The Nature of Korean Legal Culture and Challenges of Law Related Education in Civic Education

Generally speaking, the legal culture influences validity and appropriateness of learning contents in law-related education. The purpose of this study is to comprehend marked characteristics of Korean legal culture and to seek implication for developing appropriate learning contents of law-related education in civic education. Because of the impact of Confucian ideas on Korean legal culture after Choson Dynasty, there is a little tendency to perceive that law is not a facilitative tool for protecting individual rights but simply a punitive tool for compelling ritual norms. Also Confucian ideas have an impact on Korean legal culture which regards private connection as important since private ritual norms are considered much more important than law. These characteristics of Korean legal culture remained up to now, because of unhappy historical experiences, for example, The Japanese colonial days, ideological conflict and social disorder after Liberation and Korean War. But these days, much changes are occurring in the cultural context of Korean society such as improvement of social structure, facing a multicultural society, emphasis on trust, emphasis on citizenship internalization, preparation the unification and globalization, and many others. According to these changes in the cultural context, for developing Korean civil society, law-related education in civic education should focus on reinforcement of learning legal cultural in formal curriculum, cultivation of positive legal consciousness, strengthening a participatory attitude, training a legal consideration, institutionalization of conflict resolve, and development of a legal consciousness in everyday life.