The Antigraft Law called "Kim Young-ran Act" came into effect from September 28 of 2016, with the purpose of eradicating the corruption in the society of public officials. In the middle of the social atmosphere in which paternalism, acknowledgment-ret...
The Antigraft Law called "Kim Young-ran Act" came into effect from September 28 of 2016, with the purpose of eradicating the corruption in the society of public officials. In the middle of the social atmosphere in which paternalism, acknowledgment-return culture, nepotism and culture of sharing events for congratulations and condolences are prevalent, the community of teachers is also influenced by this law. With this in mind, this study intends to inquire into how teachers recognize this Antigraft Law, and which changes are occurring in the relationship among teachers, between a teacher and a school parent and between a teacher and a student. Based on the inquiry, this study aims to seek for implications relevant to the Antigraft Law and creation of transparent culture in the community of teachers.
For the purpose of this study, the research problems were established as follows:
Firstly, how do teachers recognize the Antigraft Law?
Secondly, how is the relationship among teachers changing since the Antigraft Law has been enforced?
Thirdly, how is the relationship between a teacher and a school parent changing since the Antigraft Law has been enforced?
Fourthly, how is the relationship between a teacher and a student changing since the Antigraft Law has been enforced?
The research participants are composed of 5 teachers of Aram Elementary School with 26 classes, located at Anyang City of Gyeonggi-do. An in-depth interviews were carried out oriented to the participants in 1-2 occasions. Based on the transcription of the collected data, the replied content was encoded to set up the research results.
The research results can be summarized as follows: Teachers recognized the Antigraft Law as "acceptable". It is believed that the community of teachers had already formed a strong mood of eradicating "gratitude envelope", and the integrity awareness of teachers has increased through effort activities such as different workshops, code of conduct of public servants and pledge of integrity. For this reason, most of teachers think that there will be very few teachers who will be punished due to the unlawful act judged by the Antigraft Law. At the same time, teachers expect that the custom, which has been practiced under the name of "affection or gratitude expression" in our society, will disappear with the enforcement of the Antigraft Law and the society of public officials will be even more transparent.
Regarding this, teachers considered the Antigraft Law positive. Moreover, relatively passive changes have been made among teachers. In the process of creating and maintaining a relationship, there are some natural situations that one has a meal together with another person and one wants to express thanks to others. In front of such situations, teachers become conscious of the Antigraft Law and think of the position of others, and the occasions of having a meal together reduce and they think of the necessity of the invitation one more time. On the other hand, some positive changes have been equally discovered in the sense that there is no more necessity of "taking care of" the administrators or superiors in the relationship among teachers.
In the relationship between a teacher and a school parent, all research participants answered that the relationship had been changed in a positive way. Since the Antigraft Law came into effect, school parents are also conscious of the fact that they should not give any kind of gift to teachers, and the embarrassing situation of which teachers were forced to deny the gift has decreased. No one gives anything and no one receives anything. They finally reached this kind of "neat" relationship.
Regarding the relationship between a teacher and a student, teachers recognize that the relationship has become drier than before. Teachers sometimes feel self-shame and they think the relationship with students has become hard-hearted in a way, because the method of expressing gratitude between teachers and students has been completely blocked.
This study provided an opportunity to make an in-depth inquiry into the changes of relationship among the members of school organization since the Antigraft Law has been enforced. Moreover, to settle the Antigraft Law as a plan of securing public ethics in the society of public officials in the future, this study intends to raise the necessity of carrying out follow-up studies by expanding the range of the law toward the public field, beyond the educational realm.
Key words: Antigraft Law, culture of integrity. change of relationship in the community of teachers