University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2019 Reproduction in Athletic Education, Society, and Culture: A Bourdieusian Approach to the Career Transition Process of Dropout College Student-Athletes in South Korea Benjamin Hisung Nam University of Tennessee, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Recommended Citation Nam, Benjamin Hisung, "Reproduction in Athletic Education, Society, and Culture: A Bourdieusian Approach to the Career Transition Process of Dropout College Student-Athletes in South Korea. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2019. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/5423 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Benjamin Hisung Nam entitled "Reproduction in Athletic Education, Society, and Culture: A Bourdieusian Approach to the Career Transition Process of Dropout College Student-Athletes in South Korea." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Higher Education Administration. Robert A. Rider, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Dorian L. McCoy, Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon, Adam Love Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Reproduction in Athletic Education, Society, and Culture: A Bourdieusian Approach to the Career Transition Process of Dropout College Student-Athletes in South Korea A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Benjamin Hisung Nam May 2019 Copyright © 2019 by Benjamin H. Nam All rights reserved ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to God for guiding me on this educational journey. I believe that my scholarship will be meaningful to the study of social justice in his name. In retrospect, there have been many people who have encouraged me to complete my doctoral dissertation. Initially, I am sincerely thankful to my mentor and adviser, Dr. Robert A. Rider who volunteered and served as my dissertation committee chairperson. I owe a great amount of thanks to him and cannot describe how much he has been trustworthy to me across my entire graduate education including both master’s and Ph.D. programs. He provided invaluable educational opportunities to me through scholarship and emotional support. I am also thankful to my dissertation committee members, Drs. Dorian McCoy, Barbara Thayer-Bacon, and Adam Love who have taken crucial roles to support my dissertation. Particularly, I want to thank to Dr. Dorian McCoy. He has assisted in developing methodological skills in qualitative inquiry. His knowledge to a critical approach influenced me to consider my researcher positionality and reflexivity. I am also grateful to Dr. Barbara Thayer-Bacon who has closely interacted with me through her classes. Her advice helped me contemplate adopting the concepts of Bourdieu as the main theoretical framework for my dissertation. I am also thankful to Dr. Adam Love who spent a significant amount of time to support my doctoral dissertation. He made extra time to discuss with me, guiding how I should organize each chapter. I am also grateful to his contributions to my previous research projects. His scholarly advice and support helped me produce invaluable outcomes through publication. iii I want to thank to Drs. Jiho Kim and Deockki Hong, bilingual scholars who are proficient both in the English and Korean languages. They made efforts to validate my interview transcription data and bolstered quality of the study. I am also thankful to other Korean scholars, Drs. Shin-Wook Kang and Yong Ho Shin. Their expertise in the South Korean sports policy and its social issues helped me reduce my own bias to interpret the findings of this study. I am grateful to Dr. Joe Scogin and Mrs. Kary Alldeledge who gave me professional advice. Throughout my personal interactions with them, I learned the significance of student development in higher education. I am thankful to all the professors in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and the Department of Kinesiology, Recreation, and Sport Studies. Particularly, I am grateful to Dr. Sylvia Trendafilova who previously served me as my master’s thesis committee chairperson. I appreciate her continual encouragement. I am also thankful to Dr. Lars Dzikus who helped me understand the importance of theoretical framework and methodology during my master’s studies. His sociology and history courses I took became the cornerstone of my theoretical background. I am thankful to my best friend, Mr. Sungmin Leem who has always been endorsing me. His encouragement has significantly motivated me to pursue a career path in higher education. Finally, I owe a great amount of thanks to my parents. Without their financial and emotional support ever since I was born, I could not take this educational journey. Their prayers made me stronger and steadfast, impacting on my academic success. iv ABSTRACT This study explored the career transition experiences of former dropout college student-athletes in South Korea who are males and successfully obtained their desired career paths. To this end, grounded in a critical approach, Bourdieusian social and cultural reproduction was used as the theoretical framework. Dropout college athletes in this study are defined as elite student-athletes who were fostered under the South Korean athletic specialist system and obtained college admissions as a result of their athletic performance in high school but ended their athletic careers during their college years. There are many different ways to define career success. Yet, the career success for dropout college student-athletes in the current study can be defined those who are holding full-time and white color jobs rather than temporary and blue color jobs. Accordingly, a basic qualitative research method design was adopted by conducting semi-structured interviews with 15 former student-athletes who previously played team sports and currently hold leadership positions in their jobs. The sports they played include baseball, basketball, soccer, volleyball, and ice hockey. Their career fields are varied, including sports administration, academia and education, religion, law, medical and health, and national security. The findings of this study included several primary themes: (a) Factors Impacting Burning Out and Terminating Athletic Careers, (b) Life Challenges after Athletic Termination, (c) Factors Dealing with Social and Cultural Barriers to Achieve Successful Careers, and (d) Perceptions and Types of Societal Roles and Social Responsibilities. The stories of the participants were critically discussed to examine the current athletic system, education, society, and culture in South Korea, revealing existing v structural problems to suggest both theoretical and practical implications and limitations. Overall, this study described the career transition experiences of former Korean dropout college student-athletes through the lens of Bourdieusian social and cultural reproduction to increase more in-depth understanding of social justice in education and sport. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………...1 The Study Context and Thesis………………………………………………………....6 Statement of the Problem……………………………………………………………..11 Purpose of the Study………………………………………………………………….15 Research Questions…………………………………………………………………...16 Significance of the Study……………………………………………………………..16 Scope of the Study……………………………………………………………………19 Organization of the Study…………………………………………………………….20 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………21 CHAPTER II – REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE………………………….………22 The Development of Higher Education in South Korea……………………...………..22 The Development of Elite Sport System in South Korea……..……………………….25 The Athletic Specialist System……………………………………………………28 Social Activism regarding Educational Rights for Student-Athletes……………..31 The School Sports Promotion Law..………………………………………………33 The NEST/KSPO Foundation……………………………………………………..35 The KUSF System………………………………………………………………...39 Conclusion……….………………………………………………………………...…42 CHAPTER III – THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK………………....……………….43 Critical Pedagogy……………………………………………………………………..43 Social and Cultural Reproduction…………………………………………………….45 Habitus, Field, and Social Agent………………………………………………….46 Social Capital……………………………………………………………………...49 Cultural Capital……………………………………………………………………53 Critiques of Bourdieusian Approach…………….………………………………...56 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………59 CHAPTER IV – METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………..60 Researcher Positionality and Reflexivity……………………………………………..62 A Basic Qualitative Method Design………………………………………………….66 Institutional Research Board Approval……………………………………………….69 Data Collection……………………………………………………………………….71 Sampling…………………………………………………………………………..71 Participants………………………………………………………………………..72 Qualitative Individual Interviews…………..……………………………………...74