The Nurturing of a Communal Self in an Elementary School Home Class: A Case of the Innovation School Movement in South Korea

This article examines the educational practices of elementary schooling in South Korea, especially the case of the recent “innovation school ( hyeoksinhakgyo )” movement in the public school system. In particular, the educational unit of the home class, called “ ban ,” has been strengthened in innovation schools to nurture, simultaneously, communality and creativity among students. By presenting ethnographic scenes from a sixth‐grade home class, I seek to show how the sociality of the home class is organized, and interpersonal behaviors are regulated by the teacher to nurture interdependence among the students, interdependence as a crucial foundation for creativity learning and community spirit in the ban. I also attend to the children's responses and reactions to the organizing and regulating of their peer relationships, especially when equality is imposed as a paramount value in peer sociality. [Interdependence, Peer Group, Schooling, Home Class, South Korea] Abstract in Korean 2010 . ‘’ . , , ‐ , . , . , . . , .