Context Of South Korea Research Articles

An Autoethnographical Study of Culture, Power, Identity and Art Education in Post‐Colonial South Korea

AbstractThis article reflects my experiences of learning art in the 1970s and 1980s and my teaching career in school art education in twenty‐first century South Korea. This autobiographical reflection shows how I have struggled with my identity as an art teacher in the post‐colonial context of Western influences on Korean society since World War II. There has been greater tension and a greater struggle for different values, practices and identities when new values and practices have been introduced into the particular socio‐cultural context of South Korea. My struggles with particular kinds of pedagogic identity valued within the rapidly changing political, economic and cultural context of Western influences on Korean art education demonstrate the hidden structural mechanism of the relationship between culture, power and identity in the post‐colonial world of globalisation. This study as an autoethnographical research provides critical insights into how identities are produced by pedagogic discourses and practices of art education that are constructed through the specific systems of practice and language which transmit and regulate such identities and values.

Reverberation and the Domestic Politics of Civil Nuclear Cooperation1

Reverberation refers to the role that external domestic and international variables can play in shaping the win-set of a negotiation between two countries. These variables create political considerations, political mandates, and political constraint outside of the technical discussion that influence the negotiation. This article looks at the degree to which political variables “reverberated’ onto the 2015 civil nuclear agreement between the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK), the end product of a four-and-a-half-year negotiation specifying the terms under which the ROK could use US-supplied technology and materials to pursue sovereign nuclear power generation and nuclear energy provision to third countries. It will argue that while the potential was high for this technical negotiation to become politicized in a domestic context in South Korea and potentially erode alliance relations, the two countries managed to keep the disagreements in the experts’ space, without negative reverberating effects on political leaders.

A chronological review of the development of elite sport policy in South Korea

AbstractThis article provides a chronological review of the development of elite sport policy in South Korea. It seeks to review the development of the elite sport policy and system in relation to the broader social and political context of South Korea by framing it in four time periods: 1961–1979, 1980–1992, 1993–2002 and 2003 onwards. The paper reveals the four key features of Korean elite sport development in terms of policy. The first of these is the country’s aim of maintaining a position in the top 10 of the Olympic medal standing which has been a key criterion for the success or failure of the nation’s elite sporting performance since the 1984 LA Olympics. The second notable feature of Korean elite sport development is that the country’s good performance and achievements in the global sporting competitions have their roots in the elite sport-oriented policy of the previous military-based regimes. The political drive for the development of an elite sport policy emphasis on success was made possible ...

An Intersectional Social Capital Model of Career Development for International Marriage Immigrants

The phenomenon of women immigrating to marry has resulted in changing labor markets and increasing workforce diversity. However, because of a lack of social capital in their new country, immigrant women face significant barriers to gaining employment, have access to only limited work arenas, or remain at home as housewives. Existing studies of immigrant women are mainly limited to their human rights or cultural issues; there are few studies focusing on career development for them. This article uses social capital and intersectionality theories to create an intersectional social capital model of career development for immigrant women. The application of the model is explicated through the context of South Korea. The positive career development interventions as described in the model can help immigrant brides overcome multiple career‐related barriers and find new roots.

Understanding Employment Policies for Older Workers in South Korea (A Biographical Narrative Research)

This thesis presents the voices of older workers in South Korea through their life stories and experiences in order to interpret how employed older people understand South Korea’s policies and programs for employing older people. The policy and practice context of the employment of older people is presented to help readers understand in greater depth their life stories and experiences and to construct their perspectives on employment policies and practices for older people in the social, political, economic, historical and cultural context of South Korea. In order to interpret in depth the understanding employment amongst a sample of twelve employed older Koreans, a biographical method was adopted which generated experiences of employment within each person’s life story. These were analyzed using biographical narrative analysis with Schutze’s three steps. Research findings are as follows: 1. Eligible for bigger grants or more benefits? 2. Professionalism through supportive equipment. 3. Participation in policy development. 4. Gratitude for the policy. 5. ‘Dragons coming out of small ponds are ended’. In the discussion of the results, society should develop not only suitable conditions for older people to work in, but also ways of giving older people the chance to improve their capacity to compete in the labor market in order to increase the employment rate of older workers. It is recommended that further research should listen to the stories of unemployed older people about age discrimination in the labor market. The limited time and the declared research intention for the present study to focus on employed older people made this impossible here.

‘Justice and Peace Will Kiss Each Other’ (Psalm 85.10b): Minjung Perspectives on Peace-building

During the period of military-backed government (1961–1988), South Korea faced various political and economic challenges: poverty and inequality in society; human rights abuses by military governments; and confrontation with the communist North. This article examines Psalm 85: 10 in the light of the political context of South Korea and the way minjung theologians and artists understood and utilized the passage for their struggle with the governments and mega-companies. The article argues that the fight for justice for the poor and oppressed is what has brought a sustainable peace in South Korea, and that although justice seeking and peace-building should be implemented simultaneously as the Scripture implies, if one has to prioritize between the two, justice-seeking has to take precedence.

