Prof. Kyung-Sup Chang is SNU Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Seoul National University. His research covers the particular workings of socioeconomic institutions and cultural/political practices in Korean/Asian development and modernization, focusing on the interfaces between national and global dynamics of social change (“compressed modernity”, “Asianization of Asia”), between economic development and social policy (“developmental liberalism”), between socioeconomic reality and political modernity (“transformative citizenship”), and between macro and micro institutions of social reproduction (“familial liberalism”). His recent authored books include: The Logic of Compressed Modernity (Polity, 2022), The Risk of Compressed Modernity (Polity, 2025), Transformative Citizenship in South Korea (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), Developmental Liberalism in South Korea (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), etc. He is actively engaged in international academic networks and serves on various prominent editorial boards.


Title: Education, Educationalization, and Compressed Modernity: A Citizenship Perspective

Abstract: Education has been one of the most distinct aspects of South Korea’s (compressed) modernity. I present an analytical explanation of the historico-social conditions and sociopolitical consequences the so-called “education zeal” of South Koreans in a citizenship perspective. It reflects the theoretical and analytical necessity to examine the long-term historical context and multidimensional effects by which education takes on decisive significance for South Koreans’ citizenship on all fronts.
South Koreans boast themselves as the world’s best educated population in terms of their highest level of enrollment in colleges and universities. As these tertiary institutions of learning are quite hierarchically positioned, they require students at the lower levels of schooling to study excessively for acceptance into better colleges and universities, leading to widely pathological consequences for youth. On the other hand, South Koreans’ private share of the entire public education budget and the proportion of their educational spending in the nation’s GDP are known to be respectively the world’s highest. A majority of South Korean parents have felt extremely stressful about the heavy educational expenses, whereas even young people feel severely intimidated, in choosing or planning marriage and childbirth, by the anticipated heavy burden of educating children.
At the societal level, education, especially at higher levels, has been crucially instrumental to the nation’s all fundamental transformations since its liberation from Japan, including the condensed institutional modernization into a liberal system of sociopolitical governance and economic regulation, the expeditious and extensive capitalist industrialization buttressed by human capital, the potent democratization movement propelled by the allied forces of intellectuals, students, and workers, and the technological and cultural surge into global leadership. South Korea’s multifaceted compressed modernity has been educationalized in a very broad sense.
Whether it is the quality, the intensity, or the universality of education that has been the most decisive for education’s such contributions is debatable. Nonetheless, it is beyond dispute that South Koreans’ educational fervor has both bolstered and been intensified by these societal transformations that tend to necessitate collectively organized efforts at (mostly international) knowledge transmission and utilization. In citizenship terms, formal education has critically enabled South Koreans to march into modern institutional, developmental, political, and scientific/cultural citizenship. A sort of transformative collectivism has governed South Koreans’ educationalized citizenship.
In a great paradox, however, South Koreans’ access to education itself has remained quite dubious as a citizenship right. Public education has been constitutionally stipulated both as every citizen’s right and duty ever since the nation’s independence. The South Korean government has been consistently effective in promptly establishing public schools and mobilizing civilians to set up private schools that operate by the largely same curricula and financial rules, leaving virtually no children beyond reasonable access to universal public education. However, the same government used to keep balking, even until the beginning of the 21st century, on its legal duty to provide free public education up to the constitutionally designated level of middle school (7th to 9th grade). Most South Korea adolescents attain college/university diplomas not as a citizenship right but as a parental gift.
An aspect of education in which South Koreans do make a strong citizenship claim is the governmental regulation and management of various components of college/university entrance examinations. In presidential and parliamentary elections, the reform of daehakipsijedo (the system of college/university entrance examinations) is quite frequently presented as a key election pledge, whereas the problem of nearly universal and excessive financial burdens for college/university education curiously remained untouched until recently. The popular apprehension about fair and transparent exams for college/university entrance sensitively reflects the above-mentioned instrumentality of higher education in all major components of modern citizenship. To the extent that such citizenship instrumentalities of education are conditioned upon meritocratic differentials and hierarchies, South Koreans’ commonly shared anxiety about college/university exams falls short of constituting a clear sociopolitical basis of social citizenship.

https://sociology.snu.ac.kr/snu__professor/chang-kyung-sup/

Prof. Duck-Joo Kwak is a professor in the Department of Education at the School of Education, Seoul National University. She teaches philosophy of education, with research interests in (post)-humanist philosophy of arts education, pedagogical relations with philosophy of teaching, as well as East Asian educational philosophy. She received her Ph.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University, where she studied the work of Richard Rorty and Stanley Cavell and developed an existential approach to education. More recently, she has been engaged in research on the philosophical foundations of digital pedagogy. Her publications include Education for Self-transformation: Essay Form as an Educational Practice (2012), The Confucian Concept of Learning: Revisited for East Asian Humanistic Pedagogies (2018), and Pedagogical Relation and the Ontology of Teaching (2023).


