ABSTRACT. With the revival of academic interest in Kim Il-Sung’s thought on education and society, and communist educational ideas, more broadly, this article explores the ways in which those associated with North Korea’s leader might operate as theory in education. In Part One, I discuss ideology before moving on to develop the relationship between ideology and educational theory beyond the Korean Peninsula, including its instantiation in practices in revolutionary Africa. In Part Two, I argue that this theory shares elements with other progressive and radical educational thinking, but lays a distinctive, decolonising emphasis on concepts of independence, creativity and mastery that have a relevance and application beyond the Korean context. In this article, I argue that Juche can be regarded from (at least) three perspectives: as ideology, as enactment (strategy and policy) and as theory. As I develop my argument, moving from Juche as ideology to Juche as theory, I follow a line that moves from the more general, the subjective experience of objective conditions, to the more specific, the main socially reproductive processes through which subjecthood is interpellated relative to the world, namely via the educative order.

Keywords: Juche; DPRK; independence; decolonisation; anti-imperialism; communism

How to cite: Boxley, S. (2025). Independence, creativity, mastery: Juche as ideology and theory in education. Knowledge Cultures, 13(3), 213–249. https://doi.org/10.22381/kc133202513

Received June 24, 2025 • Received in revised form September 23, 2025
Accepted September 23, 2025 • Available online December 1, 2025