국가 수호를 위해: 갑오개혁과 교육, 국가의 정당화

Abstract

Kojong’s government in the late nineteenth century initiated an aggressive program of reform, known as the Kabo Reforms, amidst one of the most turbulent times in Korean history. Previous scholarship focuses on modern state-building and the construction of Korean nationalism, as well as the role of education in this process. In contrast, through a lateral reading of the first official modern textbooks this paper focuses on the Kojong government’s attempt to legitimatize its rule itself rather than developing nationalism or capitalism as systematic objectives of its rule. Beleaguered by social unrest, political instability, and economic hardship, the government faced a legitimization crisis, and thus through education attempted to cast the existing state in a reinvigorated light while defending its program of reform.