The purpose of this study is to examine and describe the practice of School-Designed Autonomous Hours by focusing on the process through which the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject was developed, organized, and implemented in a middle school, a...
The purpose of this study is to examine and describe the practice of School-Designed Autonomous Hours by focusing on the process through which the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject was developed, organized, and implemented in a middle school, and to analytically present its characteristics. To this end, the following three research questions were formulated.
First, how were the content and curriculum documents of the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject at Solsol Middle School developed?
Second, how was the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject at Solsol Middle School organized and implemented?
Third, what characteristics emerged in the process of developing, organizing, and implementing the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject at Solsol Middle School, and what do these characteristics signify?
Guided by these research questions, this study adopted the ontological assumptions of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as a research sensibility. From this perspective, the practice of School-Designed Autonomous Hours at Solsol Middle School was conceptualized as a network, and the study sought to trace the actors involved in this network and their entanglements. Both human and non-human entities were broadly included as actors in order to describe the overall actor-network of School-Designed Autonomous Hours practice at Solsol Middle School.
To achieve this purpose, a qualitative case study was conducted, with the School-Designed Autonomous Hours practice at Solsol Middle School as the research case. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, on-site document collection, and keeping a research journal. In-depth interviews were conducted with four teachers who were responsible for the development, organization, and implementation of the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject, with each teacher participating in one to three interview sessions. On-site materials related to the practice of School-Designed Autonomous Hours at Solsol Middle School were collected, and the research journal was written by the researcher in the process of describing the practice and its characteristics.
Data analysis was primarily based on interview data collected from teachers at Solsol Middle School, while on-site materials and the research journal were used as supplementary data to enhance the validity of the analysis. For the first and second research questions, data analysis proceeded in three stages. In the first stage, interview data were organized into three phases—subject development, curriculum document development, and organization and implementation—and deductive coding was conducted based on key issues related to School-Designed Autonomous Hours practice identified in the theoretical background. In the second stage, actors involved in each phase were identified and traced. In the third stage, the translations of the identified actors were unpacked. To address the third research question, the findings from the previous analyses were examined through the lens of ANT to analyze the characteristics of School-Designed Autonomous Hours practice at Solsol Middle School in terms of subject formation and transformation. The results of this analysis are as follows.
First, the development of the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject at Solsol Middle School was a process in which the School-Designed Autonomous Hours policy was connected to an existing interdisciplinary instruction network centered on a small stream flowing behind the school. Human and non-human actors both within and outside Solsol Middle School formed an interdisciplinary instruction network around this stream. This network expanded its scope through the introduction of the School Autonomous Curriculum policy and the School-Designed Autonomous Hours policy, while maintaining strong connections. Because such a strongly connected interdisciplinary instruction network already existed, the development of the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject at Solsol Middle School was not particularly difficult. However, curriculum documents for the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject had the potential to disrupt existing connections within the interdisciplinary instruction network. Consequently, the development of the curriculum document was confined to the task domain of the responsible teachers, and the document was created in a way that minimized its visibility, enabling it to remain connected to the School-Designed Autonomous Hours practice network at Solsol Middle School. The curriculum document for the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject was developed through a process opposite to that of existing subjects in the national curriculum—that is, by deriving the curriculum document from classroom instruction. The document development process involved collaboration between the responsible teachers and generative AI, and the powerful actor of interdisciplinary instruction prompted teachers to add new content. Meanwhile, digital instructional tools functioned as obligatory passage points in the production of teaching and learning materials for the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject. As a result, some elements that had previously existed within the interdisciplinary instruction network centered on the stream were excluded.
Second, the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject at Solsol Middle School was organized by reducing instructional hours across existing subjects by an equal proportion. This equal reduction was possible because subject teachers and subject instruction were strongly connected within the existing interdisciplinary instruction network. Once the entity known as the science subject cluster—under which the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject was organized—was enrolled in the School-Designed Autonomous Hours practice network, it exerted sufficient influence to even prompt a change in the subject’s name. The burden of five-level achievement evaluation associated with organizing the subject under the science cluster was addressed by enrolling the Free Semester System into the network. In other words, the placement of the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject in the first semester of the first grade was the result of a series of connections within the School-Designed Autonomous Hours practice network.
