Between Self and Community: Children's Personhood in a Globalized South Korea

Between Self and Community explores the socialization process in a rapidly changing, globalizing South Korea, focusing on how children and teachers navigate and reconstruct their models of a good child. It highlights the conflicts and ruptures caused by global dominant ideals of childhood development and emphasizes the dynamism children create in their peer world.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 222 pages
Publication date: 14 July 2023
Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Between Self and Community delves into the intricate process of early childhood socialization in the rapidly evolving, globalizing landscape of South Korea. Through extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a preschool in South Korea, the book showcases how children and teachers engage in dynamic and collaborative endeavors to construct and reconstruct their diverse and sometimes conflicting notions of what constitutes a "good child." Junehui Ahn intricately explores the conflicting and competing ways in which the ideologies of new personhood are enacted in the everyday socialization contexts, unveiling the complexities, dilemmas, and ruptures that arise when global dominant ideals of childhood development are imposed upon local experiences.

Moreover, the book pays close attention to the active role that children play as agents of socialization, highlighting their capacity to create, construe, and sustain their own meanings of personhood. By doing so, Between Self and Community underscores the vibrant dynamism that children and their culturally rich peer world create within the shifting socialization terrain of South Korea.

This insightful exploration of early childhood socialization offers valuable insights into the complex interplay between individual identity, cultural norms, and societal transformations. It sheds light on the ways in which children navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by the rapidly changing world around them, and highlights the importance of recognizing and valuing the diverse perspectives and experiences of young people.

Dimension: 235 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781978831384