Elite Education and Hierarchy Reproduction in Seoul, South Korea: Grounded Theory Approach on University Entrance Preparatory Practice of Gangnam-elites

Abstract

South Korean education regime is a model example showing the hierarchical social structure of the country. Almost entire aims of the primary and the secondary level of education are to succeed the pupils into the universities, and the ranking of the admitted university determines the degree of success of each pupils schooling. It is especially significant when the tertiary education advancement rate in South Korea is notably high, making the university entrance as a social obligation. In the meantime South Korean education regime has been gradually engineered to be commodified, making the historical institutionalist characteristics of the South Korean education to be commodified instrumentalism. The commodified education sphere has become the theatre of class struggle so the people who are afford of purchasing additional private education service are comparatively more advantageous. In this milieu, the urbanisation history of Seoul invented a spectacular geographical space Gangnam, which features luxuriousness in a multiple number of dimensions including the education. In this research, interviews on five pupils and their parents living in Gangnam area and four pupils living in non-Gangnam areas were undertaken, in order to examine distinctiveness of the Gangnamers education. This research employs grounded theory approach which is apt for capturing dynamic mechanism of social phenomenon, consulting one literature by Corbin and Strauss and another by Charmaz. Based on the interview data, following axial coding words has been emerged: 1) negotiation with the institutional setting on the education regime

2) Gangnamer as a new social class

3) distinctive interpersonal circumstance structured from personal histories

4) distinctive private educational investment

5) distinctive mentality fostered by the status of competitor

and 6) imagined geographical significance. The abovementioned axial coding words entails relevant open coding words which are less abstractised and supporting interview contents are presented with each open coding. Discussion for theoretical integration utilises concepts advanced by Bourdieu and Lefebvre, and substquently a paradigm model (figure 5) and a consequential matrix (figure 6) are developed. The coding words and the subsequent theoretical discussion reveal that Gangnamers educational practices are in fact distinctive, offering elite-education for their children with the constellation of distinctive habitus and practice. However, my argument is that those consumptive educational practices of Gangnamers can be defined as the controlled consumption prearranged by social forces. Therefore, the selective coding of this research embracing all the axial coding words and entailing open coding words is active adaptation to the institutional arrangement. The Gangnamers are the ones who accept the given characteristics of the educational field, and actively pursue the strategic behaviour on the field. In the meantime, the educational practices occurring in Gangnam become the imagined standard of South Korean education and the image of educational capital is accumulated onto the social space of Gangnam area. The mechanism discussed in this research suggests that the hierarchical social structure of South Korea keeps reproduced through the education sphere where the controlled consumption is pursued imitating Gangnamers.