Based on the appropriate archival collections, official documents, and various published materials, this dissertation is an investigation of American diplomacy in Korea from 1945 to 1953. Between the end of World War II and the close of the Korean fighting, the United States moved from a limited interest in Korea to a substantial involvement in that nation's affairs.

This study is an attempt to combine the disciplines of Asian history and United States diplomatic history in analyzing the 1871 Korean-American Incident. The Incident revolves around the Low-Rodgers expedition to Korea, and the subsequent breakdown of peaceful negotiations into a military clash of arms. To describe the Incident as merely another example of American "imperialism,'' or as a result of narrow-minded Korean isolationism, is to oversimplify its causes and miss the larger implications that can be learned from it. A basic premise of this paper is that the 1871 Incident is an example of East-West cultural conflict. As such, the forces that helped to determine the attitudes and behavior of both the Americans and Koreans were of a broad nature reflecting their respective cultural differences. At times, these differences were so basic and general that the specialist in history can easily overlook them. To better understand this conflict of cultures, Chapters II and III discuss elements of Korean and American diplomacy before the 1860’s, and how their unique experiences led to widely different attitudes toward foreign relations. Chapter II concentrates on traditional Chinese-Korean relations, and their effect upon Korea's approach to diplomacy; Chapter III emphasizes the nature of America's first contacts with East Asia and the important influence of the activities of the United States in the Mediterranean region. Chapters IV and V deal with domestic politics in Korea and the United States, and how these internal conditions affected each nation's attitude toward the other. Chapter VI is a detailed description of the immediate events that culminated in the 1871 Incident. Chapters I and VII are the introduction and conclusion. In researching this paper, government documents, memoirs, diaries, personal accounts, contemporary newspapers, books, and articles were all used. When writing the chapters that deal primarily with Korea, Korean sources have been used as much as possible. The Korean and American officials, though communicating in the same language (Chinese characters), were negotiating from completely different cultural norms. Both sides felt that their positions and actions were morally justified. In studying the official documents concerning the Incident, the reader is indeed impressed by the sincerity and honesty of all parties involved. In this sense, it is difficult to label one group "guilty" and the other group "innocent." It must be remembered, however, that the Americans were carrying out naval activities in Korean waters, and not the Koreans in American waters. The student of history is reminded that American-East Asian relations, unlike most American-European relations, must constantly confront and overcome wide cultural differences. To ignore these differences, or to impose one's own cultural views on another society, is to invite misunderstanding, raise suspicions, and increase the possibility of conflict.

The purpose of this comparative and historical study is to consider a reconceptualization of the notion of educational policy transfer, based on an analysis of how the reforms made during the Soviet and US military occupation in the two Koreas influenced the educational development of North and South Korea from 1945 to 1959. The conceptual framework for the research drew on a definition of 'policy' as a comprehensive concept comprising of policy process and practice 'on the ground,' and going beyond a rigid definition of it as a formally recorded and proclaimed statement by a government. This concept of policy enabled me to analyze the process and practice of the educational reforms from a multi-dimensional perspective, incorporating the beliefs of local actors and the bureaucracy of domestic institutions. For this purpose, historical sources including South Korean, North Korean and US government documents, magazines, newpapers, teachers' resumés and guides and the memoires and diaries of important policy-makers were analyzed; historical documentation was complemented by expert interviews with eleven South and North Korean policy-makers and academics. In South Korea, educational reforms were implemented to promote liberal democratic ideals in the education system. Curricular and systemic changes were made to teach democratic procedures and concepts, such as the introduction of the subject social studies, the establishment of a single-track school system, and the introduction of a student-centered pedagogy to primary schools. In North Korea, a socialist-communist ideology, along with an attraction to the Soviet Union as a model state to follow, was extensively promoted through a series of educational reforms as political indoctrination intensified in the adult education and school curricula. In both contexts, the localization of the reforms was affected by cultural and social factors unique to Korea: the authoritarian legacy of Confucianism and Japanese colonization, and the nationalism that had been fostered for the purpose of state-formation. The Korean case indicates that the state-centric, linear and static view of educational policy transfer should be replaced by a new conceptualization which includes the complex web of decision-making and implementation processes that involve negotiations and compromises among various politicians and administrators who are driven by national as well as personal interests and goals. For example, although the educational reforms in the two Koreas were developed by Soviet and US military in order to maximize their long-term security interests in the Korean peninsula, the key actors who implemented the reforms were Korean policy-makers, who had been appointed to key positions of the educational administrations through the bureaucratic politics between the military authorities and the Korean polity. Although the overall objective of the educational reforms was to extend the ideological influences of the Soviet Union and the USA in the Korean peninsula, specific programs and policies for the reforms depended on the Korean policy-makers' understanding and interpretations of different ideologies.

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