• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.415-428
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• 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed everything, even education. Last year when distance learning was introduced, science teachers faced many challenges to overcome. However, teachers adapted quickly, and in this year, it became the 'new normal'. In this situation, teachers are likely to habitually repeat past practices, but the context of the second year of distance learning is changing constantly, and teachers are asked to interpret the problem occurring in a situation and to adjust their practice for solving the problem with their teacher agency. In this study, we explore the emergence of science teacher agency and factors shaping teacher agency in the second year of distance learning and we focus on teachers' agentic practice that did not follow their past practice without reflection. For this purpose, we mainly analyze the semi-constructed interview of three science teachers. In the first year of distance learning, two teachers maintained their practice, not much different to face-to-face learning. However, one teacher reflected upon herself and started to recognize and solve her problems. Reflection for her practice can support this process. Another teacher changed her practice due to external suggestions, but it evolved her practice to fit the situation better, and her experience of last year helped her to adapt to the change. The other teacher who modified her practice to persist her professional purpose last year was consistently practicing in the second year and collaboration and autonomy can support her. This study shows the teachers' dynamic change of agency and the emergence for the relational interaction between teacher and context.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.101-113
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• 2019

This study aims to explore which aspects of student agency have previously been studied and the ways agent practices have been investigated in learning communities in research on science education. Results reveal five aspects of agency related to students' actions in a learning community: epistemic agency, transformative agency, educated action in science, disciplinary agency, and material agency. We delineated how agency is captured in epistemic practices, as described in the literature on each of the aforementioned aspects. We also probed into the three approaches by which previous research has examined the practices of students as agents that construct learning communities. These approaches are (a) the investigation of students' actions as representative of the agency of an entire learning community, (b) the exploration of the effects of focused student action on the structure of activity, and (c) the investigation of interactions between students as agents. We discussed the implications of previous research on the basis of each approach to understanding the diverse features of student-centered learning communities. The present work contributes to the exploration and support of students' practices as agents in the learning communities in science classrooms.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.47-57
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• 2021

This study aims to explore the epistemic goals that pre-service elementary teachers can construct in their biology-related knowledge construction activities, how these goals are constructed, and how the shaping of the knowledge construction activities around the goals was afforded or constrained. The research participants were 26 pre-service teachers, divided into 11 groups of two or three to engage in the activity. Their discussions and products were collected and used as data for this study. The analysis revealed that the teachers constructed three types of epistemic goals: making sense of natural phenomena, proposing the most effective course of action, and proposing solutions to problems based on their causes. Construction of different types of goals depended on the conclusions the pre-service teachers expected to draw based on the explored natural phenomena. It was found that the elicitation of the pre-service teachers' epistemic goals could facilitate their shaping of the knowledge construction activity as an evidence-based justification. The participants planned the construction of mechanistic explanations of natural phenomena with the epistemic goals of 'making sense of natural phenomena' or 'proposing solutions to problems based on their causes.' However, enacting their knowledge construction plans with sophisticated epistemic features was constrained due to the limited resources available. This study can contribute to developing instructional strategies that facilitate learners' epistemic agency and addressing epistemic agency in the development of pre-service teacher education methods.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.511-523
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• 2019

In this age of the $4^{th}$ industrial revolution, we, science educators, are giving more light on students' agentic behavior in the process of educating future scientist. This study, with the analytic lens of epistemic agency, explores the key stages of a student-driven R&E program rather than the scientist-led R&E program. It also examines to understand the emergence of students' epistemic agency in each stage of R&E. Data from participant observation for 18 months and in-depth interviews were collected and analyzed with the constant comparative method of grounded theory. This study identifies and describes five key stages of student-driven R&E: The stage of exploring research theme, designing research, performing lab activity, interpreting results, and communicating research. It also finds that (a) students' epistemic agency emerged with the constant interactions with the R&E structure; (b) students' epistemic agency has deep relations with the epistemic beliefs of the students; (c) students positioned themselves as decision-makers in the R&E practice; (d) the redistributed power and authority of the R&E contributed to the emergence of students' epistemic agency.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.237-250
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• 2021

Teachers play a key role in designing a students' learning experience. Teachers are asked to interpret the context in which they are located and to adjust their practice to fit circumstantial needs based on their teacher agency. In this study, we explore the emergence of teacher agency in distance learning caused by COVID-19 and we analyze factors shaping the teacher agency. For this purpose, we interviewed six secondary science teachers who practiced distance learning in 2020. Semi-constructed interviews and their artifacts were collected and analyzed. This study shows that teacher agency is captured when they respond to circumstantial change and modify their practice to achieve their professional purpose or adjust their practice in space for maneuvering or keep their practice consistent. This study also analyzes the factors that affect the emergence of teacher agency in two dimensions. One is individual and the other is contextual. In the individual dimension, educational values shaped by his/her experiences and short/long-term goals for the future support the emergence of teacher agency. In the contextual dimension, there are collaborative and flexible culture shared by the community, co-operation within the teacher community, and material support. On the other hand, in the individual dimension, the teachers' sense of their role, and no reflection for own practice constrain the emergence of teacher agency, and in the contextual dimension, performativity discourse and strong requirement without guidance constrain the emergence of teacher agency. We suggest an effective lens for establishing a strategy that support teachers' professional practice and the emergence of teacher agency.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.351-368
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• 2023