Title: Learning and Unlearning to Be 'Postcolonial': Knowledge Production in East Asia

Abstract: Biesta diagnoses the proliferation of “post-isms” or “post-positions” in contemporary scholarship as bound up with a fundamental turn in modernity: a transformation in how we stand in relation to the world, whereby the modern subject comes to understand the world as an object to be viewed, interpreted, and positioned toward. Given this turn, it seems inevitable that academic discourse is organized around the act of “taking positions” or adopting perspectives in relation to the world. In seeking a postcolonial approach to educational studies in Korea in particular, and East Asia more broadly, this presentation explores what Biesta’s thesis might mean for educational studies in East Asia, especially in methodological terms. It first examines three forms of academic colonialism in Korean educational studies against which local scholars have struggled, and then considers how we might move beyond them by further developing the “dual moves of distancing” proposed in Kuan-Hsing Chen’s (2010) idea of “Asia as Method.” In doing so, the presentation aims to articulate a postcolonial approach to educational studies in East Asia that moves beyond both cultural essentialism and Western universalism, not merely by changing one’s perspective, but by cultivating what Biesta calls “a change of heart”.

https://learning.snu.ac.kr/snu__professor/곽덕주/

Prof. Sara Tolbert is Professor of Science and Environmental Education in the Faculty of Education at Monash University, Melbourne, where she leads the Science Education Research Group and co-leads the Science Education in the Anthropocene Impact Lab. Drawing on critical curriculum studies, feminist science studies, critical pedagogy, and postdigital theory, Sara's research reimagines science education for an era of escalating planetary crisis. Her scholarship engages urgent questions about how science education can respond to disinformation, climate change, and inequality not merely as curricular add-ons but as foundational concerns for the field. Beyond her scholarship, Sara is deeply committed to building communities of practice oriented toward transformative justice in science education.


Title: ‘Post World’ Reflections on Education Research for an Unequal Past-Present

Abstract: Many of us working in education research have experienced something like a profound disorientation, a sense that our old frameworks, theories, and categories no longer quite fit the world we find ourselves in. 'Post' theories and methods have given generative structure and meaning to that disorientation, and have freed us to imagine worlds outside of those that ‘got us here’. Yet globally, pernicious structural inequalities in education and society more broadly seem particularly resistant to change. And as we might appear to move deeper into the ‘post-world’, reactionary political movements seek to glorify and reignite the past. In this talk, I take up the 26th ICER’s invitation to “rethink the place and purpose of education research amid proliferating post-paradigms”, asking what assumptions and what forgotten traditions we carry with us into the 'post' moment. I explore the productive contradictions of 'post' theories and methods in education: what they open up, what they can obscure, and what (and whom) we risk forgetting in the ‘post-world’.
'Post-world’ theories and methods often tend to pursue novelty and even the avant-garde. It is exactly because of this novelty that post- movements, such as in the arts, have real power to turn everything on its head, catalysing important epistemological, methodological, and ontological shifts. Post- thinking can shake us loose from entrenched ways of thinking that are no longer tenable. At the same time, especially in education research, post-theories and methodologies often get operationalised as supersession, as something to be translated into new pedagogies, new methods, new practices. Furthermore, the demand to be novel on the one hand and actionable on the other can foreclose the more difficult questions about where we actually are.
And so, (how) do post-world orientations and methods intervene in the increasingly unequal—and reactionary--present? Many of the traditions that post-theories risk forgetting (or subsuming), such as Indigenous knowledge systems and materialist ecofeminist traditions, have long offered sophisticated accounts of the very conditions education research now struggles to name. The question of usefulness is real but cuts both ways: If post-theories cannot gain traction within the structural conditions of the past-present, what work are they actually doing--and for whom? Yet demanding usefulness on those structures' own terms may itself be a form of foreclosure. Thus, rather than averting or resolving the trouble of the post-world, I take up the 26th ICER’s conference theme as an opportunity to problematise it.

