South Korean Context Research Articles

A Theoretical Examination of Shadow Education in South Korea

This article provides a theoretical contribution to the contemporary debates regarding the legitimacy and effects of supplementary tutoring, also known as shadow education. Shadow education is notably pervasive in South Korea, and accounting for high rates of domestic expenditure and increasing time demands on young people’s lives. The paper traces the historical and cultural reasons for the widespread uptake of shadow education amongst young students in the South Korean context and problematises what it means to be educated by juxtaposing leading scholars’ perceptions of the fundamental aims of education. Delving into the reality of shadow education whilst also revealing the disruptive nature of this common place practice, the paper concludes by highlighting the need for further empirical research to counterbalance the largely unsubstantiated beliefs and anecdotal evidence regarding its purposes

Developing a measurement scale for employee engagement: a validation study in a South Korean context

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a reliable and valid measurement scale of employee engagement that can be used in human resources departments in any industry field.Design/methodology/approachThis study used the measurement development process with three steps. The first step was to generate items for measuring employee engagement. For this reason, the authors proposed an integrated conceptual model based on the results of a literature review and justify the concepts from self-determination theory and person-environment fit theory as the theoretical foundation. The second step was to determine the types of questions suitable for measurement, examining the content validity. Content validity was conducted two times by the group, academic experts and business practitioners. The last step was to examine the exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), multi-group analysis and reliability with 352 survey responses from the South Korean business context.FindingsFindings of the measurement scale development procedure, i.e. employee engagement, should be managed in a balanced manner in all dimensions, as it is composed of four dimensions (person engagement, work engagement, organization engagement and relation engagement) and 16 sub-factors. Additionally, organization engagement was the major factor among the four dimensions of employee engagement with the highest variance explanation. From the statistical standpoint, the employee engagement scale (EES) is possible to use in any industry field because it demonstrated not only content validity and internal consistency reliability but also the three steps of factor analysis (EFA, CFA and multi-group analysis).Research limitations/implicationsThis survey was conducted with an assistant manager located in Korea. Therefore, it will be necessary to analyze both leader and employee engagement for those who live in foreign countries. The EES is useful to leaders and human resource managers because it is applicable to managing engagement levels of employees and fosters customized training programs.Originality/valueThis is the first study to develop measurement tools for employee engagement in South Korea. In addition, most studies demonstrated that individual feeling was valued to drive employee engagement. This research, however, proposes an extended concept of employee engagement for four dimensions (person, work, relation and organization) and emphasizes the important relationship between individuals and colleagues in an organization. Based on these results, a theoretically integrated model of employee engagement was developed and a practically valid measurement tool for capturing comprehensive domains of employee engagement was proposed.

FDI motives and the use of tax havens: Evidence from South Korea

Despite the recent attention in the media and focus in the academic literature on tax havens and tax mitigation strategies, we know very little about how the use of tax havens relates to a firm’s internationalisation strategy. In this paper, we develop a conceptual model that explains how FDI into tax havens relates to the standard FDI motives identified in the literature. We subsequently use a novel dataset that allows us to empirically investigate how these motives impact upon tax haven FDI in the South Korean context, which has experienced very rapid economic development over the last few decades and is now considered an advanced economy. We find that tax haven FDI is strongly linked to market-seeking and efficiency-seeking FDI, whereas its link with resources-seeking FDI is only found with respect to the most secretive tax haven locations. Furthermore, we find no relationship between technology seeking FDI and tax haven use. We argue that as tax haven use increases over time, the economic proceeds of outward FDI leak out and remain offshore.

A analysis study on the concepts and backgrounds of character education in England

