Cruel Optimism in Teacher Education: Paradoxical Hope of Making the Professional Teacher in South Korea

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 4:20 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Supporting Teacher Development Across Contexts (Table 4)

Abstract

This paper critically explores the paradoxical hope of making professional teachers in the context of South Korea. Drawing on Lauren Berlant’s “cruel optimism” as a theoretical framework, we designed this study as a participatory qualitative research to center a co-generative process of knowledge creation among teacher participants and researchers. The findings suggest how teacher education is related with various forms of social norms, including gender, socioeconomic status, and other elements that construct social and political structures in Korean society. In the shared space, teachers critically reflected on the multiple dimensions of their professional learning experience in association with teachers’ political subjectivity and agency. Through this critical reflection, teachers collectively envisioned the non-conformative futures for just education.

Authors

• Sun Young Lee, Wichita State University

• Soo Bin Jang, University of Delaware