https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/sara-tolbert/

Prof. Gert Biesta is Professor of Education, University of Melbourne. Also he is Emeritus Professor of Public Education, Maynooth University, and Adjunct Professor of Western Norway University of Applied Sciences. Biesta conducts both theoretical and empirical research, focusing on the relationship between education and democracy and the public role of education. His work addresses education in formal and non-formal contexts, with particular attention to teachers, teaching, teacher education, curriculum, educational relationships, and the emancipatory potential of education. His publications have appeared in various languages, include several books that have received major academic awards, and he has delivered numerous invited presentations internationally.


Title: Metanoia or the change of heart: What comes after the age of the worldview?

Abstract: The call for contributions for this conference raises a number of big, important, but also quite difficult questions. The questions are big because they relate to a range of movements, shifts and claims which, although they all share the prefix ‘post,’ are different in nature, scope and orientation. The questions are important because they touch upon the very foundations of educational research and practice by challenging commonly-held assumptions about what it is to know and what it is to teach. And the questions are difficult, not just because they are complicated, but first and foremost because they raise the question from what kind of position or standpoint it is actually possible to engage with these questions in the first place.
The guiding intuition of the approach I will take in this presentation is that many of the ‘post’-positions we are talking about do indeed present themselves as positions or, more specifically, as perspectives. This is how they show up in everyday conversations and also in research when researchers take a particular theoretical perspective or look at phenomena through a particular theoretical lens. In my presentation I will argue that the idea of ‘taking a perspective’ is not as neutral as it may appear to be, but actually denotes a very particular ‘configuration’ to which the philosopher Martin Heidegger has referred as the ‘age of the worldview.’ In my presentation I will discuss the origins of this configuration, shows some of its problems, and explore what might come after the age of the worldview. Rather than offering a new perspective, I will suggest that overcoming the problems of the age of the worldview may actually require a change of heart.

https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/gert-biesta

Dr. Insung Jung is a former Professor at International Christian University, Japan, Visiting Fellow at Seoul National University, and Senior Fellow at Open University Malaysia. Ranked in the World’s Top 2% Scientists, she specializes in open and digital education. She has consulted for UNESCO and the World Bank and authored numerous journal articles and books including Springer's Pathways to International Publication in the Social Sciences (forthcoming in Korean via Hakjisa). She has also led several research and development projects on the design and evaluation of various technology-enhanced education.


Title: Navigating the International Publishing Maze: From Draft to Decision
* This academic writing workshop will be co-organized with Prof. Jihyun Lee, Seoul National University.

Abstract: Publishing your first article in an international journal can feel like entering a maze without a map. Many new authors stare at the same daunting questions: Which international journal is the right venue for my work? What does a global journal editor actually look for? How can I use generative AI both effectively and ethically? If you are a graduate student or early-career researcher aiming to share your work with a global audience, you do not have to navigate these hurdles alone. This dynamic, 90-minute workshop demystifies the international publication lifecycle and provides the insider strategies you need to turn your research into a globally published reality.
Inside the Editorial Mind: This session bridges the gap between having a strong study and achieving a successful international publication. We begin by helping you target the right journal, teaching you how to evaluate top-tier flagships and reputable open-access venues while confidently spotting and avoiding predatory publishers. From there, we break down the international peer-review process and take you behind the scenes of the editorial desk. You will discover exactly what triggers an immediate desk rejection and learn how to navigate the emotional and technical spectrum of editorial decisions. Crucially, you will learn the art of the international rewrite, answering reviewer critiques with diplomacy, clarity, and rigor.
Transforming Your Text for a Global Audience: For many attendees, the biggest hurdle is transforming a thesis into an article for an international arena. This workshop delivers a practical blueprint for narrowing your research question, stripping away dissertation fluff, and reshaping your manuscript for international readers. We also address the most up-to-date author responsibilities, giving you clear boundaries on copyright, data transparency, and the ethical integration of AI in manuscript development.
We tailor this workshop experience to fit your specific methodology within the international standard. Quantitative researchers will explore global expectations for reporting results, presenting data, and meeting replication standards. Qualitative researchers will focus on framing an original contribution, establishing trustworthiness, and navigating positionality for a global readership.
A Practical Roadmap: The workshop centers on a series of short presentations, with brief practical activities interspersed throughout. In these activities, you will examine candidate international journals for your own work and begin sketching a personalized publication plan. Beyond the manuscript itself, we include practical guidance on managing your mind, schedule, time, and workspace throughout the writing and publication process, along with a final pre-submission check. Given our limited time together, these activities are designed to be quick and focused. We also reserve dedicated time for a live Q&A session to address your specific roadblocks.
Come Prepared: No prior publishing experience is required to join. We encourage you to bring whatever project you currently have on hand, whether that is an early-stage idea, a conference paper, a dissertation chapter, or a full draft, along with your computer. This workshop ensures you will leave the guesswork behind and walk away with a clear, realistic roadmap to move your manuscript from your desktop to an international journal.

