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ABSTRACT
This study examines the contribution of university educators toward prefiguratively creating tomorrow today in the higher education classroom. Educators often teach for peace and social justice through a variety of normative pedagogical frameworks. Yet, this linkage of pedagogy and prefigurative politics in university classrooms is frequently under-examined. Moreover, such research has not yet been conducted within the context of Korea. Hence, this paper investigates – through a qualitative case study methodology – the varied approaches to pedagogy for social change in Korean universities today, including but not limited to: (a) democratic pedagogy, (b) critical pedagogy, (c) peace and social justice pedagogy, and (d) decolonial pedagogy. The paper examines these intersectional pedagogies through the lens of prefigurative politics, which is understood as a form of praxis that attempts to (re)construct through education a more just society. Findings indicate challenges and opportunities that Korean university educators face today in teaching for social change in higher education classrooms.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. By ‘positive peace’, we mean educational efforts to prevent physical violence and address cultural, structural, and poststructural forms of violence such as poverty, racism, and patriarchy in and beyond HE (Galtung 1969; Hajir and Kester 2020; Kester and Cremin 2017). We understand education to be inextricably linked to peacebuilding and conflict transformation when it addresses all forms of violence in society and contributes to reducing prejudice and undoing unjust laws and policies through inclusive, conflict-sensitive, and sustainable practices (Reardon 1988; Zakharia 2016).
2. We acknowledge that the views toward the Candlelight Revolution in 2016 and the impeachment of President Park Geun-Hye remain politically contentious in Korean society (Cho and Hwang 2021).
3. In June 1987, more than two million people nationwide were involved in a democratic uprising. Due to the unprecedented size and the intensity of the protest, the military government did not use violent repression and instead promised the introduction of a democratic system (Shin 2020).
4. To be sure, there are contested visions of what constitutes peace, democracy, justice, and education on the peninsula (Cho 2016; Shin 2012).
5. It is unclear whether Gandhi actually said this, but the quote is often attributed to him and is one frequently cited in regard to prefigurative politics (Raekstad and Gradin 2020).
6. The first author has reviewed global citizenship education elsewhere (Kester 2022; Kester, Park, and Sohn 2021).
7. We followed the ethical guidelines of our home university from which the study received IRB approval (Seoul National University IRB no. 2110/004–002).
8. ‘Modernity/coloniality’, as drawn from the literature cited in this section, refers to ‘coloniality’ as the invisible side of ‘modernity’. The coloniality of power in politics and economics is notably linked with the coloniality of knowledge and being. Thus, achieving decolonization in the political and economic spheres equally necessitates achieving it in the domains of knowledge and personal life-spaces (Andreotti et al. 2015; Mignolo 2007). In prefigurative HE, this might be modeled through curriculum and pedagogy that disrupts and de-links learning from the logic of modernity/coloniality.
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Notes on contributors
Kevin Kester
Kevin Kester is Associate Professor at Seoul National University and Director of the Education, Conflict and Peace Lab. His research interests lie in the sociology and politics of education with a focus on comparative international education; education, conflict, and peacebuilding; and decolonizing education. His most recent papers are published in Teaching in Higher Education; International Journal of Comparative Education and Development; and the Routledge book Innovations in Peace and Education Praxis. He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge.
Rira Seo
Rira Seo is a PhD student in the Interdisciplinary Program: Global Education Cooperation in the College of Education and research assistant in the Education, Conflict and Peace Lab at Seoul National University. Her research interests lie in refugee education in conflict-affected regions and peacebuilding in and through refugee education. She received her Master’s degree in Development Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Nicki Gerstner
Nicki Gerstner is a PhD candidate in the Interdisciplinary Program: Global Education Cooperation in the College of Education and research assistant in the Education, Conflict and Peace Lab at Seoul National University. She currently works in the English Department at Seoul Cyber University. Her research interests include global citizenship education for sustainable development, cosmopolitanism, partnerships toward peacebuilding, and decolonial practices for transformative education and pedagogies. She received her Master’s of Education in Global Studies in Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.