During the implementation of the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject at Solsol Middle School, instructional practices different from those originally developed emerged. The introduction of School-Designed Autonomous Hours enabled the creation of new interdisciplinary instruction. Subject instruction at Solsol Middle School formed new connections within the School-Designed Autonomous Hours practice network, strengthening the degree of integration. This indicates that the School-Designed Autonomous Hours network at Solsol Middle School was fluid in nature. Within this network, the student record functioned as an actor that selectively translated subject instruction by bundling activities from various interdisciplinary lessons into a single subject.
Third, by reflecting on the above findings through the sensibility of ANT, the characteristics of School-Designed Autonomous Hours practice at Solsol Middle School were analyzed in terms of the formation and transformation of the subject. The School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject emerged from a network in which human and non-human actors inside and outside the school were entangled. As the network expanded and stabilized, interdisciplinary instruction became the most powerful actor, shaping the integrative nature of the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject. Non-human actors such as curriculum documents and digital instructional tools demonstrated agency comparable to that of human teachers, maintaining diverse connections within the network. As a result, the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject emerged as a temporary network with relatively blurred boundaries, distinguishing it from conventional subjects that transform disciplinary knowledge into teachable forms.
At the same time, continuous processes of translation composed of micro-level negotiations and compromises occurred within the School-Designed Autonomous Hours practice network, leading to the ongoing formation and transformation of the subject. The process of organizing the School-Designed Autonomous Hours subject under the science subject cluster and the enrollment of the Free Semester System into the network illustrate the constant reconfiguration of connections within the network. Through selective translation, the student record also reconfigured the integrative nature of the subject. Because this network was temporary and fluid, the practice of School-Designed Autonomous Hours at Solsol Middle School varied depending on how diverse elements within and beyond the school became entangled. As a continuously emerging subject, School-Designed Autonomous Hours emerged worked as an actor within the network that cannot be explained as a simple aggregation of integrated subjects.
The implications of these findings are as follows. At the policy level, first, there is a need to conceptualize the formulation and implementation of curriculum policies such as School-Designed Autonomous Hours in networked terms and to attend to practices that emerge from the realities of individual schools. The practice of School-Designed Autonomous Hours depends on how various entities inside and outside the school are interconnected. This has implications for how the monitoring of School-Designed Autonomous Hours implementation should be conducted. Secondly, it is necessary to reconsider the support measures for the implementation of autonomous school hours in middle schools. Such measures should facilitate close connections among the actors within the network—namely, policy, teachers, and actors around the school. Within this network, connections that strengthen the practice of School-Designed Autonomous Hours should be supported, while those that hinder implementation need to be revised or removed.
At the academic level, richer exploration based on socio-material approaches such as Actor-Network Theory is needed to examine school curriculum practices. Curriculum practices such as School-Designed Autonomous Hours can be more effectively understood by describing the unique entanglements of human and non-human actors inside and outside the school. Accordingly, research is needed that conceptualizes school curriculum practices as assemblages and traces their effects through socio-material approaches like ANT. Such research can capture the micro-level practices of school curricula and offer a critical sense for curriculum development.
The significance of this study lies in its in-depth examination of the practice of School-Designed Autonomous Hours at a middle school, identifying its characteristics and implications. By tracing the processes of subject formation, organization, and implementation from an actor-network perspective, this study presents one approach to comprehensively understanding and describing School-Designed Autonomous Hours practice. However, a limitation of this study is that some aspects of the complexity of practice may not have been fully captured, as a researcher external to the school assembled and delineated the practice for analytical purposes. This limitation also points to a new area of interest—the possibility of alternative descriptions of School-Designed Autonomous Hours practice. As School-Designed Autonomous Hours policy practices in middle schools are expected to diversify, future qualitative research is needed to examine how the policy is enacted across different school contexts.