The Korean teachers' union movement: Transforming education through self-production and the work of teaching

This study started from the recognition that in the sociology of education there has been scant research on teachers' resistance. Most concern has been paid to "reproduction" theory, to students' resistance (not teachers' resistance), and then to "poststructuralist" approaches. Teachers have been largely taken for granted in theoretical and empirical investigations. While there has been some scant research on teachers' resistance, the studies lack satisfactory evidence especially regarding teachers' reflection, teachers' work, and teachers' collective identity. The lack of recognition of teachers' resistance also has led to limited research on the nature of teachers' activism as a form of teachers' resistance.;By researching the Korean teachers' union movement, this study has implicitly focused on how teachers' resistance has sought to create school knowledge and new educational culture, to form their collective identity and shape students' subjectivity, and to redefine teaching itself. Both quantitative and qualitative methods have been adopted.;Findings show that Korean teachers' unionism is an instance of how teachers' resistance has grown in the course of the establishment of a new educational culture and teachers' collective identity. Union teachers have developed new school knowledge, redefinitions of teachers' work, and renewals of teachers' ethics and collective identity. They try to restructure their everyday lives in favor of an enthusiastic and righteous "teacherness." I have discovered the self-productive character of Korean teachers' resistance. New educational structure is being constructed and transformed by resistant teachers.;Korean teachers' unionism can be explained using terms from the growing debates in labor process theory and in social movement theories. Union teachers' effort to change teachers' and students' subjectivities is discussed from the poststructuralist viewpoint. Further research needs to explore the real process of ordinary resistant teachers' experiences in teaching and the way their work has been newly restructured.