ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with Korean youth after the “miraculous” economic development of the 1960s and 1970s and political democratization achieved in the late 1980s. Modernity has always been closely tied to the vigor, impatience, fearlessness of youth. Amidst the maelstrom of activity, encouraged by hopeful signs that educational reform might be on the horizon, groups of educators those concerned the youth began to explore what could be done for high school dropouts during this moment of radical change. The term “spec,” derived from the English “specification” – the set of technical characteristics that describes a consumer product, for example, began to be used on Korean college campuses in the mid-2000s to describe students’ ferocious résumé-building activities. A market for private education focusing on the readying students for high school and university entrance exams existed since at least the early 1960s in South Korea, starting in the 2000s, its scope and its contribution to social inequality in South Korea expanded significantly.
