Education Fever and Happiness in Korean Higher Education

Overview & Synopsis

This article discusses relevance between education fever and happiness from the viewpoint of Korean higher education. To review this study systematically, three research questions are addressed. First, what is education fever from the viewpoint of the Korean people? Second, what are relations between education fever and happiness? Last, can education fever make a happy life? In order to defend the questions, the researcher utilizes a content analysis method. As for the limitations of the study, education fever will be discussed in terms of contemporary Korean higher education. The significance of this study is to provide valuable resources and basic theories regarding education fever and happiness for the contemporary policy makers and theorists of the West and the East, finding relevance between education fever and happiness in Korean higher education. One of research results of this paper is that education fever in Korea has sometimes provided the minority of Koreans who belong to the lower social class with an opportunity to upgrade socio-political position through higher education. On the contrary, the majority of Koreans have rarely attained their socio-economic success through higher education. Therefore, Koran education fever has not made a happy life to all of Koreans. For future study, it is recommended that this study be broadly undertaken to examine the merits of education fever in East Asian countries such as Korea, China, and Japan. Finally, the author insists that excessive education fever should be appropriately controlled by parents, societal cooperation, and national policy for a healthy individual and a harmonious society.