Korea Focus June 2015 English

KOREA FOCUS is a monthly webzine and a quarterly journal, featuring commentaries and essays on Korean politics, economy, society and culture, as well as relevant international issues. The articles are selected from leading Korean newspapers, magazines, journals and academic papers from prestigious forums. Since its inception in 1993, the journal has served as a foremost source of objective information on Korea, contributing to a broader understanding in Korean society in the international community and promoting Korean studies at academic institutions abroad. It is circulated among major international organizations, universities, libraries, Korean studies institutes and individual researchers in some 150 countries.

KOREA FOCUS is a monthly webzine and a quarterly journal, featuring commentaries and essays on Korean politics, economy, society and culture, as well as relevant international issues. The articles are selected from leading Korean newspapers, magazines, journals and academic papers from prestigious forums. Since its inception in 1993, the journal has served as a foremost source of objective information on Korea, contributing to a broader understanding in Korean society in the international community and promoting Korean studies at academic institutions abroad. It is circulated among major international organizations, universities, libraries, Korean studies institutes and individual researchers in some 150 countries.

KOREA FOCUS is a monthly webzine and a quarterly journal, featuring commentaries and essays on Korean politics, economy, society and culture, as well as relevant international issues. The articles are selected from leading Korean newspapers, magazines, journals and academic papers from prestigious forums. Since its inception in 1993, the journal has served as a foremost source of objective information on Korea, contributing to a broader understanding in Korean society in the international community and promoting Korean studies at academic institutions abroad. It is circulated among major international organizations, universities, libraries, Korean studies institutes and individual researchers in some 150 countries.

KOREA FOCUS is a monthly webzine and a quarterly journal, featuring commentaries and essays on Korean politics, economy, society and culture, as well as relevant international issues. The articles are selected from leading Korean newspapers, magazines, journals and academic papers from prestigious forums. Since its inception in 1993, the journal has served as a foremost source of objective information on Korea, contributing to a broader understanding in Korean society in the international community and promoting Korean studies at academic institutions abroad. It is circulated among major international organizations, universities, libraries, Korean studies institutes and individual researchers in some 150 countries.

KOREA FOCUS is a monthly webzine and a quarterly journal, featuring commentaries and essays on Korean politics, economy, society and culture, as well as relevant international issues. The articles are selected from leading Korean newspapers, magazines, journals and academic papers from prestigious forums. Since its inception in 1993, the journal has served as a foremost source of objective information on Korea, contributing to a broader understanding in Korean society in the international community and promoting Korean studies at academic institutions abroad. It is circulated among major international organizations, universities, libraries, Korean studies institutes and individual researchers in some 150 countries.

KOREA FOCUS is a monthly webzine and a quarterly journal, featuring commentaries and essays on Korean politics, economy, society and culture, as well as relevant international issues. The articles are selected from leading Korean newspapers, magazines, journals and academic papers from prestigious forums. Since its inception in 1993, the journal has served as a foremost source of objective information on Korea, contributing to a broader understanding in Korean society in the international community and promoting Korean studies at academic institutions abroad. It is circulated among major international organizations, universities, libraries, Korean studies institutes and individual researchers in some 150 countries.

Against the backdrop of China’s mounting influence and North Korea’s growing nuclear capability and expanding missile arsenal, South Korea faces a set of strategic choices that will shape its economic prospects and national security. In South Korea at the Crossroads, Scott A. Snyder examines the trajectory of fifty years of South Korean foreign policy and offers predictions—and a prescription—for the future. Pairing a historical perspective with a shrewd understanding of today’s political landscape, Snyder contends that South Korea’s best strategy remains investing in a robust alliance with the United States. Snyder begins with South Korea’s effort in the 1960s to offset the risk of abandonment by the United States during the Vietnam War and the subsequent crisis in the alliance during the 1970s. A series of shifts in South Korean foreign relations followed: the “Nordpolitik” engagement with the Soviet Union and China at the end of the Cold War; Kim Dae Jung’s “Sunshine Policy,” designed to bring North Korea into the international community; “trustpolitik,” which sought to foster diplomacy with North Korea and Japan; and changes in South Korea’s relationship with the United States. Despite its rise as a leader in international financial, development, and climate-change forums, South Korea will likely still require the commitment of the United States to guarantee its security. Although China is a tempting option, Snyder argues that only the United States is both credible and capable in this role. South Korea remains vulnerable relative to other regional powers in northeast Asia despite its rising profile as a middle power, and it must balance the contradiction of desirable autonomy and necessary alliance.

This book examines racism and racialized discourses in the ELT profession in South Korea. The book is informed by a number of different critical approaches to race and discourse, and the discussions contained in the chapters offer one way of exploring how the ELT profession can be understood from such perspectives. Observations made are based on the understanding that racism should not be viewed as individual acts of discrimination, but rather as a system of social structures. While the book is principally concerned with language teaching and learning in South Korea, the findings are situated in a wider discussion of race and ethnicity in the global ELT profession. The book makes the following argument: White normativity is an ideological commitment and a form of racialized discourse that comes from the social actions of those involved in the ELT profession; this normative model or ideal standard constructs a system of racial discrimination that is founded on White privilege, saviorism and neoliberalism. Drawing on a wide range of data sources, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in critically examining ELT.

This must-have handbook offers a comprehensive survey of the field. It reviews the language education policies of Asia, encompassing 30 countries sub-divided by regions, namely East, Southeast, South and Central Asia, and considers the extent to which these are being implemented and with what effect. The most recent iteration of language education policies of each of the countries is described and the impact and potential consequence of any change is critically considered. Each country chapter provides a historical overview of the languages in use and language education policies, examines the ideologies underpinning the language choices, and includes an account of the debates and controversies surrounding language and language education policies, before concluding with some predictions for the future.