Gender, power and emotion: towards holistic understanding of mature women students in South Korea

Abstract

This study investigates the life experiences of six mature undergraduate women at a traditional 4-year university in South Korea. It explores women's construction of their university lives in the context of their wider socio-cultural experiences, both past and present, which are shaped by the socio-historical context of South Korean society. The study is, therefore, concerned with the interplay of structure and agency in the formation of gendered social practices (Connell, R.W. 1987. Gender and power: Society, the person and sexual politics. Cambridge: Polity Press). The results from life-history interviews reveal that women's construction of university experiences cannot be fully understood without reference to their life off-campus and their wider social structures. These social structures are Confucian culture, severe academic credentialism, a heavily masculinised labour market, and the discourse of the ‘educational manager mother’ in neoliberal contemporary Korean society.

Keywords:

• mature women students
• gender and power
• structure and agency
• widening participation
• Confucian culture
• neoliberalism

Notes

Korean higher education is divided into regular universities and special universities for adults. The regular universities consist of ‘traditional 4-year research-led universities’ and ‘2-year vocation-oriented colleges’. In contrast, special universities for adults include an Open University, 17 cyber universities, and an in-company university; these were approved as degree awarding institutions in the 1980s, 2000, and 2001, respectively.