The purpose of this study is to explore how a local educational governance between local educational authorities and educational civil society organizations is being formed in Korea in times of the popular election of educational superintendents, whic...
The purpose of this study is to explore how a local educational governance between local educational authorities and educational civil society organizations is being formed in Korea in times of the popular election of educational superintendents, which first started in 2010. To prepare for empirical case studies on two different local educational authorities in Gwangju and Ulsan, the author reviewed concepts of governance and its different models as well. Then the author extracted both the variables that affect the formation of governance and the analytical yardsticks that enable us to evaluate the operation of governance. Also the author set up a model of relations between partners of local educational governance.
To judge the current state of development in local educational governance, this study focused on two controversial policy-making processes, one on teachers' ability evaluation policy and another on city ordinance on students' human rights. The author took elite interviews on local educational bureaucrats, civil society activists, and journalists, in addition to the document-based research.
The findings of this study are as follows. How an educational local governance is being formed in a locality is pretty much influenced by the ideological orientation of the elected local educational superintendent of the city and by the development of local educational civil society organizations there. The progressive educational superintendents are more willing to form the governance than the conservative ones. The more developed educational civil society organizations in Gwangju seems to provide a better environment for governance formation. Also this study finds that the existence of legal obligation impedes the governance formation while the voluntarism among goevrnance participants facilitates it. Moreover, this study confirms that both the style of leadership and the extent of trust between major players exert considerable influence in governance formation.
According to the interview results, which was counted and aggregated quantitatively for regional comparison, both the educational superintendent and educational civil society organizations in Gwangju have developed local educational governance much more than those in Ulsan. In all aspects that include participation, cooperation, transparency and controllability in governance operation, Gwangju's experience is more developed than Ulsan's. The author concludes that among the developmental steps of governance Ulsan remains at the bottom level of 'mutual independence,' while Gwangju has moved up between coexistence level and network one.