Summary
Korean School Culture — A comparative perspective
The results of international school performance tests make it clear that school performance is strongly related to school culture. In this context, information on the Korean school culture is of particular interest since Korea has achieved high scores in PISA, TIMSS and a number of other comparative studies. The description, analysis and evaluation of the school and learning culture in this paper has regard to both the macro-level — tradition, philosophy, history and society — and the micro-level — teacher, pupil and educational content. This link between macro and micro levels is important to avoid overly rash attempts at transferring insights to the German situation. Typical characteristics of Korean school and learning culture will be presented and interpreted. Particularly significant is the high value associated with learning and education in society, a learning culture based largely on learning by rote, pre-school educational support and extensive lessons outside of school, parental involvement and the so-called ‘education fever’.