Background: In 2015 Character Education Act was introduced into formal education system in South Korea, By the Act, the government produced a National Plans for Character Education per five years. However, there are still confusions about the meaning and concept of character education, and the lack of clear guidelines for the education practices, Purpose: With these reasons, this study aimed to analyse the background and the contents of character education in England, Secondly, this study aimed to find out the practices of character education in schools and thirdly, tried to draw the implications into character education in Korean education context. Methodology/Approach: The method used in this study was contents analysis. In order to be critical and objective analysis for the character eduction, this study had tried to find the official documents. Findings/Conclusions: This research found that the background of character education was originated from the religious education, in particular, Christian Education with faith and virtues. This kind of character education was traditional until 1940s in the States. However, between 1940s and 1990s, character education has been reformed under the name of moral education or virtue education due to the close of religious education in the national curriculum. Even though the character education had been changed in to another education, there were still critical issues around the approaches of eduction. There have been two approached of character education, one was value-neutral and the other was value-focused approach. Especially, value-focused moral and virtue education had tried instill the values to students with christian related faiths and ethos. After the 1990s, this education movement had been changed again as character education which influenced the character education in England now. This reserch found that value-focused character education is very controversial and critical for students. Implications: As a result, this study suggests three implications for the development of character education in the South Korean context. Firstly, character education should not try to instill certain values for young people. Secondly, we need to be very careful about the character tests for young people recently. Finally, character education should more focus on social development rather than individual development in combination with citizenship education.

Research shows offering excellent compensation and job security makes South Korean employees much less likely to quit jobs

Purpose The researcher wanted to study the effect of HRM practices on turnover in a South Korean context. Previous studies have focused on Western contexts. Design/methodology/approach The author collected data from 310 white-collar and knowledge workers from Seoul. A set of five hypotheses were tested Findings The results showed that offering excellent compensation and job security made employees much less likely to leave. However, the indirect effect of job autonomy was not found to be significant. Originality/value The study has theoretical implications for workplaces. First, the findings show compensation satisfaction is of crucial importance and HR retention strategies should focus on how employees perceive their pay, benefits and pay policies. Second, the results show that HR managers and top-level executives should make job security a primary concern. For example, they should provide accurate and honest information” about the causes and actions.

Korean travel selfies as contested placemaking practices

Selfies allow us to exert control over how we are seen and to construct our identity through the people, places, and activities that we imbue with value. The composition of the image, situation, and location photographed indicate aesthetic and ontological choices that reveal cultural values, performances of identity and social position of the person taking the selfie. When read as digital placemaking practices, travel selfies become salient to producers and audiences as political and performative expressions of identity and one’s place in the world. This article examines the travel selfie within the South Korean context and argues that thinking about selfies as placemaking practices informs the productive and potentially empowering nature of these photographs, which simultaneously conform to and contest neoliberal consumerist ideologies. The authors analyze a case study in which the placemaking practices of selfies are represented and critiqued. We argue that these digital placemaking practices become sites where young people’s imaginations, aspirations, and frustrations about social hierarchies, national imaginaries, and class status are expressed and debated through representations of international travel. Through textual and discourse analysis of the images and virulent public criticism faced by South Korean females who travel abroad and document their experiences on Instagram and Naver, we examine the tensions that emerge regarding expressions of the ‘spatial self’ online.

Types of social capital in relation to self-rated health: Gender differences in a nationally representative cross-sectional study of South Korean adults

ABSTRACT Socio-economic and cultural transformations in South Korea have led to societal heterogeneity, potentially changing the role of social capital. We examined whether six factors (i.e. group membership, out-group trust, civic responsibility, acceptance, political activism, and institutional trust) that represent bonding, bridging, and linking social capital are associated with self-rated health (SRH), and whether these associations vary by gender. We analysed data from 8,000 adults in the Korea Social Integration Survey. We first conducted exploratory and confirmatory analyses to create and verify a social capital scale. Then, we performed multivariable logistic regression analyses to study how each type of social capital was related to SRH, adjusting for survey design and sampling weights. High levels of group membership and civic responsibility were associated with good SRH among men only, while high levels of out-group trust, acceptance, and institutional trust were associated with good SRH only for women. High levels of political activism were negatively related to good SRH for both men and women. Overall, associations between different types of social capital and SRH differed by gender in the South Korean context; thus, men and women may benefit from health interventions that enhance different forms of social capital.

