Korean Society for the Politics of Education (KSPE) has been weathered
two decades of its academic journey in Korea and achieved monumental
academic progress so far. Most of all, the pioneers in 90s challenged the
myth of ‘education out of politics’ and sawed a seed of ‘the political
approach in education’. The author cannot appreciate too much for its
work and accomplishment of KSPE since inception.
This paper focused on the accomplishment of KSPE’s second decade for
the first decade was covered by the special issue of celebrating its 10th
anniversary. Based on the then-made rubric, the articles published in the
Journal of Politics of Education were analyzed.
Former decade focused on education reforms for their were many historic
venues in education like the inauguration of civil administration, the unveil
of 5·31 education reform plan, and the new education agenda of Kim Dae
Jung administration, etc. As those education agenda were planned and
implemented, the research of latter decade mainly dealt with policy
implementation and evaluation. Also, welfare and early childhood education
were discussed in politics of education area.
This study also shed light on the research and education of politics of
education terrain of the U.S. and compared and contrasted the
characteristics of the academia and its components of two nations.
Explaining two major conflicting forces of market and government in
education, this study adopted Dahl’s concept of ‘Homo Civicus’ and
Labaree’s framework of ‘citizen vs consumer’ to bring more productive
arguments aiming consensus in common good and better aim of education.