Resumen de A study of Korean Seodang (Village Schools) during the Time of Enlightenment ( 1876-1910)
Based on education policy and media reports during the time of the Korean enlightenment (1876-1910), this article presents research into traditional Korean village schools. Modern Western education was gradually increasing rather than declining during the enlightenment period in Korea. Village school education also continued to spread. The first main reason was that the dominant Confucian culture required both Yangban (gentry) and Seomin (commoners) to learn classical Chinese far their daily needs despite the collapse of the social class system due to the modern civilization movement. Second, village school education continued to spread as a basic literacy programme because classical Chinese remained part of the modern Western school curricula and screening examinations were conducted to recruit talented people in spite of the abolition of the state examination. Eventually, village schools became the foundation of public schools during the Japanese colonisation of Korea (1910-1945).
