This study aims to explore the problems of female hero novel education and suggest its desirable orientation in the future through the comparison with male hero novel education. There are three reasons for comparing male hero novel education with fema...
This study aims to explore the problems of female hero novel education and suggest its desirable orientation in the future through the comparison with male hero novel education. There are three reasons for comparing male hero novel education with female hero novel education. First, there were few studies that compared female hero novels with other types in terms of education. Especially male and female hero novels are very similar as hero novel, there is no study comparing the two types of education in earnest. Second, most researches on female hero novel education, focused on individual novel rather than its type. To review the overall educational implications of this type of novel, comparative studies seems to be needed. Third, the number and types of male and female hero novels in textbooks are changing. It is necessary to evaluate whether these changes are reflected in the educational contents. The subject of this study is hero novels in middle school textbooks, high school Korean language and literature textbooks reflecting the 2011 and 2015-revised educational curriculums.
In terms of the educational significance of hero novels, first of all, hero novels allow us to grasp the historical continuity of Korean literature since legendary age. Second, hero novels reveal the general value and desires that people pursue. Third, in the case of the late Chosun Dynasty, hero novels show contradiction of society and confusion of value.
Female hero novels also share such educational significance. Futhermore they have additional educational implications to raise a question on the gender discrimination of the day and to break gender stereotypes.
This study compares the way in which these female and male hero novels are represented in textbooks. In order to compare learning activities on the same standard, the study examined the achievement standards of hero novels in the textbooks and compared them by the characteristics of 'aspects of conflicts',' ‘social· cultural· historical contexts’, ‘features of narrative strands’, ‘the nature and succession of Korean literature’, 'acceptance contexts', 'autonomous evaluation', and 'creative reorganization of the novel'.
First, achievement standards and learning activities of male hero novels were checked. For male hero novels, "Hong Gil Dong Jeon" showed the most diverse achievement standards. In terms of learning activities, it was also the most diverse, and the cause of the conflict was mainly interpreted as a social factor. With respect to acceptance, "Hong Gil Dong Jeon", "Yoo Chung Ryul Jeon", and "So Dae Sung Jeon" all had connection with today's society, however, unlike the other two works, only "Hong Gil Dong Jeon" had connection with learners. Creative reorganization and autonomous evaluation also appeared only in "Hong Gil-dong Jeon".
On the contrary, for female hero novels, the aspects of conflicts were not well revealed in learning activities and their cause was interpreted as personal factor. In terms of acceptance of learners, it could not reach an activity standard reminding learners of their own experiences, such as "Hong Gil Dong Jeon”.
The analysis on the differences of the male and female hero novels is as follows. First, while there was no huge difference in the distribution of achievement standards, there were three major differences in learning activities. First, in the aspect of conflict, in the case of "Hong Gil Dong Jeon" its cause was interpreted as a social factor and induced learners to grasp it. On the other hand, for "Park Ssi Jeon" the domestic conflict was described as a personal factor rather than a social factor. Second, in relation to the problems of modern society, the activities of "Hong Gil Dong Jeon" mainly promoted learners’ individual thinking in his actual situation from the viewpoint of Gil Dong, whereas those of "Park Ssi Jeon" and "Hong Gyeo Wol Jeon” were limited to the connection to social problems. Third, there are differences in the creative reorganization activities. In the case of "Hong Gil Dong Jeon", it was recommended to recognize Gil Dong is a hero who can solve today's problems. But in the case of "Hong Gyeo Wol Jeon" reorganization activity was limited to suggest 'the relation with a man' as an example.
Based on the analysis findings, this study suggests the educational directions and the example of learning activities of female hero novels in the future. For the education of female hero novels, even if the contents of the work deal with overcoming individual hardship, it is necessary for learners to point out the social factors. Second, learning activity is needed to connect them with their individual experiences and lives. Finally, in creative reorganization activities, various aspects of female hero novels, such as the heroic adventures, should be emphasized, rather than focusing only on achieving-love narratives
In this research process, it is confirmed that there is weakness of female hero novel education compared to male hero novel education. In learning activities understanding the aspects of conflicts were restricted to individual factors and were not well linked to learners’ personal experiences. Moreover, this study revealed shortcomings in the reorganization activities.
Therefore this study suggests several ways to improve those problems. Given that the upcoming textbooks of the 2015-revised educational curriculum for other grades are likely to have improvement, this study cannot clarify the learning experiences of the actual learners by simply identifying the representation of current textbooks. It is expected that the limitation can be complemented by future research.