Where Do Lifelong Learning Cities in Korea Stand? – From the Perspective of a Learning Society Orientation

• Published in: Andragoška spoznanja
• Main Author: Park, Sangok
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Založba Univerze v Ljubljani/University of Ljubljana Press, Slovenia 2020
• Subjects: Korea’s lifelong learning cities; a just learning society; educational equality; citizen-led; citizen engagement; korejska mesta vseživljenjskega učenja; pravična učeča se družba; enakost izobraževalnih možnosti; vodilna vloga državljanov; vključevanje državljanov; sami
• Online Access: https://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/AndragoskaSpoznanja/article/view/8837; https://doi.org/10.4312/as.26.1.15-31

The learning city aims for a just learning society, emphasising the subjective participation of citizens and providing them with equal learning opportunities. The purpose of the paper is to examine, through a literature review method, whether Korea’s lifelong learning cities have achieved the formation of a learning society. In Korea learning cities have led to the provision of more learning opportunities for citizens and improved the quality of education programmes. There also exists a movement for citizens to participate in the learning city project as citizen activists. However, it is not yet possible to assess that most learning cities are developed and built by citizens’ engagement. Moreover, there is even a tendency for inequality to be intensified in lifelong education. Therefore, Korea’s learning cities will need to further solidify their citizen-led perspective, including democratic decision-making and the free expression of opinions by citizens, in order to move toward a just learning society. Cilj učečega se mesta je pravična učeča se družba, ki poudarja sodelovanje državljanov in enake priložnosti za učenje. Namen članka je s pregledom literature ugotoviti, ali je korejskim mestom vseživljenjskega učenja uspelo oblikovati učečo se družbo. V Koreji so učeča se mesta povečala priložnosti za učenje in izboljšala kakovost izobraževalnih programov. Izoblikovalo se je tudi gibanje, ki podpira aktivno sodelovanje prebivalcev v projektu učečih se mest. Kljub temu pa še ne moremo reči, da se večina učečih se mest razvija in gradi na podlagi delovanja prebivalcev samih. Pokazala se je tudi težnja, da se neenakosti na podlagi vseživljenjskega učenja celo poglabljajo. Da bo Koreja postala prava učeča se družba, bo treba okrepiti vlogo, ki jo v teh mestih igrajo prebivalci sami, to pa vključuje tudi krepitev demokratičnega odločanja in svobode izražanja.