Education fever in South Korea: Rite of passage versus children’s rights

From enrolment in elementary school until acceptance at university, South Korean children pursue a uniform, arduous goal assigned to them by their mothers, community, and popular culture. Where this personal struggle will lead adolescents, and how, why, and at what cost? This study conceptualizes education as the rite of passage, not only for the children’s social initiation but also in their mothers’ pursuit of self-validation and self-worth. This social ritual aims to raise successful workers and righteous citizens but also inflicts various harms on the children, posing significant costs to them, their parents, and their teachers. We document evidence that youths endure various hardships and even long-term harms from being blindly and unidirectionally steered during their adolescence by their ostensibly emotionally cold “manager moms.” We assert that giving children their own voice, shifting the prevailing social norms, and reforming the educational and career-access systems would help children attain better outcomes with lower collateral damage.