REGION AND GEOGRAPHY ISSN:2586-1468(Online) 지역과 지리

This study aims to evaluate the Youth National Territory Education Support Program, implemented since 2011, and to derive improvement strategies in response to changing social conditions. To achieve these goals, a survey of 127 elementary and middle school teachers and in-depth interviews with 18 stakeholders were conducted, alongside a comparative analysis with the Economic Education and Unification Education programs. The analysis identifies three structural problems in the program: an absence of clear objectives and direction, ambiguity in both the target audience and the very concept of national territory education, and insufficient content quality and promotion. In particular, the conceptual confusion is interpreted as the field-level manifestation of “national territory” as a discursive product—a multivalent and inclusive concept that has been continuously reconstructed across eras and actors. Accordingly, this study proposes the following improvement directions: dual objectives comprising community-based education for upper-elementary students and future territorial-space education for middle school students; user-centered digital content such as high-quality core materials accompanied by teacher guides and a VR-based “Gukto Dibeot” (tentative name); the training of teachers and experts together with the incorporation of social issues such as local extinction and balanced regional development; and expansion toward lifelong territorial education supported by an independent legal basis. This study is significant in that it offers the first empirical diagnosis of a program that had gone without comprehensive evaluation for over a decade, and demonstrates how the discursive reconstruction of the concept of national territory materializes within the educational field.