Education fever in South Korea: Rite of passage versus children's rights

Abstract

From enrolment in elementary school until acceptance at university, South Korean children pursue a uniform, arduous goal assigned to them by their mothers, community, and popular culture. Where this personal struggle will lead adolescents, and how, why, and at what cost? This study conceptualizes education as the rite of passage, not only for the children's social initiation but also in their mothers' pursuit of self-validation and self-worth. This social ritual aims to raise successful workers and righteous citizens but also inflicts various harms on the children, posing significant costs to them, their parents, and their teachers. We document evidence that youths endure various hardships and even long-term harms from being blindly and unidirectionally steered during their adolescence by their ostensibly emotionally cold "manager moms." We assert that giving children their own voice, shifting the prevailing social norms, and reforming the educational and career-access systems would help children attain better outcomes with lower collateral damage.

Keywords

Education fever / Initiation rush / Liminality / Tiger mothers / South Korea

Acknowledgments

None.

Funding

None.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Author contributions

Conceptualization: All authors

Investigation: All authors

Writing-original draft: All authors

Writing-review & editing: All authors

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Availability of data

Not applicable.

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