Who Studies What? How Tracks Shape College Major Choices in South Korea

• In Event: Inside Charter Schools: Teachers and Performance Differences
  In Roundtable Session: International Perspectives on Tracking and Detracking

Abstract

In South Korea, high school students place themselves either in liberal-arts (Munka) or science (Yika) track at the beginning of their 11th grade. Tracks influence students’ academic choices (e.g., college major choices) because they provide different arrays of curriculum for students. In order to understand whether and how Munka-Yika tracking works for students’ academic choices, this study examined Korean general high school students’ choices of college majors and factors associated with these choices. Analyzing the data derived from the Korean Education and Employment Panel (KEEP), the study found that a considerable number of students chose unrelated majors to their high school tracks, and factors associated with major choices differed across high school tracks.

Authors

• Woo-jeong Shim, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

• Sunhee Paik, National Institute of Education, Singapore