| dc.description.abstract | Aim: Historically, the teaching profession in eastern Asian countries is often considered as a
prestigious and desirable occupation with great respect in social and cultural contexts.
Even though South Korean secondary school teachers have been part of and influenced
by a devaluation of their authority compared to the past, there is not enough research
about Korean teachers’ work and lives in international research. The aim of this study
is to describe and analyze how teachers in contemporary south Korea understand,
reflect on their situation as teachers, conditions, tensions, and new challenges based on
discourses on teacher professionalism but also the pandemic.
Theory: The study is based on the combination of policy theory (Ball, 1994) and theory based
on symbolic interactionism. Policy frames the work of teachers and needs to be
understood in order to analyse the context of teachers’ practices. Symbolic
interactionism believes an individual does not passively receive input from society and
is actively creating its meaning through interaction, interpretation, and re-interpretation;
hence, society is continuously created and recreated as humans inevitably meet new
challenges over time. As teacher professionalism is largely affected by the constant
interaction between, on the one hand, their beliefs, attitudes, and emotions and, on the
other hand, the social, cultural, and institutional environment where they function, the
concept of symbolic interactionism and education policy theory will enhance the
understanding of the importance of individuals’ different voices and how teacher’s
professionalism and perception toward the profession have been changed over the time.
Method: A qualitative discourse analysis was applied in order to determine how the Korean
teachers experience their work. The research data is gathered by analyzing previous
empirical studies, directives, and policy, but also by four in-service semi-structured
individual interviews of Korean teachers.
Results: The result of this study indicates that the contemporary Korean secondary school
teachers are confronted with changing directives and conceptions toward the teaching
profession in Korean society. This in combination of traditional values and expectations
create a difficult situation for the teachers today, in their trying to adapt to it and
construct meanings of their profession from work. Each teacher perceived the situation
similarly or differently depends on his/her personal experiences and the social, cultural,
and institutional environment where they work on a daily basis | sv |
