Opportunities and Dilemmas for Community-University Partnerships in Korea: The Case of Health Promotion Among Precarious Workers

Abstract

The willingness of university intellectuals to look beyond their campus borders has the potential to serve as the basis for universities to build transformative partnerships with other groups in Korean society. This potential has not always been realized, and this paper considers why that might be the case. Taking the important example of health promotion for Korea's most vulnerable workers, the paper considers the partnership work that has occurred in this area, how individual faculty have been involved, and why universities have not been active participants. The paper ends with a consideration of whether universities in countries where they are elite institutions, are situated to become more involved in community-university partnerships initiatives, or whether the direction in which these universities are moving, is likely to be away from rather than toward increased engagement.