Why are teachers afraid of curricular autonomy? Contradictory effects of the new national curriculum in South Korea

Spaces of agency within contextual constraints: a case study of teacher’s response to EFL reform in a Chinese university

“…Factors that may have contributed to her professional agency include her ongoing research, her practical experience, her reflection, and her engagement with the community. Specifically, Lynne acquired theoretical knowledge about pedagogy from her research into college English teaching and she was able to connect this knowledge with her extensive practical experience through her ongoing reflection on teaching (see Hong & Youngs, 2014). Moreover, her active participation in university's professional learning activities further empowered her professional agency despite her controlling departmental culture, highlighting how agency is a social and relational process mediated by the sociocultural context (Cole & Engeström, 1993;Kim, 2011).…”

“…However, a number of deeply entrenched ideas, practices, and structures exist that are in conflict with the thrust of the reforms (Zhong, 2006). Internationally, the last twenty years has witnessed a wide range of research on English language teachers, from research studies on teacher skills, teacher thinking, teacher knowledge, teacher reflection, teacher autonomy and teachers-as-researchers (Andrews, 2007;Hong & Youngs, 2014;Sato, 2003). Against this background, it is important to explore the experiences of Chinese teachers who are working in a distinctive historical, political and cultural context and who are experiencing considerable pressure to change (Gu, 2013).…”

Carving out a hybrid space: a self-study of contextualizing teaching for social justice in South Korea

“…Since the late 1990s, South Korea also has experienced gradual changes in the education system, especially in the nation's school and curriculum policies. The recent national curriculum reform enactments advocate a high degree of autonomy in curriculum design, selection of textbooks, and school policymaking (Hong & Youngs, 2016). One case that has sparked international attention is the Innovative School Movement, which was initiated by Gyeonggi Province of Education and then spread throughout the nation.…”

“…In order to sustain and support these collaborative systems, the government provides significant funding and human resources for administrative work (Song et al, 2014) The enhanced school-based curricular autonomy combined with the increased diversity in student demographics has had significant influences on the nation's public schooling, given that they often contradict with the traditional norms and values that have long dominated the schools and society (i.e., Confucianism, ethnocentrism, homogenous nationalism, academic elitism, meritocracy, and conformity-oriented school culture) and the life of students (i.e., academic pressure and workload, hierarchical relationship between teacher and students). Contradictions are evident especially in the nation's curriculum system because the nation still maintains the centralized and standardized curriculum (Hong & Youngs, 2016): the national curriculum and standards have legal force, and teachers, as state officials, are not allowed to change or skip the given standards that are handed down to them for use in the classroom environment (Lee et al, 2015). In terms of teacher recruitment, despite the increased ethnic diversity within South Korean schools and society, the nation's current teaching force consists exclusively of nationally and ethnically Korean individuals.…”

Effects of Local Culture and Teacher Efficacy on Teacher Enactment of Curriculum Reform in South Korea

“…In particular, nation-wide curriculum reforms since 1995 have promoted teachers’ autonomy over curriculum, in order to (1) reflect students’ various needs and interests, (2) encourage students’ creativity, (3) improve the relevance of the curriculum to each school and student, and (4) enhance teachers’ flexibility to diversify curriculum (Cho, 2010), in order to counteract Korean students’ lack of academic engagement and interest (So & Kang, 2014). Despite the benefits of their enhanced autonomy and efforts made for more than two decades, Korean teachers’ perceptions and enactment of their enhanced autonomy have been illustrated as generally negative and resistant in academic work (Hong & Youngs, 2016).…”