韓国における「国際」的で「学際」的な学士課程の展開

As the recent worldwide re-emergence of liberal arts programs can be considered as a response to the demands for so-called 21st-century skills, Korean universities also face the challenge of fostering students to have a much broader sense of skills and global perspectives. Universities in Korea have employed and innovated interdisciplinary education into their undergraduate programs alongside their internationalization strategy. This trend is extremely important to explore because actual practice of international and interdisciplinary undergraduate programs (IIP) at each institution may vary, reflecting the external forces and environment around specific universities. The objective of this research is to conceptualize and analyze how “international” and “interdisciplinary” education is formulated and implemented in undergraduate programs in Korean higher education. As an analytical framework, this research employs academic stratification between elite and mass-market universities. It also employs two dimensions of internationalization: one is the transformation of the self to be global competitive and to be recognized internationally, and the second is the dissemination of national contents including culture and language through education. The author firstly investigates the comprehensive picture of IIPs through examining a university database. Secondly, the author examines the educational visions, curriculums and international indicators of these programs in order to capture the comprehensive features, expansions, academic coverage and actual meanings of “internationalness” and “interdisciplinarity” in the context of Korean society. Lastly, this study conducted case studies in three programs at elite and mass-market universities. In the analysis and discussion, this paper firstly shows that IIPs are widely seen in both mass and elite universities in Korea. The typical IIP includes three characteristics in academic disciplines: a combination of numerous international related studies, Area Studies, and Korean Studies mainly targeting overseas students and Korean descendants. In conclusion, IIP in Korean higher education should be considered as a different phenomenon from the worldwide emergence of liberal arts education. The study also found different interpretations and practice in each institution according to their hierarchical position and regional circumstance. The functions of the programs have two dimensions. One is to educate Korean students to be globally competitive, and the other is to nurture international students who are in favor of Korean culture and society and who can work in and contribute to Korean industry in the future. Korean Studies for overseas students in the international and interdisciplinary programs implies the nationalistic dimension of internationalization of higher education. Meanwhile, its interdisciplinary nature allows the program to have a multi-vocality of “international-ness”.