Liberal Arts Study in Korea Declining

Social sciences and liberal arts are dying. From some time ago, social sciences and liberal arts were recognized as dropouts in the age of competition, a barren science with no productivity. Professors of the humanities are making a clamor, parents deter their children from going on to study the humanities, and students turn to conversion to a different department for their own survival. What is the cause of the crisis? Is it the market mechanism (external factor theory) of the Global Age, or the failure of self-reformation of the science itself (internal factor theory)? We have asked the cause and solution to professors of social sciences and liberal arts.

-Humanity’s current problems and solutions

Dong-A Ilbo has sent questionnaires that diagnose liberal arts and social science’s crisis by e-mail to professors of corresponding departments nationwide since August. The subjects are 74 of those in charge of liberal arts and social sciences at the program manager (PM) level, which is constituted of scholars from universities worldwide and which examine the promotion of academic activities of the Korea Research Foundation (KRF), and 257 professors of Seoul National University, Korean University, and Yonsei University. Out of these, 64 sent an answer.

As the biggest problem Korea’s liberal arts and social sciences world is facing, they chose the education system’s inability to train superior scholars (21.5%). academic backwardness, such as the import and plagiarism of foreign theories (18.1%), the assessment system that emphasizes short-term results (16.5%), market mechanism domination of the academic world (9.1%), disorganization of the academic world created by insisting on theories, or the flocking culture (8.3%).

As the most pressing measure to overcome the current crisis, increase of government aid to graduate school students, and verification of research expenses was listed (16.9%). The creation of autogenous theories (16.0%), a reformation of the education system that gives students a comparative advantage to students studying abroad (10.6%), differentiation of scholars’ evaluations through the ranking of KRF’s registered journals (10.6%), and thesis reformation that acknowledges translations and annotations as dissertations (9.8%) followed.

The fact that the three basic functions of studies, research, education and assessment all received equal criticism catches attention. When we classify the sections so that criticism on the backwardness and lack of openness of academics as problems of research (26.4%), outflow of talent and problems of the education system as problems of education (21.5%), and lack of impartial evaluation systems and praise of short-term results as problems of evaluation(22.3%), they showed no big difference in rate. This shows the liberal arts and social sciences’ study’s problems are spread across many areas.

Especially on the question requiring a written answer asking the reason for selecting an answer, many criticized problems of the research area. A distinguishing criticism was the colonization of science. One scholar pointed out, “The current crisis is the result of excessive Ideologization. This resulted from the introduction of radical social sciences introduced from the urge to democratize and learn American theories after the liberation from Japan.

Criticism of the clique culture of our academic world also followed. The ratio choosing divisions of the academic world created by the flocking culture, and clique culture, such as overflow of politics within a school according to one’s school background as one of the biggest problems reached 15.9%.

One professor indicated, “The side of flocking culture which leads a quotation to another quotation destroys that basic attribute of liberal arts studies, which should start with skepticism and doubt of a topic.” Another professor criticized, “The ‘big frog in a small pond’ type of reclusive academic culture emphasizes Korea’s characteristics, making the creation of a theory with universality difficult.”

As a result of exclusion created by the clique culture, which sometimes interacts as backwardness, imitating foreign theories, and as reclusiveness, the crisis has been amplified. This was followed by criticism on the domination phenomenon of the academic communities of Seoul National University graduates. There were many respondents who indicated the abolition of state run universities, including Seoul National University (7.9%), as the best solution to the crisis.

Recently, Korea University professors of liberal arts have made a ‘humanities declaration,’ and pointed out two main reasons for the crisis. The first was an external element: blind faith in market logic and effectiveness, resulting in the commercialization of universities. The second was introspection of liberal arts scholars’ failure to respond sensitively to commercialization, and actively change the physical constitution of liberal arts studies.

However, criticism on external elements such as domination phenomenon of market mechanisms and short-term results were comparatively small (21.4%). Meanwhile, voices citing internal elements such as lack of research abilities and clique culture as the reason were more pronounced (42.3%).

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