Professionalism and the Reform of Teachers and Teacher Education in the Republic of Korea & the United States of America

This paper compares how educational reform documents in Korea and the U.S.A. conceptualize teachers and teacher education and examines how, if at all, the discourses of one country appear to influence those of the other. Special attention is paid to the ways in which reform documents incorporate different conceptions of professionalism in framing and in proposing remedies for the problems with teachers and teacher education. Eighteen reform documents issued in the two countries by national governmental and non-governmental organizations since the 1980s were selected and analyzed. It was found that while both Korean and American documents seem to draw on elements of the functionalist (or trait theory) conception of professionalism, Korean documents put more emphasis on issues related to the power/autonomy of teachers. Regarding cross-country influence, Korea seems to have appropriated ideas and moved toward the structures and practices evidenced in the U.S.A. during an earlier period. (Contains 1 table and 10 notes.)