In this episode, Edward Vickers talks to Evelyn Kim (Kim Min Ji), who lectures on the Comparative Education MA at the UCL Institute of Education. They discuss Evelyn’s work on policies pursued by the South Korean government since around 2012 under the rubric of ‘Happiness Education’. Various surveys have suggested that young people in Korea are particularly unhappy, by comparison with their peers elsewhere. Prominent amongst the reasons cited for this are pressures related to the education system and the culture of high-stakes testing.
Evelyn and Ed begin by discussing the reasons for the apparent unhappiness of Korean youngsters, probing beyond the features of the education system to socio-economic and structural factors (welfare provision, the labour market). It is these factors, they suggest, that are crucial to explaining the insecurity that drives the intensity of competition for qualifications.
In her paper, Evelyn argues that ‘happiness’ has been a ‘floating signifier’ in Korean public discourse. In other words, it is a term that has been assigned somewhat different meanings by actors with varying political and social agendas - notably Korea’s two major political parties. But while discussing the different approaches taken by these conservative and centre-left groupings, Evelyn notes that there have been significant similarities in their policy responses. Neither of the major parties, which have alternated in power since the early 2000s, have taken measures that fundamentally tackle the factors that make living conditions for ordinary Koreans stressful and insecure. In this context, talk of ‘happiness’ serves essentially as a rhetorical tactic, signifying that politicians feel the pain of ordinary people, without implying any concerned effort to alleviate its structural causes.
Meanwhile, a significant consequence of policies and discourse associated with ‘happiness’ talk has been what Evelyn terms ‘the skililfication of individuals’ non-cognitive domains’. What this means, she explains, is that qualities associated with the socialisation of students - values, civic consciousness, various character traits or even ‘wellbeing’ itself - are no longer seen simply as intrinsically desirable. Instead (or additionally), these characteristics are increasingly valued instrumentally, for their supposed contribution to enhancing learners' ‘human capital’. In the context of discussions of the ‘fourth industrial revolution’, these so-called ‘non-cognitive skills’ are prized as the qualities that will grant humans a competitive advantage vis-à-vis robots or AI, and ensure their continuing employability.
This wider phenomenon of the ‘skillification of non-cognitive domains’ relates to the international discourse of ‘social and emotional learning’ (SEL), which has increasingly been associated with the language of ‘competencies’ and ‘skills’. Evelyn and Ed discuss other examples of this, such as ‘gratitude education’ in China. They touch on the dystopian implications of approaches that see qualities such as ‘happiness’ and ‘gratitude’ as tools for the enhancement of productivity and the preservation of social harmony and political order.
Finally, the discussion returns to the role of organisations such as the OECD in promoting or disseminating the gospel of SEL. While acknowledging the significance of OECD attempts to develop metrics for ‘non-cognitive skills’, Ed and Evelyn conclude that the direction of influence from the OECD to national policymakers has by no means been one-way. There has to some extent been a process of mutual reinforcement, with policymakers, corporations and multilateral entities borrowing and sharing concepts and slogans in pursuit of the shared goal of shoring up a human capital-intensive, low-welfare, ultra-competitive, labour-exploitative developmental model. But in the case of Korea, policy discourse under the current right-wing regime seems to have swung from an emphasis on ‘happiness’ towards greater stress on duty, stoked by fear of the threats to national security posed by an increasingly dangerous and unstable world order.
Recommended readings:
Min Ji Kim (2023). Happiness, politics and education reform in South Korea: building ‘happy human capital ’for the future, Comparative Education, 59:4, 489-505, DOI: 10.1080/03050068.2022.2147633
Yi, W., & Vickers, E. (2024). Discipline and moralise: gratitude education for China’s migrant families. Comparative Education, 60(1), 77–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2023.2296191
