Teachers’ Perceptions of Educational Reality Represented in the Media: A Focus Group Study Using the Netflix Series Teach you a lesson as a Lens

Abstract

Recent conflicts in Korean public education, including the weakening of teacher authority, school violence, and excessive parental complaints, have led to growing social demands to diagnose and address the challenges faced by schools and educators. Against this backdrop, this study uses the Netflix series Teach you a lesson as a media text that reflects contemporary educational realities and explores how in-service teachers perceive and interpret the current state of Korean education based on their own professional experiences.
This study employed focus group interviews with six in-service secondary school teachers. Drawing on their personal experiences in educational settings, the participants discussed the educational situations depicted in the series and explored diverse perceptions and meanings through interaction within the group. The collected data were analyzed based on the thematic analysis methodology developed by Braun and Clarke.
The findings indicate that the teachers interpreted the problematic situations depicted in the series in relation to their own experiences in actual educational settings. Two major themes emerged: the imbalance between teachers’ professional authority and responsibilities, and the gap between educational policies and school realities. In response to these challenges, the participants identified restoring trust within the educational community through substantive and institutional guarantees of teachers’ professional expertise and autonomy as a key strategy for improvement.
This study provides insight into teachers’ perceptions and meaning-making by using media representations of educational settings as a lens through which to reflect on actual educational practices. It also offers practical implications for improving educational policies and school practices