• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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• v.46
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• pp.1-32
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• 2023

The purpose of this article is to critically reflect on the 2022 national curriculum on religions. The perspective of this reflection is that since the religious curriculum is meant to be a national curriculum, it should be applicable to all high school students, be shareable, and function as a place for meta-reflection regarding the proper use of the category of religion. For this purpose, I reviewed the form and content of the 2022 curriculum on religions in Section 2. The form of the 2022 curriculum on religions looks similar to the previously utilized curriculum. However, the main change is that the subject of religions was arbitrarily placed into the category of 'subjects for choosing a career.' And the 2022 curriculum on religions has two characteristics in terms of content: the orientation of 'making religious people (spiritual formation)' and the reemergence of the concept of 'pseudo-religion.' In Section 3, I delved into the orientation of 'making religious people through religious reflection' among the characteristics of the 2022 curriculum on religions. In this process, I discovered that the concept of 'reflection as a metacognitive technology,' which was the core of the prior curriculum and school education, was transformed into the concept of 'religious reflection,' and the concepts of spirituality and religiosity were also added. In Section 4, I delved into the dichotomy of 'religion and pseudo-religion.' 'Pseudo-religion' is a new focus in the 2022 curriculum on religions. In this process, I revealed that the concept of 'pseudo-religion' is a combination of an outdated administrative term of the Japanese Government-General of Korea during Japan's occupation of Korea, and as such, the term is inherently value-laden and harmful. I also revealed that determining 'pseudo-religion' in school education regenerates the colonial Japanese Government-General's biased attitudes toward Korean religions and forces teachers to 'invent' (detect or personally appraise) modern day pseudo-religions through arbitrary judgements. The 'curriculum to emphasize religious reflection and detect pseudo-religions in order to create religious people' can distort the subject of religion in the national curriculum as into a 'subject for religion (promotion or degradation).' If this distortion continues, the appropriateness of curriculum on religions existing within the national curriculum will eventually become a subject of debate.