한국 여성학 교과과정의 현황과 과제

The Women's Studies Curriculum in Korea : Current State and Future Agenda

This paper analyzes the current post-graduate women's studies courses and the curriculum development of interdepartmental under-graduate major courses, while evaluating the present condition of curriculum development in Women's Studies, and looks to tasks which must be solved in the future. 1. Post-graduate Curriculum: Currently the post-graduate Women's Studies in Korea exist at ten universities. Among these only Ewha Womans University has masters' and doctorate courses, the other universities have only masters level courses. Five universities have established women's studies courses as an independent department, and four have established women's masters' courses as interdisciplinary program in women's studies major. The curriculum at the post-graduate level has seen an expansion in terms of quantity of courses from 8 to 70 at various standards, but in fact only twenty of these courses are available to students. Women's studies curriculum has been divided into the three core subject areas of family, sexuality and work around the central concept of patriarchy. From the mid-1990s these three were increased to include sexuality, culture and policy areas also. The concept of patriarchy is useful as a means to explain and expose women's problems, but has received criticism as being both descriptive and static. The concept of patriarchy is progressively being analyzed as inadequate in terms of the diversity of points in time and space, with a strong response that the concept has limitations for the understanding of the complexity of women's experience and the differences among women themselves. There have also been problems raised about the division of the women's studies curriculum into the three categories of sex, family and labor focused on the basic theoretical system of patriarchy. If these three areas are divided from one another, researchers are forced to concentrate on one area alone, and it is difficult to conduct in depth research with an awareness of the mutual connections among these three separated fields. 2. Interdepartmental Undergraduate Major Curriculum: Interdepartmental undergraduate women's studies majors are currently being introduced at Dongduk Women's University, Sogang University, Ewha Womans University and at Chungbuk National University. Interdepartmental undergraduate women's studies majors are currently facing the problem of insufficient financial and human resource investment of university authorities due to their sudden introduction in accordance with the Ministry of Education's undergraduate policy. Consequently the curriculum for undergraduate majors is simply re-composed of existing subjects, rather than through the creation of new ones which would provide a distinct graded system. In addition though there has been the introduction of a diverse range of subjects, as there is no distinction between the foundation and higher level subjects it is difficult for students who major in women's studies to gain a systematic learning experience. 3. The lssues of the Curriculum Korean Women's Studies: 1) The Mainstreaming of Women's Studies and Academic Identity: Although women's studies is in the process of being institutionalized on campuses in Korea, there are also criticisms that it cannot maintain its original methodologies and theory distinct from those of other disciplines. Women's studies must cease searching to uncover women's problems alone, as this work is adequately undertaken by other departments. Korean women's studies therefore must redefine a methodology and systematize more than theory in the process of securing a distinct academic identity. This is the task of establishing a theory of Korean women's studies, and as such Korean women's studies cannot be marginalized in the academic community, and must encourage activity in the women's movement. 2) Professionalism Related to the Work Site: The women's studies curriculum must cultivate professionalism related to t