Making a Child’s ‘Dream’: Focusing on “KidZania Seoul” and the Visitors’ Experience

• In Event: 41021 - Student Forum Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Roundtable 22: Global Epistemologies

Abstract

KidZania is a children’s career role-playing theme park franchise first established in 1999 in Mexico City. This “La ciudad de los niños” has captivated children and parents around the world, operating in 26 locations across 17 countries as of early 2025. Especially, KidZania Seoul, which opened in February 2010, has demonstrated unprecedented success, attracting over 700,000 visitors annually since its launch. Traditionally, the primary goal of the South Korean education system has been admission to a “prestigious university.” However, as people have come to realize that merely entering a prestigious university no longer guarantees future success, South Korea’s education system has shifted toward an approach aimed at discovering and nurturing a child’s “dream” at an early stage, taking into account the child’s interests, aptitudes, talents, personality, and the future outlook of various career fields. In contemporary Korean society, a child’s dream is not carried by the child alone; it is a goal that must be collectively shaped by the child’s parents and other family members, as well as by society, and it functions as a concrete plan of action requiring constant monitoring and management (Zartler 2015: 521). Within this broader project of shaping a child’s dreams, KidZania functions as both a space and a mechanism that allows children to first encounter, experience, imagine, and desire their dreams. This necessitates a sociological analysis of the discourse surrounding dreams that circulates in various forms within and beyond the space of KidZania. Accordingly, this study aims to explore the process of planning and negotiating dreams within the framework of the sociology of dreams, which has recently focused on future-oriented images, goals, and expectations embedded in social units. Specifically, I examine the interactions between KidZania Seoul and its visitors, highlighting the dynamics of dream formation and negotiation between mothers and their children.

Author

• Gugbo Sim, Seoul National University