https://sites.google.com/site/isjungcv/

Dr. Jewoong Moon is an Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology in the Department of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Technology Studies at the University of Alabama, where he directs the Adaptive Design of Inclusive E-Learning research group. His research examines how emerging technologies—such as GenAI, extended reality, game-based learning, and learning analytics—can enhance teaching, professional development, and student learning in STEM and interdisciplinary educational contexts. He has published 55 selected journal articles and contributes to the field by serving as an Associate Editor for Behaviour & Information Technology. He is affiliated with major professional communities, and leads funded projects on AI-enhanced personalized STEM learning and large language model–based professional development for secondary teacher training.


Title: Conversational AI for Ethical Reasoning in Education: Design and Computational Analysis of Dialogic Learning

Abstract: As AI increasingly shapes social, technological, and educational systems, preparing students to reason about complex AI-related ethical dilemmas has become an important educational goal. However, ethics instruction is often delivered through static case discussions or abstract principles, which provide limited support for the dynamic reasoning processes involved in real-world ethical decision-making. This presentation synthesizes a research program investigating how conversational AI can support ethical reasoning through dialogic learning environments and how computational approaches can reveal the structure of learners’ reasoning processes during ethical dialogue. I first introduce the design of an AI-mediated ethical dialogue system Ethobot that engages students in structured conversations around AI dilemmas. The system facilitates dialogic reasoning through prompts that encourage perspective-taking, justification of claims, counterargument exploration, and reflective evaluation. Empirical studies show that conversational AI can support students’ engagement with ill-structured ethical problems and foster deeper reflection on competing technological and social values. Building on this design-oriented work, the presentation then examines how learners’ ethical reasoning unfolds during AI-mediated dialogue using computational learning analytics. Dialogue trajectories are modeled as sequences of reasoning states, and computational techniques such as sequential transition modeling and inverse reinforcement learning are used to infer the regulatory patterns underlying ethical reasoning. The analyses reveal several mechanisms that characterize productive ethical dialogue, including the role of perspective-taking as a gateway into reflective reasoning and the influence of discourse strategies such as questioning and self-evaluation in shaping reasoning trajectories. The presentation propose a framework for AI-supported ethical reasoning environments organized around three principles: dialogic scaffolding through conversational AI, computational analysis of reasoning trajectories, and learning environment design that treats AI systems not only as instructional tools but also as inspectable models for understanding complex ethical reasoning in socio-technical contexts. Practical implications are discussed for computing education researchers and educators seeking scalable approaches to ethics instruction in the age of artificial intelligence.

https://sites.ua.edu/jmoon/

Prof. Nutsa Kobakhidze is an Associate Professor of Comparative and International Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Her scholarship focuses on Comparative Education, Privatization of Education (Shadow Education, Education Markets), Globalization and Education, alongside critical analyses of large-scale international assessments like PISA. Prof. Kobakhidze holds a Ph.D. from HKU and an M.A. from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her widely published work includes the monograph Teachers as Tutors: Shadow Education Market Dynamics in Georgia, which received the CIES Gail P. Kelly Award. She serves as President of the Comparative Education Society of Hong Kong and former director of HKU’s Comparative Education Research Centre. Globally engaged, she actively collaborates with international organizations including UNESCO and the World Bank.

https://web.edu.hku.hk/faculty-academics/nutsak

Prof. Soo-yong Byun is a Professor of Education Theory and Policy, Demography, and Asian Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. He holds a joint appointment with the Social Science Research Institute as a co-funded faculty member and is also affiliated with Penn State’s Comparative and International Education Program. Prof. Byun’s research focuses on the sociology of education, international and comparative education, rural education, and educational policy analysis and program evaluation. His work has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, also he has served on the editorial and advisory boards of several prominent journals. He received the 2021 Senior Outstanding Research Award from Penn State’s College of Education and served as President of the Korean American Educational Researchers Association from 2017 to 2018.


