ABSTRACT

By reinterpreting the way that Korean reformers confronted the process of modernization/Westernization between 1880 and 1910, this study challenges the failure thesis which maintains that subsequent Japanese colonization is an indication that the early modernization process in Korea was unsuccessful.

chapter |15 pages

Introduction

Problems, Issues, and Method

chapter |19 pages

Theories

Modern Mass Education and the Construction of National Identity

chapter |28 pages

The Emergence of Modernizers and Their Ideology

Crisis, Redefinition of Civilization and Education

chapter |18 pages

The Textbooks I

The (Re)Construction of “the Ethnic” or Cultural Purity

chapter |16 pages

The Textbooks II

Constructing a Nation in “Their Own Image”

chapter |12 pages

Conclusion