No Alternative? examines education in South Korea beyond daytime K-16 schooling—an escalating phenomenon in an increasingly neoliberal and globalizing society. Ethnographic portraits of private after-schooling, alternative schooling, home schooling, and adult distance education reveal that education producers and consumers often reject mainstream education while simultaneously seeking or embracing its symbolic value.
Nancy Abelmann is Harry E. Preble Professor and associate vice chancellor for research (humanities, arts, and related fields) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Jung-ah Choi is an assistant professor at Governors State University; So Jin Park is a research fellow at the Institute for Social Development Studies at Yonsei University.
“No Alternative sheds abundant light on the ways in which the South Korean educational system intricately intersects with intractable problems of class, mobility, politics, and Korea’s ongoing economic transformations. It will be beneficial both for those who have little knowledge of the contemporary South Korean educational situation, and for specialists who would gain from the latest research on this ever-changing but acutely problematic arena of contemporary South Korean society.”—Kelly H. Chong, University of Kansas
172 pp.6 x 9
9780520289802$24.95|£21.00Paper
Dec 2013