In this study, my purpose is to explore how progressive education was appropriated and applied to educational reforms at the elementary and secondary school level in the context of the counterrevolutionary policy of the United States Army Military Government in Korea(USAMGIK), 1945-1948. I intend to provide a revisionist analysis of the effects on policy of progressive education which was introduced into Korea as a model of "democratic" education during USAMGIK. This study contains an analysis of important questions that most previous studies, which had been undertaken on the basis of the conventional belief in altruistic motives of the military control of Korea on the part of U. S. government, failed to raise: how did USAMGIK use education to obtain its political aims during the transitional period from Japanese formal imperialism to American informal imperialism? What educational reform programs were introduced to aid this process? How were educational changes used to preserve the unequal social and economic system left by the Japanese? The results of the study show that (a) USAMGIK presented educational reforms as a surrogate for socio-economic reforms; (b) educational reform programs, which were guided by progressive educational ideas included educational ideals, school structure, pedagogical methods, curriculum and textbooks; and (c) the introduction of the modified 6-3-3 school system as a dual system and of curriculum tracks was aimed at preserving and developing the existing unequal social and economic system left by the Japanese. Textbooks and teaching methods, replete with the rhetoric of child-centeredness were designed to provide students with the modes of thought necessary to conform to U. S. imperialism. The conclusion of this study is that while progressive education was nominally introduced into Korea as a model of "democratic" education during the period of USAMGIK, it had quite different undemocratic consequences. The educational reforms informed by it served to strengthen the dominative structure of the U. S. in Korea.