Equal access to early childhood education in South Korea using the Geographic Information System |
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| Authors: | Jin Lee Youn Joo Jang |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA;2. Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA |
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| Abstract: | While the importance of early childhood education is well documented, scant attention is afforded to the access to institutions for early childhood education. Uneven distribution of institutions for early childhood education in segregated metropolitan areas can cause inequality of educational opportunity. By using the Geographic Information System tools, this paper investigates the extent to which both demand and supply in early childhood education is geographically balanced across Seoul, Korea. The analysis finds that kindergartens and daycare centres authorised by the government are evenly distributed across Seoul according to the demand. Yet, market-oriented English kindergartens are disproportionately concentrated in the southern areas of Seoul where families with higher income levels are clustered. These findings suggest that because market-driven institutions for early childhood education are not uniformly distributed corresponding to the demand, home residence according to parents’ income and occupation creates a type of educational inequality. |
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| Keywords: | Access kindergarten childcare centre English kindergarten Geographic Information System |
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