Reframing Peace in a Divided Peninsula: A Critical Discourse Analysis of South Korea’s Unification Education Policies (2013-2025)

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Learning amid Migration, Displacement, and Division: Educational Practices, Community, and Peacebuilding

Proposal

The Korean Peninsula (South Korea, and North Korea) remains one of the most enduringly divided peninsulas in the world, where the legacies of the Korean War continue to shape political discourse, inter-Korean relations, and the content of national education. Within this context, “unification education” has developed as a state-led approach to peace education, grounded in the Unification Education Support Act enacted in 1999, and designed to foster public understanding of both the division of the peninsula and the long-term prospect of unification (So, 2019). Over the years, revisions to the title and framing of unification education programs have drawn the attention of policymakers, reflecting close ties to the shifting political dynamics of the Korean Peninsula and influencing how Korea is perceived internationally (Kim, 2024; Park, 2023). Yet while the institutional framework has remained in place for decades, its aims, tone, and methods have repeatedly shifted in response to changes in political leadership and evolving security conditions (Han, 2019).

This study examines how unification education policies from 2013 to 2025 have been reinterpreted across markedly different political periods. These years encompass moments of heightened security tension as well as phases of unprecedented inter-Korean dialogue. Such variation provides a rich context for investigating how peace education in a divided society is framed, reframed, and sometimes contested.

The research draws on a corpus of 52 official policy documents spanning 2013 to 2025 (13 years × 4 documents annually). Because peace and unification education is jointly developed by the Ministry of Unification and the Ministry of Education, the analysis focuses on the Ministry of Unification’s annual Work Plans and the National Institute for Unification Education’s Basic, Implementation, and Operational Plans. These texts represent the authoritative instruments through which the state constructs and disseminates its vision of peace and unification, making them especially valuable for discourse analysis. To examine them, the study employs Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which frames the research questions and provides the analytical categories for identifying how “peace” and “unification” are defined, how North Korea is represented, and how lexical and modal choices reflect shifting political and ideological contexts. This approach enables a systematic account of both what the policies say and how their language reveals underlying political priorities.

Two research questions guide the inquiry: (1) In what ways have unification education policies framed “peace” and “unification,” and how has the portrayal of North Korea changed over time? (2) How do the language and modality of these documents reveal shifts in policy priorities, and how are such shifts shaped by political ideology and the prevailing security climate?

Preliminary observations suggest that discourse under security-focused administrations often emphasized deterrence, defense, and conditional unification, frequently portraying North Korea as a threat (Han, 2019; So, 2019). By contrast, periods centered on dialogue highlighted coexistence, reconciliation, and mutual understanding, with portrayals of North Korea as a potential partner in peacebuilding, albeit under defined limits. These patterns point to the political instrumentalization of peace education and its vulnerability to partisan agendas.

The significance of this study lies in its ability to illuminate how unification education—and peace as a concept—often assumed to be universally constructive, is in practice deeply contested and politically contingent. By examining South Korea’s unification education policies over more than a decade, this research shows how the same institutional framework can alternately be mobilized to promote dialogue, reconciliation, and coexistence, or to reinforce deterrence, security, and conditional unification. This duality is critical for understanding both the possibilities and the vulnerabilities of state-led peace education in divided societies.

Empirically, the study contributes a rare, longitudinal analysis of 52 official government documents, providing systematic evidence of how unification education discourse shifts across administrations and political contexts. Methodologically, it demonstrates the value of CDA by linking textual choices—framing of peace, representation of the “other,” and lexical/modal patterns—to broader ideological and geopolitical dynamics. These findings highlight the political instrumentalization of peace education and underscore the need for closer scrutiny of how states use education as both a tool of peacebuilding and a vehicle for political ideology.

Theoretically and comparatively, the study enriches global debates on education in divided and post-conflict societies. By situating the South Korean case alongside contexts such as post-unification Germany (Byun, 2020; Park, 2023), it underscores a widely resonant challenge: the difficulty of sustaining peace-oriented curricula amid polarized politics and contested national futures. Practically, the study offers insights for policymakers and educators on how to design peace education frameworks that are more resilient to partisan agendas and better able to foster long-term social cohesion. In this way, the study directly responds to the CIES 2026 theme, “Re-examining Education and Peace in a Divided World,” by combining empirical depth, critical analysis, and comparative lessons with actionable relevance.

Author

• Young Chol Choi, University of Minnesota