Spiritual Leadership in Korea’s Financial Industry - Establishing a Baseline -

This study was designed to validate Fry's (2003) model of spiritual leadership within the Confucian context of South Korea and establish a baseline for the model in Korea's financial sector. Spiritual leadership is an emerging, holistic model of leadership that encapsulates the relationships of leaders, followers, organizational culture, and organizational outcomes. However, while the theory has been extensively tested in individualistic cultural contexts, validation of the theory in collectivist cultures such as Korea has only recently been pursued. The study examined the emergence of spiritual leadership values and the relationship of these values on organizational commitment and productivity, as mediated by the spiritual survival variables of calling and membership through structural equation modeling. Survey data were collected from a South Korean financial services company with strong Confucian values. The results of this study supported the universality of Fry's (2003) spiritual leadership model in a Confucian context, despite high job uncertainties facing participants. Measures of reliability and validity were above adequate levels and fell within the range of previous studies. Also, goodness-of-fit measures such as NNFI and CFI were all highly significant (p < .001) and above the .95 level. Hence, a baseline for future research in Korea's financial sector was established. The study recommends the need to explore the positive and negative aspects of Confucianism as it relates to (a) the emergence of spiritual leadership and (b) group-level analysis of spiritual leadership. Notably, the results suggest that Confucian values can positively contribute to organizational outcomes through collective membership, but negatively through weak empowerment, based on the degree of reciprocal trust and loyalty between leaders and followers. Additionally, the lower mean scores of spiritual leadership values in this study as compared to previous studies suggest that among other possibilities, the potential weakening of leader-follower relationships during times of uncertainty and crisis can upend the strengths of spiritual leadership. Future longitudinal studies are needed to more deeply examine the relationship of job uncertainties on spiritual leadership.

Politics of Sex Appeal in Advertising

This article is an ethnographic exploration of how gender ideologies were negotiated in the South Korea of the 2000s, in advertising texts and in advertising workplaces. Advertising has been criticized for reproducing gender stereotypes, and it is easy to assume that it is men within advertising agencies who are responsible for the objectifying and sexualizing portrayals of women. Yet behind some of the raciest South Korean advertising campaigns were ambitious women, who not only eagerly repeated the marketing adage that “sex sells” but also, provocatively, attempted to obliterate the lingering patriarchal norms and double sexual standards—with sexualized advertising. This article examines the politics of sex appeal in contemporary South Korean advertising by drawing on participant observation at an advertising agency, interviews, and public discourse analysis. Having situated the women's interventions within the cultural–historical context of South Korea, I, first, show how women's embrace of the sex-appeal aesthetic was a strategy to succeed in a male-dominated work environment and, second, detail how fighting gender discrimination with sex-appeal advertising was a profoundly contradictory project. I suggest that the politics of sex appeal in advertising was symptomatic of how women's struggles for equality were collapsing into neoliberal post-feminist sensibility.

Rising Youth Suicide and the Changing Cultural Context in South Korea

South Korean society faces a serious challenge in the increasing rates of youth suicidal behavior. There is a need both to gain a better understanding of the causes of this behavior and to develop strategies for responding to this critical public health issue. This article analyzes how psychological, sociopsychological, and subcultural factors influence suicidal proneness among Korean youth as well as makes suggestions for developing social policies that could reduce Korean youth suicidal behaviors. Correlation and multivariate regression analyses on suicide proneness and depression were employed using a sample of 172 South Korean youths (aged 18-24) selected from the 2009 General Social Survey collected through face-to-face interviews. Young people's suicidal proneness is associated with depression, a tolerant attitude toward suicide, strained family relations, living in rural areas, being female, and being closely related to survivors of suicide or potential suicides. The findings from this study reveal the significance of social and cultural factors as influences on recent youth suicidal behavior in Korea. The analysis suggests that the underlying risk factors of suicidal behavior are embedded in the changing social and cultural context of Korean society. Thus, suicide prevention efforts should involve more than merely treating any underlying psychiatric disorders.

Emploi et première maternité en Corée du Sud, 1978-2006

Cet article analyse la relation entre l’emploi des femmes et l’entrée en maternité dans le contexte socio-économique et institutionnel de la Corée du Sud, à partir des données des vagues 1 à 10 du Korea Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) recueillies entre 1998 et 2007. L’étude retrace les comportements de fécondité et d’emploi depuis 1978 en ayant recours à la méthode de l’analyse biographique. L’entrée en maternité se caractérise par une tendance à la baisse, surtout à partir des années 1990. Elle est notamment liée au report et à la diminution des mariages. Les femmes qui quittent leur emploi sont davantage susceptibles de devenir mères que celles qui restent actives ou n’ont pas eu d’expérience professionnelle. Le fait de sortir du marché du travail est souvent le signe de constitution de la famille, mais ce phénomène est remis en cause dans les dernières années. Désormais, rester en activité jusqu’à la grossesse et pendant celle-ci est plus fréquent. Les salariées du secteur public sont davantage susceptibles que les autres de devenir mères, soulignant ainsi l’importance de la stabilité de l’emploi pour l’entrée en maternité en Corée. Le comportement de fécondité des salariées du secteur privé paraît plus sensible aux bouleversements des cycles économiques.

English education and teacher education in South Korea

The spread of the English language is a global phenomenon, but it has a particular resonance in South Korea, where English is second only to Korean as a common language. The paper examines the current educational context in South Korea and the policy and practice issues that arise within this context regarding teacher education in English as a second language.