Reforms in Korea in the Asia Pacific Journal of Education

Asia Pacific Journal of Education

In the most recent issue of the Asia Pacific Journal of Education, two studies highlighted teachers’ perceptions of, and resistance to, the Korean National Curriculum reform of 2011. In “Teachers’ perceptions of the recent curriculum reforms and their implementation: What can we learn from the case of Korean elementary teachers?”, Minjeong Park and Youl-Kwan Sung examine how and why Korean elementary teachers have negative feelings about the recent curriculum reform, and suggest that teachers need effective professional development programs, opportunities to work with peer teachers, and that context and culture be considered in the implementation process.

In “School reforms, principal leadership, and teacher resistance: Evidence from Korea,” Joo-Ho Park and Dong Wook Jeong, studied the relationship between principal leadership and teacher resistance to school changes, finding that “a principal’s initiative leadership is significantly related to the reduction of teacher resistance to change, in particular on the emotional and behavioural dimensions.” They emphasized the importance of human aspects in the reform process, concluding that school reformers should be “advised to rethink the school change model design in a way of fully capturing human aspects in the reform process.”