Lee, Kyoungwon; (2022) Teachers as agents: Understanding teacher agency for global citizenship education in South Korea. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This research explores primary school teachers’ agency for global citizenship education (GCE) in South Korea. Due to heightening attention to global perspectives in education, GCE was introduced into the formal education of South Korea through a government-led approach. Despite this, GCE seems dependent on individual teachers’ interests independent of the government’s ambition to pursue global citizens as one of its core curricular goals. Following this, this study investigates individual teachers’ agency for GCE and discusses the implications of findings, especially on teacher education. Following the critical tradition which seeks human emancipation, this thesis employs post-positivist realism as a methodology which allows discussion on agency concerning structural matters through analysing causal mechanisms and social conditions from empirical data. Following this, data are examined along with (1) the categorisation of global perspectives through Gramsci’s common sense, (2) pedagogical approaches to GCE for social justice from Freirean critical pedagogy, and (3) Emirbayer and Mische’s concept of agency redeveloped in relation to Holland, Skinner, Lachicotte, and Cain’s concept of a figured world. Data were mainly collected from eight primary school teachers in Korea through interviews and focus group discussions, and an additional 15 teachers by interviews for supplementary data. Findings show that teacher agency depends on individual teachers’ awareness of GCE and its significance. However, participants without experience in GCE seem to achieve agency within a curriculum regardless of their interests. Also, further data analysis on participants engaging in GCE shows that their teacher agency for GCE tends to be mediated within a given structure, which exposes the peripheral position of GCE in a curriculum contrary to the governmental promotion. Such ambivalence implies the importance of the social legitimacy of GCE to facilitate teacher agency, for which this thesis concludes with suggestions for teacher education.

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