SMARTPHONE ADDICTION AND BEHAVIORAL OUTCOMES IN SOUTH KOREA: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS

Purpose of the study: There is considerable debate on smartphone addiction and its relationship with behavioral outcomes however in literature there is only one meta-analysis in the country-specific context and none in the South Korean context. Ranked 6th based on smartphone penetration in the world it is imperative to quantify the association.
 Methodology: A systematic review was conducted to collect published sources about smartphone addiction and its relationships with behavioral outcomes. The identified sources were evaluated for appropriateness and inclusion in the meta-analysis was made. Thirty-one studies were included in the Meta-analysis providing data from 32 samples (n=11,002) and presented associations with 13 behavioral outcomes.
 Main Findings: Meta-analytical tests presented a positive and significant relationship between smartphone addiction and the overall subject’s behavioral outcomes. Among the behavioral outcomes identified through the systematic review, six had significant while seven had an insignificant association with smartphone addiction. Lastly, these behavioral outcomes were quantitatively classified into 6 groups based on direction, significance, and heterogeneity of their reported effects. Overall smartphone addiction has a significant role in modifying certain behaviors of an individual.
 Applications of this study: The results of this study enforce the opinion that smartphone addiction tends to significantly enhance negative behavioral outcomes while limits positive outcomes in the South Korean population.
 Novelty/Originality of this study: This is the first country-specific study conducted regarding smartphone addiction. This is also the first meta-analysis study conducted which evaluated the effects of smartphone addiction on multiple behavior outcomes.

An archaeological discourse analysis of physical education as challenging in South Korea primary schools

ABSTRACT South Korean society tends to undervalue Physical Education (PE) and overemphasizes academic subjects such as Korean, English, mathematics and science. This study problematizes the challenges within PE in the South Korean primary school context, where teachers find it difficult to deliver quality PE. Data were collected from archives and interviews with 11 South Korean primary school teachers to identify the challenges of PE that they faced. An archaeological discourse analysis, based on a Foucauldian framework, was employed to trace how the discourse of PE as challenging arose. Findings highlight not only the dominant discursive constructions of the challenges facing primary school PE but also the possible historical conditions intricately connected with social structures and institutions, surrounding primary school PE and beyond the individual’s control, in and outside the South Korean school system. The findings were: (a) PE as lacking equipment and facilities and school principals holding the budget allocation authority (b) PE as inconsequential and PE with little or no role in students’ entry in university (c) PE as accident-prone and absence of legal safeguards and social support for teachers. This paper provides readers with a fresh analytical insight in the area of PE research.

Combining Jigsaws, Rule-Based Learning, and Retrieval Practice Improves IUPAC Nomenclature Competence

IUPAC nomenclature competence (INC)—defined as the ability to name chemical structures using IUPAC rules and draw structures from IUPAC names—is considered a foundational skill in the training of professional chemists. For students of non-European language background, the challenge of acquiring INC is often complicated by the fact that IUPAC rules necessitate comprehension of European language elements. These include European nomenclature rules, prefixes, and suffixes. INC acquisition in Asia has traditionally occurred through undergraduate organic chemistry lecture courses. The present study demonstrates, in a South Korean context, that outcomes in such courses can sometimes be unsatisfactory, pointing to a need for reforms. To improve performance, a series of three nondidactic learning interventions—jigsaws, rule-based learning, and retrieval practice—were implemented over the course of a five-year period. Undergraduate focus groups were used to identify student-centered learning challenges, and this information was used to help inform the design of interventions. Performance outcomes were analyzed as the itemized competence in individual IUPAC rules when solving either name-to-structure or structure-to-name problems. These data demonstrate the combined implementation of all three interventions yielded substantial improvements for both question types. Concurrently, a context-specific learning attitudes survey showed most of the learning challenges identified in focus groups were mitigated through the reform process. Given that INC acquisition is a common challenge for students across the globe, the present study offers a compelling model for improving terminology competence across a wide range of diverse STEM contexts.

