Globalisation and Individuals: The Political Economy of South Korea’s Educational Expansion

Globalisation has produced changes in economic and social characteristics with no area more affected than job competitiveness and security. A common response has been increased investment in education. Korea has experienced this job insecurity and the associated heightened emphasis on education but the ‘‘localisation of globalisation’’ in Korea has had distinctive impacts. Korea began absorbing these impacts with a pre-existing ‘‘organisationspecific’’ knowledge system. Perceived failures in that system have pushed firms and the government toward an ‘‘individual-specific’’ knowledge system, like that found in US universities. The transition in Korea, however, is incomplete, leading to a combined system with complex criteria used by firms and universities to select applicants. Parents and students have lost faith in public education’s ability to adapt, spawning a massive private education system which absorbs significant social and economic resources. This peculiar localisation is the subject of this paper and, by exploring it, a larger point is made about diverse ways individuals perceive and respond to globalisation.