Shining Light into Dark Shadows of Violence and Learned Helplessness: Peace Education in South Korean Schools
- Resource Type
- Journal Articles
Reports - Research
- Authors
- Kwon, Soonjung; Walker, David Ian; Kristjánsson, Kristján
- Source
- Journal of Peace Education. 2018 15(1):24-47.
- Subject
- South Korea
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 1740-0201
The paper illustrates how a culture of violence is perpetuated and reproduced in South Korea through schooling and argues that peace education could help transform a culture of violence to a culture of peace. Critical ethnographic methods and a framework of peace education were applied to a sample of secondary schools in South Korea to argue that a disturbing culture of violence and learned helplessness were present; this comprises themes of direct and indirect violence through iljin (a group of students who are considered key perpetrators of school violence); a colonized false ideology and resistance to social justice. More positively, findings are also used to generate possibilities for pedagogical change based on peace education--an approach that proves useful both as an analytical frame for examining peace-violence relations in education and society and as an essential pedagogy for progressing towards peace in South Korean schools.