‘매체비평’의 역할과 명암을 다면적으로 진단하기 KBS 〈저널리즘 토크쇼 J〉의 특성과 성취 그리고 한계를 중심으로

이 연구는 매체비평이 수행하는 공적인 역할과 사회 내에서 대면하는 복합적인 쟁점과 이견을 KBS의 〈저널리즘 토크쇼 J〉를 핵심 사례로 삼아 조명하고자 한다. 주지하다시피 이 프로그램은 탄핵 이후 공영방송의 ‘정상화’와 비판적 기능의 복원을 상징하는 주요 사안으로 고려된다. 그간에 이 비평콘텐츠가 구성을 대안적으로 구현하면서 모색한 언론 관련 심층적인 진단이나 공적 쟁점에 관한 상세한 비평과 검증은 상당한 인정과 주목을 받은 바 있다. 그와 함께 보수언론을 중심으로 이 프로그램이 발현하는 정파적인 관점이나 ‘편향성’에 대한 공세적인 비난과 비판도 끊이지 않았다. 이 작업은 텍스트분석과 방대한 전문가 서면 인터뷰로, 〈저널리즘 토크 쇼 J〉의 특성과 성취 그리고 보완할 측면과 한계를 상세하게 짚어내고자 한다. 매체비평이 학술적으로 크게 정체된 상황에서, 이 연구는 후속 작업이 참고할 수 있는 정련된 학술자원과 진중한 논의를 제시하는 데 일조하고자 한다.

The multifold intertextuality in Lee Chang Dong’s burning

The study focuses on how the South Korean drama/mystery film Burning (2018) intertextually draws from William Faulkner’s short story ‘Barn burning’ and Haruki Murakami’s short story ‘Barn burning’ and related sociohistorical contexts. Burning does quite impressionistically and freely draw from these two short stories as well as adding new features, while simultaneously removing much of the core of Faulkner’s work and some of Murakami’s counterpart. By means of intertextual borrowing and re-contextualization, it has used the global discursive field and consequently hybridized and localized elements and themes from American-Western and Japanese works and discourses to perhaps make them better suited for the South Korean context. Burning has included and excluded various elements from both short stories but emphasized class and gender issues. These two major elements reflect upon the structural inequalities in the contemporary South Korean society.

Teacher Competency in Competency-Focused Science Teaching in the South Korean Context: Teacher Self-Assessment Instrument Development and Application

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine teachers’ competency in teaching for student competence in science. Drawing on literature on competence and science teacher education, we identified 44 indicators of science teaching competence in relation to the current Korean National Science Curriculum, from which 54 items for teachers’ self-assessment were developed and validated. Through online administration of the self-assessment instrument, responses from 210 primary and secondary teachers were collected. Factor analysis resulted in nine factors across three competence areas. Teacher competence differed across factors. One-way ANOVA analysis revealed that primary teachers indicated significantly higher competence in most aspects of teaching than secondary teachers and that years of teaching was related to professional development methods utilized by teachers. Suggestions for professional development program design and further research topics were discussed.

Identifying the missing link between shadow education and academic success: Features of private supplementary tutoring in South Korea

Shadow education or private supplementary tutoring has become an international phenomenon as increasing numbers of students seek help beyond traditional schooling for academic achievement. The positive relationship between students’ academic achievement and participation in shadow education has been previously reported. However, the manner in which shadow education practices can help students to gain and maintain higher academic achievement remains understudied. In response, this study explored the features of shadow education practices that may benefit the academic achievement of students, particularly those in South Korea but with relevance beyond the South Korean context. Using qualitative research methods, this study revealed that preview learning from/with private supplementary tutors, academic mastery learning of subject knowledge and skills, training skills for school exams, and solving students’ individual learning difficulties through intensive coaching are contributing factors to improving academic achievement.

Globalization in art therapy education: Multicultural training in South Korean context

This article offers initial strategies to develop a multicultural training model for graduate-level art therapy students within a learner’s cultural context, using South Korea as an example. All helping professions, including art therapy, have emphasized multicultural competence a mandated ability concerning ethical practice. However, scholarship has neglected the importance of developing multicultural education within its application’s cultural context. Accordingly, the researchers introduce the concept of multiculturalism within Korean cultural contexts, followed by a qualitative online survey exploring the meanings and experiences of multiculturalism among Korean graduate-level art therapy students and alumni in Korea (N = 44). Lastly, they outline a preliminary education model based on the collected data that frames the major components and levels of multicultural training within art therapy in South Korea. The findings direct researchers to consider developing multicultural education within Korea’s cultural context, collectivism, and socio-political conditions.

