In the process of compressed growth, Korean society has missed an important aspect of the cooperative value that members of society should share. Trust and ties, norms of reciprocity, and practices of civic participation are remarkably lacking, and enmity and value conflicts threaten the foundation of the community. We believe that this is the biggest obstacle for Korean society to become a truly advanced country, not only in terms of political and economic sense but also in terms of societal. With this awareness in mind, this study empirically explored the accumulation and depreciation process of social capital in Korea, focusing on 'the reciprocal value norms shared by a society' among various types of social capital. The report consists of the following. First, Chapter 2 examines the origins of social capital discourse and explores the theoretical justification of the social capital concept(i.e., reciprocal social norms) defined in this study. In particular, it explores the relationship between various discussions assuming 'homo socialis' and social capital theory, from Adam Smith to the recent social preference theory in economics. In addition, as a basic requirement for the concept of social capital, the Solow criteria are presented and the validity of the concept of social capital defined as reciprocal social norms is reviewed. In Chapter 3, for empirical analysis, we construct three indicators for measuring social capital―social (general) trust, civic norm consciousness, and respect for others― and then analyze the effects on economic growth using those indicators. In addition, the relationship with various socio-economic outcomes other than economic growth, specifically, corruption control, governance, and income inequality is analyzed. Chapter 4 focuses the analysis on Korea and analyzes the characteristics and changes of the reciprocal value norms of Koreans. Assuming that the formation of social capital(i.e., accumulation and depreciation) is achieved by transmission of values from generation to generation and subsequent adjustment by socio-economic environment and experiences, we examine the process of changing reciprocal social norms by generation. In addition, various factors affecting individuals' attitudes toward reciprocal value norms are explored. Finally, Chapter 5 summarizes the analysis results of this study and presents the following four policy directions based on them. First, it is necessary to understand that the behavior of economic agents has social motives that cannot be reduced to selfish motives and avoid approaches that emphasize only economic incentives in policy and institutional design. (Policy design for 'homo socialis') Second, public trust in government institutions, laws, and norms must be restored first to prevent a decline in civic norm consciousness and moral hazard To this end, it is most important to design policies and systems that do not differ significantly from the expectations of members of society and promote them consistently. (Restoring confidence in government policy) Third, open community activities should be encouraged so that members of society can cultivate community values. It is necessary to expand the experience and learning opportunities in which various opinions are coordinated and mediated from a small and specific agenda. (Encouraging community values and ‘small’ democracy) Fourth, school education should be rebuilt to foster pro-social future citizens, by contributing to the establishment of inclusive values and ethical norms, not by encouraging selfishness and competition. (Educational reform to foster future citizens)

The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has prompted the spread of the notion that schools should strengthen students' physical and social-emotional skills development by providing reliable care, on top of improving their academic achievement. Against this backdrop, this study aims to analyze how afterschool programs, the education and childcare activities schools offer, are related to child development in elementary schools and offer policy recommendations for improving program effectiveness. Afterschool class refers to education and childcare activities at school after regular school hours, tailored to the needs of students and parents. This study focuses on the correlation between child development of elementary school students and afterschool programs and how to improve program effectiveness, considering the following: throughout the school years, it is at the elementary school level afterschool classes are most widely used, and these classes at younger years stimulate early child development, which serves as a foundation for later development. To analyze the relationship between afterschool program participation and developmental outcomes among elementary school children, the author uses data from the first and second year of the 2018 Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey, which tracks fourth-graders in 2018 until their first year of high school in 2025 on a yearly basis. The status of child development was measured based on their satisfaction with school transcripts, factors of cognitive development stimulation, and the levels of social-emotional and physical development. Cognitive development stimulating factors are about academic enthusiasm consisting of dedication, vigor, efficacy, and immersion. Social-emotional development comprises emotional issues, life satisfaction, happiness, self-esteem, cooperative consciousness, grit, and peer relationship. Physical development consists of health status assessment and body mass index (BMI). As a yardstick to measure child development, the criteria mentioned above embody the educational goal of helping students lead a fulfilling life by pursuing learning focused on strengths and interests and communicating and cooperating with others in a healthy way. Since afterschool classes and private education intend to develop talents and aptitudes and supplement the regular curriculum, the empirical analysis compares participation in afterschool classes to private education relative to child developmental outcomes of elementary school students. According to the analysis, child development has no consistent relationship with their participation in afterschool programs but a positive one with participation in private education. Elementary school students participating in afterschool activities for less than one hour show better health status assessments. Children who attend for two to three hours display improvement in academic vigor, grit, and BMI, and on the other hand, deterioration in aggressiveness, depression, and peer relationship. Physical symptoms worsen when participating two or more hours. As for private education, participating for one to two hours exhibits boosted grit, while one or more hours shows better academic efficacy and lesser aggressiveness. Also, two or more hours in private education display enhanced satisfaction with academic transcript, and three or more hours improved academic enthusiasm, commitment, vigor, immersion, attention, cooperative consciousness, peer relationship, and health status assessment. The different structures of afterschool programs children choose depending on the mix of afterschool and private education they are taking or the differences in educators' teaching methods and characteristics between the two may have caused these results. Given