Title: Shadow Education as cultural capital? Evidence of intergenerational transmission in South Korea

Abstract: Research on shadow education or private supplementary education has expanded rapidly over the past two decades, documenting its growth, socioeconomic determinants, and consequences for academic achievement. A large body of scholarship shows that participation in private tutoring and supplementary instruction is strongly stratified by family background and often associated with improved test scores and educational attainment. While this literature has significantly advanced our understanding of who participates in shadow education and whether it “works” in academic terms, much less attention has been paid to how shadow education shapes broader educational processes and outcomes beyond achievement—such as educational transitions, intergenerational reproduction, and students’ experiences within mainstream schooling.
Responding to this gap, this session brings together three papers that examine the role of shadow education in shaping educational inequality and schooling experiences across diverse national contexts. Moving beyond a narrow focus on academic performance, the papers collectively address how shadow education operates as a stratifying mechanism embedded in institutional contexts, cultural expectations, and everyday schooling practices. Drawing on large-scale longitudinal and nationally representative datasets, the session highlights cross-national variation as well as within-country processes through which shadow education reproduces or reshapes inequality.
The first paper examines how shadow education shapes students’ transitions to higher education in Germany, Japan, and the United States. Using nationally representative panel data, the study engages two competing theoretical perspectives: a universal effects model, which posits that shadow education confers similar advantages across contexts, and a cross-national differences model, which emphasizes institutional variation in how shadow education is rewarded. The analysis focuses on whether shadow education mediates or amplifies socioeconomic disparities in access to higher education under distinct education systems. Findings reveal striking cross-national differences. In Germany, where early tracking and strong vocational pathways structure educational trajectories, shadow education has limited influence on college transitions. In Japan, shadow education facilitates access to university education within a relatively standardized and exam-oriented system. In contrast, in the United States, shadow education intensifies social selectivity in college admission, disproportionately benefiting socioeconomically advantaged students. These results demonstrate that the role of shadow education in reproducing or mitigating educational inequality is highly context-dependent and shaped by national institutional arrangements.
The second paper shifts attention to intergenerational processes by examining whether parents’ own participation in shadow education is transmitted to their children and whether children’s participation is subsequently rewarded within mainstream schooling. Using data from the Korean Educational Longitudinal Study of 2013, the study conceptualizes shadow education as a form of cultural capital that is learned, normalized, and strategically deployed across generations. The analysis investigates both the intergenerational continuity of shadow education participation and its association with children’s academic achievement, net of family socioeconomic status and prior performance. The findings provide important insights into how shadow education functions not merely as a short-term academic investment but as a durable family practice that contributes to the reproduction of educational advantage in the East Asian context.
The third paper examines how participation in shadow education shapes students’ perceptions of classroom teaching, again drawing on data from the Korean Educational Longitudinal Study of 2013. Rather than treating shadow education as separate from mainstream schooling, this study investigates how experiences in supplementary education influence students’ evaluations of their regular classroom teachers. The analysis tests whether students who participate in shadow education report systematically lower evaluations of teaching quality, even after accounting for academic performance, school characteristics, and family background. The findings suggest that shadow education may subtly reshape students’ expectations of instruction, potentially undermining the perceived effectiveness or legitimacy of mainstream classroom teaching.
Taken together, these three papers advance the literature on shadow education in several important ways. First, they broaden the scope of inquiry beyond academic achievement to include educational transitions, intergenerational reproduction, and students’ subjective experiences of schooling. Second, they demonstrate that the consequences of shadow education are deeply embedded in national institutional contexts, challenging universalistic interpretations of its effects. Third, they highlight shadow education as an integral—rather than peripheral—component of contemporary education systems, with implications for inequality, educational policy, and classroom dynamics. By integrating comparative and intergenerational perspectives with analyses of schooling experiences, this session provides a theoretically informed and empirically grounded account of how shadow education shapes educational inequality across contexts. The session will be of interest to scholars of comparative education, sociology of education, and education policy, as well as policymakers concerned with the expanding role and unintended consequences of private supplementary education worldwide.

