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This chapter provides a historical overview of policies on higher education in South Korea since 1945 and illustrates growth of science production based on expansion of higher education.

We divide higher education policies into three historical time periods: (1) 1945–1950s, a period of developing modern higher education system; (2) 1960s–early 1990s, a period of rapid expansion of higher education, while government establishing a few research-focused science and technology institutions aimed at better quality research production; and (3) since mid-1990s, a period of fostering the workforce and raising science productivity in universities using targeted investments in research. We use the SPHERE project’s comprehensive historical dataset based on Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science and data from Higher Education in Korea to analyze growth in scientific publication in national and organizational level.

The analysis suggests that the combined private and public investments in the expansion of higher education, and sequential policy intervention facilitated the massive and ongoing growth of science production in Korea.

The chapter provides a thorough description about the growth of higher education and science production in South Korea and draws lessons for developing capacity for producing science.

The chapter highlights some of the challenges of research on supplementary education, and indicates ways in which the challenges were tackled in one particular study on Chongqing Municipality, China.

The Chongqing research investigated the determinants of demand for shadow education by Grade 9 students, using a mixed-methods design. A questionnaire was used to collect data from students and parents on various background details and on the nature of the tutoring that they or their children had received. Interviews of a smaller number of respondents provided qualitative data that supplemented and illuminated the quantitative responses.

Different methodological decisions may have different implications. The sampling strategies in the study limited the generalizability but increased the feasibility of the fieldwork and comparability of findings. The top-down strategy of gaining access secured high response rates in the surveys, but to some extent decreased some participants’ willingness to provide information on gray areas. Interviews generated deep and detailed data, but some sensitive topics were intentionally avoided. Informal chats with note taking were constrained in depth and breadth by random time slots and venues, and some details were difficult to record. However, the approach expanded the horizons and facilitated the triangulation of information.

Discussion focuses on collection of data, and stresses the importance of cultural, social, and economic contexts. The chapter may be seen as a case study that provides insights into methods for researching forms of supplementary education. Methodological lessons from the fieldwork in Chongqing have wider relevance, particularly in settings where regular teachers provide extra private classes.

It is almost unbelievable that it is already 11 years ago that our most beloved friend and teacher Anselm Strauss died. In 1999 we had a conference in Magdeburg, Germany, where we tried to commemorate his very personal and creative way of doing sociological research and of teaching sociology that established an almost miraculous bridge to the minds of German and other European social scientists even though Anselm Strauss was very American. He was American in the best sense of using and encouraging creative freedom of expression, of showing witty nonconventionality, of relating in an egalitarian way to his interaction partners, of being empathically cooperative and practical in his thinking and in his personal relationships with his European students and colleagues. Today, instead, I would like to talk a little bit about his longer lasting impact on German-speaking social sciences and on other European social sciences as far as I have insight into them.

The UK government has taken the lead in accelerating the capacity of higher education to engage with sustainability accounting and adopting a novel systematic approach toward a collective implementation of and contribution to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UN SDG 16 “Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions” promotes the (re)building of effective and accountable institutions. In line with the institutional logics metatheory, we provide empirical evidence on how the alignment between social mechanisms alongside the reputation of higher education institutions (HEIs) and SDGs on transparent and responsible service (SDG 16) affect the students' overall experience. Using a sample of 142 UK HEIs, interpretative content analysis and ordinary least squares, the results show that integrating HEIs' responsible-oriented research agenda proactively with high sustainability reputation adds significantly to greater student satisfaction.

We explore the lived experience of organizational scholars who have conducted fieldwork in unsettling contexts. Through analyzing our interviews with these scholars, we find themes around the causes and consequences of unsettling fieldwork, and the coping strategies employed. We reflect on the often overlooked emotional and relational aspects of conducting and coping with unsettling fieldwork, and offer some suggestions for how scholars might support each other, especially given the increasing prevalence of organizational scholarship that pushes boundaries by engaging unconventional topics and settings.

Practices of reflexivity have encouraged youth researchers to discuss ethical dilemmas encountered in the field more openly. Whilst this has afforded a departure away from abstracted accounts of practice, published work tends to focus on self-oriented reflexivity and the emotional response of the ethnographer. Participants’ own emotions, and the emotional relationships between researcher and participant, have received less consideration. Not only can this result in adversarial, challenging or ‘controversial’ encounters being sanitised or even avoided in written accounts, but also the possible processual, individual or social benefits of a relational ethnography can be downplayed. This chapter uses cross-cultural ethnographic research involving young people in Laos, Southeast Asia and in Scotland, to expose some of the ethical dilemmas that can emerge from researcher–participant relationships. Reflecting and writing about these events deliberately places the researchers in a position of vulnerability by demonstrating the diverse ways emotional connections can shape and direct ethics in practice. The chapter concludes that a balanced approach to ethics, with attention to honesty and relationality, is key to realising a more considerate, authentic ethnographic account.