on the Middle and High School Students’ Understanding and Perceptions of the Korean Contemporary History and History Education

Abstract

As the starting point of history educational Researches focusing on learners, the question of the social contexts of student’s historical knowledge is very important. In this survey, I analyzed statistical data about middle and high school students’ understanding and perceptions of the Contemporary History of Korea and history education. The data derived from detailed examinations of learner’s understanding and perceptions of the History and history education, that were carried out by the Institute of History Education in 2010 and 2013.<BR> Generally, middle and high school students are interested in learning history, especially, nearly 30 percent of the them think that student should know more Contemporary History of Korea. And they think that learning history will do them good to understand matters now, to learn lessen and wisdom for a better future.<BR> At ‘depths interview’, students judge importance of historical events by ‘present tasks and lesson of history’. They feel serious danger reality of national division of North and South, and tend to look for historical lesson for ‘peace settlement’ from the Korean War and the Inter-Korean summit. They are very proud of the ‘development of democracy’ and value highly the ‘Gwangju Democratization Movement’ and the pro-democratic resistance movement in 1987. They hope for harmonious development of democratization and industrialization in the future, place special emphasis upon ‘distribution justice’.