https://ed.psu.edu/directory/dr-soo-yong-byun

Dr. Steve R. Entrich holds a PhD in Educational Sociology and currently works as co-head of the SNSF-project JTEPS(The Japan Transnational Education and Career Panel Study) at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Since 2010 he worked in the fields of Comparative Sociology & Education, Teacher Education and Japanese Studies at the University of Potsdam, Freie Universität Berlin, University of Zurich, University of Innsbruck, and University of Duisburg-Essen. His major research interests lie in comparative educational sociology, focusing on social inequalities in educational attainment, educational decision-making, returns to education, life course research, and implications of transnational, supplementary, and inclusive education in Germany, Japan, the United States, and in cross-national comparison.


Title: Who Benefits from Shadow Education? Cross-National Variation in the Effects of Shadow Education on College Admission in Germany, Japan, and the United States

Abstract: Research on shadow education (SE)—fee-based supplementary tutoring outside formal schooling—has long been guided by two core assumptions: first, that participation enhances students’ academic performance and educational attainment; and second, that families with higher socioeconomic status (SES) are more likely to invest in SE in order to secure or reproduce their children’s educational advantage. While abundant national-level studies support these claims, emerging cross-national evidence suggests that both the patterns of participation and the effects of SE vary substantially across institutional contexts. These differences carry important implications for educational stratification and the reproduction of social inequality.
To better understand the conditions under which SE contributes to inequality, this study comparatively examines its role in shaping transitions to higher education institutions of varying selectivity in three countries with distinct secondary school structures and college admission systems: Germany, Japan, and the United States. These cases represent different configurations of tracking, standardization, and marketization, providing a theoretically informative contrast. The analysis addresses three central research questions: (1) Is SE more likely to be used by high-SES families across all institutional contexts? (2) Do the effects of SE on higher education transitions differ between countries, and to what extent can such differences be explained by country-specific institutional arrangements? (3) How does SE participation influence social inequality in educational attainment, particularly in access to elite or highly selective institutions?
The third question is especially relevant given growing concerns that extensive reliance on SE may distort mainstream educational processes, shift competition into private markets, and amplify inequalities in opportunity structures. Yet systematic cross-national evidence on how SE shapes students’ allocation to different tiers of higher education remains limited.
Theoretically, the study contrasts two perspectives. The first assumes that SE generates broadly positive effects regardless of context, grounded in learning theory (additional instructional time improves performance), social reproduction theory (resourceful families convert economic capital into educational advantage), and mobility-oriented frameworks. The second perspective—conceptualized here as a cross-national differences model—emphasizes that the returns to SE are mediated by institutional features such as tracking regimes, examination systems, and the degree of standardization in admissions procedures. From this viewpoint, SE effects are not universal but contingent upon how closely supplementary tutoring aligns with formal selection mechanisms.
These competing expectations are tested using nationally representative panel data from Germany, Japan, and the United States. Employing regression techniques and structural equation modeling, the analysis disentangles selection effects from outcome effects and traces both direct and indirect pathways from SE participation to higher education enrollment.
The findings reveal distinct national patterns. In Germany, SE is primarily used by lower-performing students irrespective of SES and does not significantly increase the likelihood of university admission, suggesting compensatory rather than advantage-accumulating functions. In Japan, SE participation does not substantially improve high school grades but significantly raises the probability of entering four-year universities, reflecting its close alignment with standardized entrance examinations. In the United States, SE at the high school level—particularly test preparation—substantially improves college admission prospects but reinforces social selectivity in access to higher-status institutions.
Overall, the results demonstrate that the meaning, use, and consequences of SE are deeply embedded in national institutional contexts. By integrating comparative analysis with stratification theory, the study advances a more context-sensitive framework for understanding SE and its role in shaping educational inequality. The findings carry theoretical implications for debates on effectively maintained inequality and institutional stratification, practical relevance for mainstream schooling, and policy significance for efforts aimed at mitigating unequal access to higher education.

https://www.aoi.uzh.ch/de/japanologie/personenuebersicht/wissangestellte/entrich.html

Prof. Ka Ya Lee is a Research Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and a member of the Comparative Education Research Centre. As an empirically engaged philosopher of education, she explores educational justice, the ethics of educational measurement, and comparative philosophies of AI in education. Prof. Lee earned her Ph.D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard’s Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics. Her scholarship, published in venues like the Journal of Philosophy of Education, utilizes the frameworks of John Dewey and Amartya Sen to address normative questions in data-driven educational decision-making. She is also deeply committed to ethics pedagogy and teaching the philosophical foundations of education.

