Comparative Higher Education Research in South Korea: Trends and Challenges

CONCURRENT SESSION 5.6: Paper 003This study aims to explore the development and challenges of comparative higher education research in South Korea. Comparative perspective in higher education research brings out contrasts as well as similarities across the system, and it also contributes to develop and harmonize certain common policy issues. However, it is also criticized that there is a lack of understanding about social dynamics of different national systems in comparative higher education research. This study firstly examines a brief historical background of comparative higher education research in Korea. The study particularly focuses on analysis of higher education research publications in “Korean Journal of Comparative Education” in terms of research themes, methodologies and reference groups. The preliminary results show that comparative research in Korean higher education is mainly based on secondary document analysis without any collaboration with international academics or field research. In many cases, they are simply translations or summaries of policy reports and literature from secondary documents in other languages. It is consistent with concerns with Teichler (1996), which stated that comparative study often tends to provide sketchy, incomplete knowledge, with a lack of theoretical and methodological rigor despite the growth of popularity of it with more accessible information. The study suggests that higher education research in Korea needs to be more internationally engaged and more diversified in research themes and methodologies based on comparative perspective. Keywords: comparative education; higher education research; national trend; research themes