Bruce Han is a PhD student in International and Global Education and a Graduate Research Assistant on the Civic Futures project in the School of Communication and Information. He spent more than 30 years in investment banking and media across Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, and New York. He created two YouTube channels: English with Bruce and Action Through Education, which focused on schools in Hawaiʻi. He holds two master’s degrees from Columbia University, in Asian history and international relations, and is a graduate of Swarthmore College, where he was a varsity wrestler.
Research Interests
Bruce’s research centers on Korea’s “education fever,” the intense drive among Korean families to secure educational advantage for their children. He is interested in its historical roots and in the question of who has actually benefited: whether education in Korea has opened doors broadly or has remained unequal across generations. He also studies how Korean families decide where and how to educate their children, including the choice to send them abroad. In future work, he hopes to connect these threads by examining why some Korean families have sent their children to study in Hawaiʻi.
Ph.D. Track
Global & International Education
COE Affiliation
Educational Foundations
Links
Degrees
B.A. History/Religion/Premed (1986)
Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA
M.A. International Relations (1990)
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York, NY
Book Chapters
Wrote the Korean history section of a high school textbook published by Macmillan in 1990 (uncredited contribution).