창작과 비평

The Quarterly Changbi 181, Autumn 2018

Abstract

Based on the diagnosis that, together with an intensifying hierarchy of universities, Korean universities not only reflect but also reproduce and expand social inequality and polarization, Yoon Jikwan explores ways to solve these problems. Rather uniquely, Yoon considers the current crisis of Korean universities, which face the threat of top-down restructuring, while failing to root out deep-seated problems, in relation to Korean society’s division system and its dual tasks of modernization and overcoming modernity. He argues that this is because the hierarchy of Korean universities is essentially related not only to the vested, interest-led social structure within the country, but also to recent global trends. The question arises whether to participate in the process of Americanization, a global trend in a globalizing world, and thereby contribute to the acceleration of social inequality, or to strengthen universities’ public nature and contribute to the creation of a new, more just world. His key question emphasizes that the current period, in which the division system—the bulwark of the vested interest structure in South Korea—is about to be dismantled, is the opportune time to re-establish the fundamental direction of university reform.