The 2022 Revised National Curriculum presents ‘Student Agency’ as a key mechanism to respond to the uncertainty of future society, emphasizing that learners should proactively design and construct their own lives and learning. Accordingly, textboo...
The 2022 Revised National Curriculum presents ‘Student Agency’ as a key mechanism to respond to the uncertainty of future society, emphasizing that learners should proactively design and construct their own lives and learning. Accordingly, textbooks, the primary teaching and learning materials in schools, are also seeking changes to foster student agency. The purpose of this study is to explore how student agency is implemented in textbooks—the central medium of teaching and learning—by conducting an in-depth analysis of the unit composition and learning activities in government-authorized textbooks for seven subjects in the first year of middle school under the 2022 Revised National Curriculum. The specific research questions set to achieve this are as follows:
First, how is ‘Student Agency,’ emphasized in the 2022 Revised National Curriculum, reflected in the unit structure of middle school textbooks? Second, how is ‘Student Agency,’ emphasized in the 2022 Revised National Curriculum, reflected in the learning activities of middle school textbooks? Third, what changes and significance does the implementation of ‘Student Agency’ in the 2022 Revised National Curriculum textbooks have compared to the 2015 Revised National Curriculum?
The results of this study are summarized as follows:
First, the 2022 revised textbooks maintained the overall unit composition system of the 2015 revised textbooks while implementing agency through detailed internal activity elements. Most subjects followed the existing framework of ‘Introduction-Development-Conclusion,’ but functions inducing student participation were strengthened at each stage. In the unit introduction, corners allowing learners to set their own goals beyond those presented by the textbook and to establish specific learning plans were newly added or concretized. Additionally, activities to check learning processes and attitudes were frequently arranged in the unit conclusion and immediately after individual activities, demonstrating a structural feature that helps students constantly monitor and regulate their learning.
Second, it was confirmed that student agency in textbook learning activities is not implemented uniformly across all subjects but is differentiated into three dimensions according to the nature and characteristics of each subject. First, Korean and English textbooks emphasized ‘Procedural Agency,’ allowing students to self-monitor and flexibly adjust the process and speed of learning. These subjects moved away from the passive learning of materials designated by the textbook, encouraging students to directly select learning materials such as books or writing topics that match their interests and to plan and manage specific performance procedures from idea generation to completion. Next, Social Studies, Science, and Mathematics textbooks highlighted ‘Methodological Agency,’ where students directly design optimal paths and tools to solve complex real-world problems beyond finding fixed answers. Finally, Moral Education and History textbooks demonstrated ‘Existential Agency,’ extending the meaning of learning from classroom knowledge acquisition to individual lives and careers. These subjects led students to use current learning as a resource for designing their life paths by having them reflect on their past and concretely visualize their future self-images through autobiography writing or career-linked experiences.
Third, the 2022 revised textbooks showed a characteristic of concretizing the context of learning into reality by making learning content more specific while maintaining the general framework of existing textbooks. Whereas the 2015 revised textbooks limited students to passive performers carrying out set learning processes in hypothetical situations like virtual dilemmas or role-plays, the 2022 revised textbooks defined students as ‘active designers’ who organize learning goals and processes themselves through activities such as filling in goal-setting blanks in the introduction or establishing inquiry plans. Furthermore, the tools of inquiry were converted from analog experimental tools to smart devices and online platforms to facilitate the production and sharing of information, and the focus of assessment shifted from confirming simple functional achievements to internalizing values and fostering attitudes.
The significance of this study is as follows: First, this study is significant in that it concretized and analyzed the discourse on student agency from the level of abstract curriculum documents to the level of textbooks, which are concrete teaching and learning materials. While existing prior studies mainly focused on exploring conceptual definitions of student agency or the direction of the general curriculum, this study confirmed what language and devices were used to translate this ideology into the unit structures and learning activities of textbooks, the primary medium in schools.
Second, this study is significant in that it revealed that student agency is implemented in different aspects according to the unique characteristics of each subject. It was found that ‘Procedural Autonomy’ (adjusting learning speed and process) in Korean and English, ‘Methodological Design’ (devising optimal tools and paths for problem-solving) in Social Studies, Science, and Mathematics, and ‘Existential Expansion’ (connecting knowledge to life direction and career exploration) in Moral Education and History operate as key mechanisms of agency. These analysis results suggest that student agency is not a concept that can be mechanically applied to all subjects, but a context-dependent concept that must be reconstructed and applied according to the characteristics and nature of each subject.
Third, this study is significant in that it identified that the essence of student agency aimed by the 2022 revised textbooks extends beyond simple academic achievement to the subjective design of life and career and ‘Co-agency’ based on solidarity with others. The 2022 revised textbooks showed a distinct tendency to connect learning with the context of the individual’s existential life by having learners reflect on their past and plan their future self-images, rather than limiting learning to cognitive activities of transferring external knowledge internally. In addition, attempts to sublimate individual learning into social responsibility and solidarity for the community were confirmed by structuring the process of solving complex real-world problems and constantly communicating and cooperating with peers as essential learning activities. This suggests that student agency in the 2022 revised textbooks is being established as a cooperative concept completed through interaction and solidarity with others, not limited to individual autonomy or ability.
This study has the following limitations. First, this study limited the analysis target to government-authorized textbooks from a specific publisher for the first year of middle school under the 2022 Revised National Curriculum. Second, since this study analyzed middle school first-year textbooks, there is a limitation in that it did not comprehensively grasp the aspects of student agency appearing in other grades or school levels such as high school. Finally, this study examined the meaning of student agency through the method of fixed text analysis of textbooks, which has limitations in understanding how it is actually executed through the interaction between teachers and students in schools. Therefore, it is suggested that follow-up studies expand the scope of analysis and conduct qualitative case studies, including actual class observations and interviews with teachers and students, to deeply explore how student agency is substantially manifested through the medium of textbooks in classroom settings.