Sustainable Development for the Open Secondary School Policy in Korea: The Approach of Historical Institutionalism

Abstract

This literature overview analyzes policy shifts in the Open Secondary School (hereafter "OSS") in Korea, and it applies historical institutionalism to make policy proposals. The research questions are as follows: What are the structural, institutional, and actor context factors that facilitate and constrain changes in the OSS Policy (hereafter "OSSP")? What is the interaction among the structural, institutional, and actor context factors that facilitate and constrain changes in the OSSP? Historical institutionalism was used as a theoretical framework. This included an "integrated approach of structure, institutions, and actor levels" and the "view of gradual change". This study constructed the four criteria to serve as a basis of this analysis: structural, institutional, and actor context factors, and policy shift path factor. The analysis results showed that these four factors facilitated changes in policy. In addition, the structural, institutional, and actor context factors interacted with each other to facilitate or constrain policy shift path changes. In this study, it was also determined that the OSS should be presented as a sustainable and acceptable model in the era of COVID-19, thereby improving the quality of education.