The Impact of Risk Individualization and Depoliticization on School Safety Education: A Critical Analysis Based on the Theories of Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, and Michel Foucault

This study critically examines how risk is depoliticized and individualized in late modern society, and how these tendencies manifest within school safety education in South Korea. Drawing on Ulrich Beck’s concepts of “individualization of risk” and “organized irresponsibility,” Anthony Giddens’s notions of “reflexive self” and “institutional trust,” and Michel Foucault’s theories of “governmentality” and “biopolitics,” this paper analyzes key national disaster cases including the Sewol ferry disaster, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Itaewon crowd crush. The findings reveal that school safety education tends to shift the discourse of risk from structural and political dimensions to individualized moral responsibility and behavioral norms. This indicates that depoliticization strategies are being institutionalized through education, effectively obscuring the structural causes of risk and displacing public accountability. In particular, the “2024 National School Safety Education Standards” are designed to drill predetermined behavioral responses without fostering critical reflection on institutional failure or social context. This represents a clear instance of biopolitical governance that replaces collective responsibility with disciplinary control. This study critically examines how risk is depoliticized and individualized in late modern society, and how these tendencies manifest within school safety education in South Korea. Drawing on Ulrich Beck’s concepts of “individualization of risk” and “organized irresponsibility,” Anthony Giddens’s notions of “reflexive self” and “institutional trust,” and Michel Foucault’s theories of “governmentality” and “biopolitics,” this study examine key national disaster cases such as the Sewol ferry disaster, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Itaewon crowd crush. The findings reveal that school safety education tends to shift the discourse of risk from structural and political dimensions to individualized moral responsibility and behavioral norms. This point indicates that depoliticization strategies are being institutionalized through education, effectively obscuring the structural causes of risk and displacing public accountability. For instance, the “Seven Stadards for School Safety Education” are designed to drill predetermined behavioral responses without fostering critical reflection on institutional failure or social context. This study thus argues for a paradigm shift from technocratic, compliance-based instruction toward a critical citizenship education that engages with the social construction of risk and institutional responsibility. This work suggests directions that include structural cause analysis, reflective dialogue, victim-centered pedagogy, enhanced teacher training, and reforms in educational governance. Schools serves not merely as sites for the internalization of norms, but as public spaces where students critically reflect on risk and learn to exercise democratic responsibility.