Contact Tracing and COVID-19: The South Korean Context for Public Health Enforcement

Although South Korea’s response to COVID-19 has received international praise, the nation’s public health policy raises numerous privacy concerns, with a growing number of civil society groups joining the conversation. Following changes to public health law in 2015 in response to the MERS (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome) crisis, South Korea’s KCDC (Center for Disease Control) reconfigured its enforcement practice with measures tied to the movements of infected patients. New laws allow for the use of information communications technology and personal data (cell phone, CCTV, credit card transactions) to track patients, thereby identifying the possible routes of transmission for disease. Through mid-April 2020, this system received extensive praise, but more recently, with the “Itaewon Cluster,” centered in a popular nightclub district, citizens are starting to raise concerns. Itaewon is associated with prostitution due to its legacy of proximity to an American military base, and by extension, the presence of foreigners in general, including LGBT clubs. While contact tracing promises to preserve the anonymity of data, the significant rise in case numbers since May 2020 has resulted in calls for targeting these groups—foreigners, LGBT, English teachers—suggesting that xenophobia and social stigma continue to represent powerful forces.

Relationship between Emotional Labor and Job Satisfaction: Testing Mediating Role of Emotional Intelligence on South Korean Public Service Employees

Nearly half of public sector jobs involve emotional labor and the studies on emotional labor in the public service have been growing nowadays. However, prior studies on the consequences of the dimensions of emotional labor (surface acting and deep acting) have revealed the mixed findings, especially relations with job satisfaction in the public service. To clarify inconsistent results of the relationship between emotional labor and job satisfaction, this study incorporates emotional intelligence as the mediator in a sample of public service employees in South Korea. Theoretically, those who perform emotional labor are more highly satisfied with their jobs when they possess higher levels of emotional intelligence skills. The findings revealed that only deep acting and job satisfaction was significantly and positively related and only emotional-self regulation was partially mediated among the dimensions of emotional intelligence between deep acting and job satisfaction. While this study focuses on the South Korean context, findings also raise awareness to Western culture context.

Ethics of journalistic translation and its implications for machine translation

Abstract Journalistic translation is governed by a target-oriented norm that allows varying degrees of intervention by journalists. Given the public’s expectations for the fidelity of translated news, this norm entails ethical issues. This paper examines the ethical dimensions of journalistic translation through a case study of political news translation in the South Korean context. It investigates how newspapers translated a US president’s references to two South Korean presidents in accordance with the newspapers’ ideologies and then came to apply the translations as negative labels as the political situation evolved over time. The study demonstrates how even word-level translation can require an intricate understanding of the sociopolitical context and cumulative meanings of a word. It then draws its implications for machine translation by comparing the human translations with machine translations of the references in question. It concludes by discussing why machine translation cannot yet replace human translation, at least between Korean and English, and what translation studies should do regarding the ethics of journalistic translation.

Una primera aproximación a las interferencias pragmáticas en estudiantes E/LE coreanos de niveles iniciales e intermedios

This work aims to identify the main pragmatic interferences and highlight their relevance in its teaching in Spanish as a foreign language to Korean students. For this purpose, we have analyzed the theoretical aspects of pragmatics, making a brief theoretical review of the experts, including the linguists Gabriela Reyes and Mª Victoria Escandell, and taking as a reference the Curriculum Plan of the Cervantes Institute (PCIC). On the other hand, we have look at some forms completed by Korean students of Spanish language, as well as a survey to DELE teachers and examiners in the Republic of Korea, researching, for this reason, several works focused on the South Korean context.

Social Status and Decent Work: Test of a Moderated Mediation Model

On the basis of the psychology of working theory (PWT; Duffy, Blustein, et al., 2016), we tested a moderated mediation model with subjective social status, work volition, proactive personality, and decent work as variables. Data were collected from 225 South Korean employees (115 women, 110 men). Results indicated that work volition mediated the relation between low subjective social status and decent work. In addition, proactive personality moderated the link between low subjective social status and work volition. Further analysis revealed that the indirect effect of social status on decent work via work volition was conditional upon proactive personality; that is, the indirect effect was weaker for individuals with a higher level of proactive personality. These results provide an application of the PWT‐based model in a South Korean context. Future research could include samples from marginalized populations and additional constructs (e.g., career adaptability, human need satisfaction) of PWT.