Over the last two decades, Teach for America (TFA) has rapidly grown with the greatest
success in influencing the field of teacher education and education policy making and social
reform in the United States, as well as globally. Despite the increased popularity and heated
debates over the TFA around the globe just as in the US teacher education policy and
practice, there has been little scholarly attention paid to this topic in Korean context.
Addressing the near silence in Korea to the currently most controversial, global reform
movement, this paper provides 1) an overview of local and global TFA trends and a review
of the existing literature on TFA; 2) a conceptual framework that reframes TFA as a
neoliberal, political and social reform; and lastly 3) implication for teacher education in
Korean context.
The finding based on the literature review suggests that it is critical to understand TFA
not simply as an alternative teacher preparation and placement program that provides a
solution for persistent teacher shortages. More importantly, TFA is a paradigmatic reform
movement designed to disturb and fundamentally reshape the arguably “broken” teacher
education systems. Three scenarios of the transfer of the TFA to the Korean teacher
education system are discussed: 1) Incremental improvement within the existing system, 2)
Gradual but consequential approach, 3) Disruptive approach.
We conclude that this study of TFA within S. Korea can provide the Korean teacher
educators with the opportunity to gain a more transparent, even trenchant, new take on
their challenges and come up with the fresh solutions that are mindful of the new
trans-national space and mobilities of reforms.