2: Challenges to Improving Human and Planetary Conditions: Analyzing Selective Cases of South Korean Social Studies Teacher Experiences

Utilizing a qualitative method, we selected from our interview data three teachers’ cases that delineate their daily experiences. Through analysis of the cases, we examine Korean teachers’ challenges in terms of providing quality education for students from diverse backgrounds and mainstream Korean students in the context of the country’s emerging multiculturalism, which is complicated by controversial current issues. We discuss implications in light of Sustainable Development Goals # 4, Quality Education #16, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, and #17, Partnership for the Goals, using a lens of critical global citizenship education (CGCE). Based on these three teachers’ stories, which reflect many teachers’ daily challenges in Korea and the world, we argue that feasible and transformative collaboration among schools, local organizations, and educational institutions within and across countries is immediately needed to move from a rhetoric of pursuing peace and justice to actual partnerships like those the UN SDGs aspire to. Further, we argue that when educators who are grounded in CGCE work together to forge strong commitments to peace, justice, and partnerships across borders, they will help to construct and strengthen individual and collective identities free from ethnic nationalism and related conflicts. In offering suggestions, we envision significant reductions in the challenges that teachers face, and actual improvements of the human condition and planetary sustainability for future generations.