The scientist-led Research and Education (R&E) program aims to strengthen gifted science students' research capabilities under the guidance of scientists. Students' actual research experiences in scientist-led R&E activities range from understanding how scientists conduct research to actively participating in research. To develop R&E that promotes student agency, i.e., student participation, this study aimed to identify the pedagogical characteristics that supported gifted science students' agentic participation in the scientist-led R&E program. We conducted interviews with learners and scientists in three teams undertaking R&E activities every three months. The interview covered their perceptions of R&E activities, student participation, and scientists' support for the activities. The recordings and transcripts of the interviews were used as primary data sources for the analysis. The trajectory of each team's activities, as well as the learners' and scientists' dynamic positioning were identified. Based on this analysis, we inductively identified the pedagogical characteristics that emerged from classes in which the scientists supported the students' learning and engagement in research. Regarding agency, three types of student participation were identified: 1) the sustained exercise of agency, 2) the initial exercise and subsequent discouragement of agency, and 3) the continuous non-exercise of agency. Two pedagogical characteristics that supported the learners' agentic participation were identified: 1) opportunities for students to take part in research management and 2) scientist-student interactions encouraging learners to present expert-level ideas. This study contributes to developing pedagogies that foster gifted science students' agentic participation in scientist-led R&E activities.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.415-441
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to develop elementary school math classes for the gifted and talented with a focus on social issues to investigate the possibility of character education through specialized subject classes. As suggested in the goals of the math education for social justice, which provide the fundamental theoretical basis, through mathematics activities with a theme of social issues, mathematically gifted and talented young students can critically perceive social issues, express a sense of mathematical and critical agency throughout the course and develop a willingness and mindset to contribute to social progress. In particular, the concept of Figured Worlds and agency is applied to this study to explain the concept of elementary math classes for the gifted and talented with a focus on social issues. The concept is also used as the theoretical framework for the design and analysis of the curriculum. Figured Worlds is defined as the actual world composed of social and cultural elements (Holland et al., 1998) and can be described as the framework used by the individual or the social structure to perceive and interpret their surroundings. Agency refers to the power of practice that allows one to perceive the potential for change within the Figured Worlds that he is a part of and to change the existing Figured Worlds. This study sees as its purpose the fostering of young talent that has the agency to critically perceive the social structure or Figured Worlds through math classes with a theme of social issues, and thus become a social capital that can contribute to social progress.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.70
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• pp.132-164
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• 2015

The formation of knowledge of the people of Korean society is the social practices of collective subjectivity. Subjectivity is the truth of the self, which is incessantly created, questioned and modified in the milieu of self-reflection. In an attempt to examine the hermeneutics of the subject of Korean society, a conceptual framework is proposed, which, with the notion of life embedded, consists of a historical sequence of the popular, minjung, multitude, people and community. The period of 1960s saw the ambiguous mass of lifes floating, the individual with his/her own interior world of consciousness emerge. The ideological solidarity is formed in the the next two decades, in contestation with immediate and physical threatening such as poverty and dictatorship. The democratization of Korean society and the global expansion of neoliberal regime gave a re-birth of multitude and people which is characterized with their pursuit of the co-existence and co-realization of singularity and universality on the ethical principle of the open and communicative radicality.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.115-131
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• 2021

As the global climate change emergency is escalating, the need for 'Social Action-Oriented SSI (SAO-SSI) on climate change topics' in science education that can change society through social activity is increasing. By employing sociocultural theory, this study explores the challenges of limiting teacher's agency in implementing SAO-SSI on climate change topics in science education. Data from participant observation for 46 lessons, in-depth interviews with participants, field notes, and teacher reflection notes were analyzed by the structure of into micro- (classrooms), meso- (school), and macro- (Korea society) level. At the micro-level, the teacher's new attempts of SAO-SSI on climate change topics class made it difficult for him to identify students' understanding of climate change, because they have a low sense of perception that climate change is also their problem. In addition, the teacher had difficulties leading students' into an engagement for social action because students were skeptical about the feasibility of planned social behavior by positioning themselves as children or had difficulty in understanding social action and sympathizing with its values. At the meso-level, a school culture that encourages the implementation of a curriculum similar to that of colleagues, it was difficult to implement one's own curriculum. And it was difficult to develop expertise without the support and communications with colleagues who revealed the burden of unfamiliar science topics of climate change. In addition, conflicts arose in the process of implementing out-of-school social actions with the principal's passive support. At the macro-level, the insufficient proper material resources for SAO-SSI on climate change topics class, and negative perceptions on the students' social action in the society were acting as constraints. We offer implications for what kind of structural support and efforts from various subjects in the educational community should be provided to implement SAO-SSI on climate change topics class in science education.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.102-121
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• 2021

Financial geography is an evolving subdiscipline in economic geography. This paper identifies and reviews three important 'waves' constitutive of the current state of financial geography: including the 'first' wave before 1990s when finance was regarded as a byproduct of the over-accumulation process in production sphere in the Marxist geographical political economy tradition; the 'second' wave in the mid-1990s during which financial geography was firmly established as a subdiscipline, influenced by the cultural turn and poststructuralist thoughts; and the most recent 'third' wave after the 2008~2009 global financial crisis that urged financial geographers to take power and politics more seriously and 're-politicize' with the analytical ideas of governmentality and financial subjectification from a neo-Foucauldian perspective. These waves have helped financial geography become a practice-oriented academic discourse, in which different philosophical thoughts, foci of analytical level and object, renditions of the subject, perceptions of power and politics, and geographies of finance and financialization coexist and also compete and contest one another.