Collective Imagination of Others and the School Curriculum: America in the Korean Curriculum

• In Event: Roundtable Session 28
  In Roundtable Session: Text, Context, and Narrating Identities of Self and Other

Abstract

Using qualitative data including teacher interviews, analysis of curriculum documents, student surveys, and focus-group interviews, this study investigates how America is represented in the Korean curriculum, what and how Korean teachers teach about Americans and American cultures, and how the information being taught inside the classrooms is related to the wider discourse on America in Korean society. To address these questions, global education and postcolonialism are used as major theoretical frameworks. Major findings indicate that there is wide gap among teachers’ personal goals, textbook descriptions of America, and students’ preconceptions. Investigating the origin and results of this gap, this study poses the wider question of how to reinvent teaching about other cultures and peoples in this globalizing world.

Author

• Won Pyo Hong, Yonsei University