the objectives of afterschool classes, such as holistic development of children, supplementing the compulsory school curriculum, and reducing private education expenses, it may be necessary to improve the quality of afterschool programs. For afterschool classes to further develop children's cognitive skills, programs need to be linked with formal education and exchange information on the regular school curriculum and student guidance. Sharing student information such as interests, experiences, developmental characteristics, and learning history may enable afterschool classes to construct programs to reinforce academic enthusiasm in students. To put it differently, in regular classes, students efficiently acquire the accumulated academic knowledge and systems. In afterschool classes, they experience real-world applications of regular classroom learning, ultimately inspiring intrinsic motivation to learn, the foundation of self-directed and lifelong learning capacities. Also, during and after the regular school hours, educators need to work together to help the latter, afterschool instructors, better understand the mandatory curriculum. Furthermore, for deepening children's social-emotional skills, afterschool instructors must provide adequate care coupled with positive interactions. Elementary school students need a positive and supportive role model and a leader who recognizes, encourages, and reinforces their prosocial behaviors. Thus, educators should help students learn how to collaborate, compromise, and reach agreements with others in specific situations. A warm and caring learning environment is a prerequisite for success in drawing out students' potential. While physical activities can simultaneously promote both physical and social-emotional development, afterschool programs can create educational settings conducive to affectionate and nurturing learning for children. One way to enhance the educational effectiveness of afterschool classes is to provide compulsory training courses for prospective instructors and, from those who completed them, select instructors suitable for helping the well-rounded development of children. This training should include required courses on theoretical and practical aspects of child development by age, teaching methods, communication and relation buildup between educators, student guidance, etc. Through multi-faceted personality interviews on topics like how to respond to a given classroom situation, the selection process should comprehensively assess applicants as dedicated educators. To sum up, it is important to raise the bar for training and selecting instructors but leave operation at the discretion of each school in order to provide student-oriented and customized education. In addition, it is necessary to broaden the scope of program providers from schools to local communities, and local governments should holistically manage the program to enhance its system and effectiveness. Now, students are offered the same programs even after advancing to the next grade, and a change of instructor means discontinuing the previous program. Limited material and human resources are also obstacles to providing students with various enriching experiences in culture, art, and career. School teachers complain of time constraints to focus on the regular curriculum because it takes too much time to process administrative matters for afterschool classes, including bookkeeping, parental opinion gathering, and instructor selection. For quality afterschool programs, local governments, schools, and offices of education all have parts to play. Local governments should establish an integrated framework in which they play a managing role in planning, promoting, and supervising afterschool classes at schools as well as afterschool activities at libraries, community centers, universities, and welfare centers in the vicinity. Schools should actively engage and cooperate within the framework by informing afterschool program registration details and providing a venue. It is desirable that local governments train, manage, deploy, evaluate, and remunerate instructors, run the programs, and link community resources and education offices to play a leading role in selecting instructors and developing educational items and content compositions. Especially, schools should operate basic-level afterschool programs and develop them for advanced-level classes before sharing with local communities while managing students' developmental characteristics and learning history under a unified system. In this way, afterschool classes can provide systematic and in-depth learning, differentiating itself from private education. For instance, a professional visits a class and conducts career education, and then students go on a workplace tour in the area to observe the work or have hands-on experience. Also, it is necessary to encourage community members with a certain level of professional expertise to be trained at lifelong education centers and work as afterschool instructors using flexible working hours. Such practices of raising all children as our own are helpful to increasing social capital. Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the weaknesses of the Korean education and care system. Remaking afterschool programs in line with the findings of this study would improve the academic performance of elementary school students and broaden their social-emotional support base, contributing to mitigating the vulnerabilities.

Social capital is based on the relationship among people who are social animals, and it consists of three conceptual elements: social trust, social network, and social norm. There has been a growing awareness of the importance of social capital based on the findings that market failures caused by public goods, information asymmetry, and so on can be overcome through mutual trust and network; social trust and public mind contribute to the success of economic growth, structural reform and transformation; and social support such as trust and engagement are important in the happiness of people both in individual and community levels. However, when it comes to the social capital in Korea, where its social atmosphere is known to emphasize infinite competition, not cooperation, it is found that the level of social trust is moderate in international standards and the level of trust has declined in the past 30 years. Further, since the relational capital of an individual measured through the presence of people who can be trusted and relied on has a strong correlation with his economic capital and human capital, Korea has a clear gap between the classes in terms of social capital. Why are the quality of life and happiness of Koreans relatively low even though their national income per capita and health life expectancy are quite high? Weak social capital is an important reason. The lack of social support such as the absence of relatives or friends who can be relied on, the insufficiency of generosity such as miserly donations and charity, and the lack of public trust such as the recognition that corruption is still prevalent, are greatly lowering the happiness index of Koreans. The result of analyzing the determinants of the happiness of the residents in the 17 regions of Korea also showed that the social trust has more influence on the happiness than the variables related to the physical infrastructure of the region.