Soonjung Kwon

Assistant Professor

peace and human right education, school violence, school democratization, global citizenship, SDGs

Dr. Soonjung Kwon is a peace educator and researcher in South Korea working mainly in the field of educational movements and policies. She taught and participated in several research projects related to peace, for instance, human rights education, global citizenship education, education for SDGs, and multicultural and unification education in South Korea. She also worked as a research fellow at the Educational Policy Institute, Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education and worked on the issues of conflicts in the process of democratization of school system and culture.

She also has been participated as a committee member of the Korean Society of Education for International Understanding. Additionally, she is also a committee member of Korean Comparative Education Society and Korean NGO - Conflict resolution and Dialogue from 2023. She is a member of the transnational steering group of Global Campaign for Peace Education.

Selected Publications

Kwon, S & Kang, H(2025). Exploring the relationship between sustainability and human rights: ecological transition education and its relevance to students' human rights in South Korean education. Asia Pacific Education Review, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-025-10070-1

Kwon, S(2023). A Study on the debate on students’ human rights trapped in the guarantee of learning rights and the resolution of school violence: focusing on the relationship with teachers’ human rights. The Journal of Politics of Education, 30(4), 333-363.

Kwon, S & Kang, H(2021). Exploring the educational possibility of preventing school violence by cultural transition: reflecting upon school violence through the objectification phenomenon and revisiting the value of peace, human rights, and relationship. The Journal of Korean Education, 48(4), 63-84.

Kwon, S & Yoo, J(2021). A study on the direction of the students’ human rights policy through genealogical analysis, The Journal of Korean Education, 48(2), 5-28

Kwon, S, Cho, Y & Seo, H(2020). Exploring the possibilities of global citizenship education as transformative education: a case study on peace activities in B middle school, Korean Journal of Educational Research, 58(1), 245-273

Kester, K, Zembylas, M, Sweeney, L, Lee, K H, Kwon, S & Kwon, J(2019). Reflections on decolonizing peace education in Korea: a critique and some decolonial pedagogic strategies. Teaching in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2019.1644618

Kwon, S, Walker, D, Kristjánsson, K(2018). Shining light into dark shadows of violence and learned helplessness: peace education in South Korean schools. Journal of Peace Education, 15(1), 24-47

Expanded Publication List

1) Translated Encyclopedia of peace education (Edited by Monisha Bajaj et al) into Korean language and published in 2022

2) Co-published a book A Global perspective of young adolescents’ peer aggression and well-being in 2020 with groups of international colleagues, Dr. Grace Skrzpiec in Flinders University in Australia

3) Translated Policy guide of Global Citizenship Education (Asian-pacific center of Education for International Understanding) into Korean language and published in 2015

4) Edited special edition of peace education in Asian Journal of Peacebuilding in 2018 May.

Education

PH.D in Education from University of Birmingham, UK (17, Jan, 2011 – 8, Jul, 2015)

THESIS: Violence in South Korean schools and its relevance to peace education

MA in Peace education from University for Peace, Costa Rica (24, Aug, 2005 – 28, Jul, 2006)

THESIS: Integration of peace education into school classrooms in South Korean context based on theThe 7th Curricula

BA from Hanshin University in Osan, South Korea (2, Mar, 2001 – 23, Feb, 2005)

Major in Theology (teacher education, English literature)