https://www.kayalee.net

Prof. William (Bill) Watson is a Professor of Learning Design and Technology at Purdue University, where his work focuses on the design of educational systems that leverage emerging technologies—particularly AI —to support personalized, mastery-based learning. His initial research in game-based learning evolved into a broader systems-level inquiry into how technology can enable a new paradigm of education. His scholarship spans instructional design for attitudinal change and positive education, as well as the educational use of technologies such as artificial intelligence, digital badges, massive open online courses, and learning management systems. Prof. Watson has received national recognition for his work, including being named one of the Center for Digital Education’s Top 30 Technologists, Transformers, and Trailblazers in 2015.


Title: Leveraging Disruption: AI for Systemic Educational Change in the Disinformation Age

Abstract: This opening presentation examines how generative AI exposes the limitations of the Industrial Age “factory model” of schooling, including time-based progression, standardized pacing, and recall-heavy assessment. In an environment characterized by information overload, declining trust, deepfakes, and bot-driven manipulation, education must prioritize critical thinking, complex problem-solving, resilience, and democratic citizenship. The presentation proposes a human-centered framework organized around mastery rather than pacing, attitudinal learning and positive education, new evidence-based measures of success, and teacher empowerment. AI is positioned not as a substitute for educators or productive struggle, but as a catalyst for problem-based, interdisciplinary learning and for a redesigned ecosystem that supports competence, well-being, and human relationships.

https://education.purdue.edu/about/directory/william-r-watson/

Prof. Ying-Fen Wang is currently a Professor in the Department of Education at National Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan. Her research interests are in cross-cultural applications of attachment theory, child and adolescent counseling, positive psychology based group counseling, and counselor education. She has published numerous journal articles, conference paper, and book chapters in these areas. She was a recipient of the several academic awards from Taiwan and America. Prof. Wang is active in professional community and participates in both international and national professional organizations. She also serves as a licensed counseling psychologist in university counseling centers and community counseling centers as an adjunct position.


Title: Be more optimistic and happier: A positive psychology–based counseling group for adolescents with negative thinking patterns

Abstract: A manualized positive psychology–based counseling group for adolescents with persistent negative thinking patterns is introduced, integrating relationship-building strategies to strengthen interpersonal bonds, foster adaptive meaning-making, and reduce psychological withdrawal. Quantitative and qualitative findings illustrate changes in well-being, relational functioning, and emotional engagement, demonstrating how counseling interventions can address youth distress by rebuilding relational resources that buffer against disengagement and vulnerability.

https://www.epc.ntnu.edu.tw/Front/Faculty_and_Staff/FullTime/Members.aspx?id=0pjIJ%2BWlsho=&PID=0000000018&lang=en

Prof. Yuhsuan Chang is a Professor in the Organization Management Discipline, College of Management, at Yuan Ze University. Also she is Licensed Counseling Psychologist in Taiwan as well as management consultant in industry. Prof. Chang integrates her expertise in the development and application of assessment in organization with her experience in career management. Her research and professional interests include personality assessment, perfectionism, stress and coping, career management, interview method, workplace mental health promotion, and healthcare issues. She has strong interest in developing personality and career-related measures that are behavioral-focused data instead of traditional attitude orientation. Also, she has examined the effect of personality of perfectionism relation to a variety aspect of job outcomes. Recently, she has conducted studies related to assessment center as a personnel selection method and investigated the impact of personality factors.


Title: Disengagement and the Erosion of Belonging: “Lying Flat” Among University Students in Korea and Taiwan

Abstract: This presentation examines “lying flat” as a form of disengagement among university students in Korea and Taiwan, focusing on its associations with mental health–related variables and experiences of diminished belonging. Drawing on cross-cultural data, the study explores how withdrawal, emotional exhaustion, and reduced striving are linked to students’ perceptions of academic pressure, future uncertainty, and social connectedness. Rather than conceptualizing lying flat as simple passivity, the presentation situates it as a relationally embedded response to educational and social conditions that undermine students’ sense of belonging.

https://www.cm.yzu.edu.tw/EN/Page/C2.aspx?ItemId=398