From Human Rights to Neoliberal Peace: Discourse on Reunification in South Korean Social Studies Textbooks

• In Event: 41.083 - Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: 41.083-23 - Perspectives in Peace Education

Abstract

This study investigates how current reunification education is promoted in South Korea by analyzing Korean middle school social studies textbooks. By adopting textbook content analysis, the study demonstrates that textbooks fail to provide complex international understanding of reunification, describe deficit-only views of North Korea, take a lopsided view of the relationship between South and North Korea, and offer views largely based on ethno-nationalism and neoliberalism when justifying reunification. The findings of this study delve into a discussion for how to reorient the current framework of reunification education in South Korea toward the multicultural and global citizenship perspective using peace education as the focus.

Author

• Yeji Kim, Teachers College, Columbia University