This book constitutes a sociological, anthropological, and curricular inquiry into the factors surrounding high academic achievement rates of students in South Korea. Taking root in similar studies conducted around the exemplary nature of the Finnish education model, it explores the phenomenon of success in South Korea, uniquely connecting it to the scholarship and models for examining the recent shift in attention and popularity of Korean culture. The authors argue that Korean education or "K-edu" can also be studied and understood as a Hallyu and an exemplary form of education. Drawing on longitudinal qualitative studies spanning over 15 years, the authors advance understandings of Korean academic success beyond more generalized understandings of how Asian students learn and towards a holistic explanation for the case of Korea. As such, the book challenges the perception of Korean students as passive learners with a controlled learning culture and instead advocates the ways in which Korean students are leading a changing culture by utilizing all available resources and opportunities in the space of South Korea’s evolving ecological system of education. In addition, this book provides one explanation as to how students from East Asian countries achieve such excellent academic performance. A crucial exploration of the culture and growth of education systems in Asian countries, this book will appeal to scholars and researchers with interests in Korean education and Korean students’ academic achievement as an emerging inquiry for both Korean studies and East Asian Cultural Studies. In addition, this book will also be informative for scholars of comparative education, sociology of education, educational policy, and postcolonial educational research in the world.

This volume tackles perceived myths surrounding the academic excellence of East Asian students, and moves beyond Western understanding to offer in-depth analysis of the crucial role that shadow education plays in students' academic success. Featuring a broad range of contributions from countries including Japan, China, Taiwan, and Singapore, chapters draw on rich qualitative research to place in the foreground the lived experiences of students, teachers, and parents in East Asian countries. In doing so, the text provides indigenous insights into the uses, values, and meanings of shadow education and highlights unknown cultural and regional aspects, as well as related phenomena including trans-boundary learning culture, nomadic learning, individualized learning, and the post-schooling era. Ultimately challenging the previously dominating Western perspective on shadow education, the volume offers innovative theorization to highlight shadow education as a phenomenon which cannot be overlooked in broader discussion of East Asian educational performance, systems, and policy. Offering pioneering insights into the growing phenomenon of shadow education, this text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in international and comparative education, curriculum studies, and East Asian educational practices and policy. Those interested in the sociology of education and educational policy will also benefit from this book.

This book theorizes shadow education as a new component of curriculum, expanding the concept of curriculum to include this type of learning. Curriculum scholars and theorists have largely disregarded shadow education as a valid topic of scholarly attention despite its massive growth worldwide. But shadow education has become a global phenomenon with ever-increasing numbers of student participants; it complements school-based curricula, in many cases going beyond. Thus, Jung and Kim argue that shadow education requires rigorous analysis by curriculum studies scholars. This volume analyzes the state and importance of shadow education in countries around the world: its representative forms and industries (private tutoring institutes, home-visit private tutoring, Internet-based private tutoring, subscribed learning programs, after-school programs), its characteristic forms in terms of curriculum, and its roles in student learning. It also explores various features of shadow education based on an eight-year ethnographic study in South Korea.

This volume tackles perceived myths surrounding the academic excellence of East Asian students, and moves beyond Western understanding to offer in-depth analysis of the crucial role that shadow education plays in students' academic success. Featuring a broad range of contributions from countries including Japan, China, Taiwan, and Singapore, chapters draw on rich qualitative research to place in the foreground the lived experiences of students, teachers, and parents in East Asian countries. In doing so, the text provides indigenous insights into the uses, values, and meanings of shadow education and highlights unknown cultural and regional aspects, as well as related phenomena including trans-boundary learning culture, nomadic learning, individualized learning, and the post-schooling era. Ultimately challenging the previously dominating Western perspective on shadow education, the volume offers innovative theorization to highlight shadow education as a phenomenon which cannot be overlooked in broader discussion of East Asian educational performance, systems, and policy. Offering pioneering insights into the growing phenomenon of shadow education, this text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in international and comparative education, curriculum studies, and East Asian educational practices and policy. Those interested in the sociology of education and educational policy will also benefit from this book.

The question at the heart of the book is what might an education with self-care and care-for-others look like? Juxtaposing self-understanding through the method of currere and the historical character of hakbeolism (a concept indigenous to Korea referring to a kind of social status people achieve based on a shared academic background), this book articulates how subjective reconstruction of self in conjunction with historical study can be transformative, and how this can be extended to social change. Articulating how having one's own standard can be a way of making one's life a work of art, the author looks at how Korean schooling exercises coercive care, disconfirmation, and the "whip of love" for the children's own good. Emphasis is given to the internalized status of these practices in both students and teachers and to teachers' and parents' culpability not only in exercising but also in reproducing these practices through themselves. Going beyond describing and analysing the educational problem of academic (intellectual) achievement-oriented education based on aggressive competition, this book suggests ways to address these issues through autobiography (using the method of currere to reconstruct one's subjectivity) and an ethic of care.

The question at the heart of the book is what might an education with self-care and care-for-others look like? Juxtaposing self-understanding through the method of currere and the historical character of hakbeolism (a concept indigenous to Korea referring to a kind of social status people achieve based on a shared academic background), this book articulates how subjective reconstruction of self in conjunction with historical study can be transformative, and how this can be extended to social change. Articulating how having one's own standard can be a way of making one's life a work of art, the author looks at how Korean schooling exercises coercive care, disconfirmation, and the "whip of love" for the children's own good. Emphasis is given to the internalized status of these practices in both students and teachers and to teachers' and parents' culpability not only in exercising but also in reproducing these practices through themselves. Going beyond describing and analysing the educational problem of academic (intellectual) achievement-oriented education based on aggressive competition, this book suggests ways to address these issues through autobiography (using the method of currere to reconstruct one's subjectivity) and an ethic of care.