Snakes or ladders? Measuring the intergenerational performance of chosņn's munkwa exam candidates

Robin Wooyeong NA; Javier CHA

doi:10.22372/ijkh.2021.26.1.145

Snakes or ladders? Measuring the intergenerational performance of chosņn's munkwa exam candidates

Robin Wooyeong NA, Javier CHA^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of History

Research output: Journal Publications › Journal Article (refereed) › peer-review

Abstract

This interdisciplinary study measures the changes in intergenerational exam performance using a model of directed centrality values. Our test case explores the approximately 14,600 higher civil examination degree holders in the Munkwa database (Munkwa pangmok 文科榜目), in particular the underutilized records of each candidate's agnatic and affinal relations. Despite some imperfections in the data set, our provisional findings statistically demonstrate that the devastating Imjin War may have indeed been the watershed event responsible for the emergence of a new social order in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Korea. The network model, data structure, and the Python code developed for this study can be applied to other kinship and genealogical data from the Chosŏn dynasty 朝鮮 (1392-1910) and elsewhere.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	145-176
Number of pages	32
Journal	International Journal of Korean History
Volume	26
Issue number	1
Early online date	28 Feb 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.22372/ijkh.2021.26.1.145
Publication status	Published - Feb 2021

Bibliographical note

This study was supported by the Seoul National University Big Data Institute’s 2019 Grant for the Promotion of Data Science (0660-20190012). We would like to express our gratitude to Lee Jaeok [MR: Yi Chaeok] of the Academy of Korean Studies for making his Munkwa database available for other researchers and Choi Donghyeok [MR: Ch’oe Tonghyŏk] at KAIST for preprocessing the data set.

Special thanks go to Malcolm Thompson and Allison Van Deventer for copyediting several versions of this article manuscript and the two anonymous reviewers and John S. Lee for their helpful comments.

The Python code and the data sets used in this study are available at: https://github.com/robin-na/snakes-or-ladders

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Center for Korean History,Korea University. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Kinship data
Munkwa
Network centrality
Quantitative history

Access to Document

10.22372/ijkh.2021.26.1.145Licence: Unspecified

Cite this

@article{a54cabacad4b405aa6ae7fd3c1936e46,

title = "Snakes or ladders? Measuring the intergenerational performance of chosņn's munkwa exam candidates",

abstract = "This interdisciplinary study measures the changes in intergenerational exam performance using a model of directed centrality values. Our test case explores the approximately 14,600 higher civil examination degree holders in the Munkwa database (Munkwa pangmok 文科榜目), in particular the underutilized records of each candidate's agnatic and affinal relations. Despite some imperfections in the data set, our provisional findings statistically demonstrate that the devastating Imjin War may have indeed been the watershed event responsible for the emergence of a new social order in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Korea. The network model, data structure, and the Python code developed for this study can be applied to other kinship and genealogical data from the Chosŏn dynasty 朝鮮 (1392-1910) and elsewhere.",

keywords = "Kinship data, Munkwa, Network centrality, Quantitative history",

author = "NA, {Robin Wooyeong} and Javier CHA",

note = "This study was supported by the Seoul National University Big Data Institute{\textquoteright}s 2019 Grant for the Promotion of Data Science (0660-20190012). We would like to express our gratitude to Lee Jaeok [MR: Yi Chaeok] of the Academy of Korean Studies for making his Munkwa database available for other researchers and Choi Donghyeok [MR: Ch{\textquoteright}oe Tonghyŏk] at KAIST for preprocessing the data set. Special thanks go to Malcolm Thompson and Allison Van Deventer for copyediting several versions of this article manuscript and the two anonymous reviewers and John S. Lee for their helpful comments. The Python code and the data sets used in this study are available at: https://github.com/robin-na/snakes-or-ladders Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 Center for Korean History,Korea University. All rights reserved.",

year = "2021",

month = feb,

doi = "10.22372/ijkh.2021.26.1.145",

language = "English",

volume = "26",

pages = "145--176",

journal = "International Journal of Korean History",

issn = "1598-2041",

publisher = "Center for Korean History, Korea University",

number = "1",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Snakes or ladders? Measuring the intergenerational performance of chosņn's munkwa exam candidates

AU - NA, Robin Wooyeong

AU - CHA, Javier

N1 - This study was supported by the Seoul National University Big Data Institute’s 2019 Grant for the Promotion of Data Science (0660-20190012). We would like to express our gratitude to Lee Jaeok [MR: Yi Chaeok] of the Academy of Korean Studies for making his Munkwa database available for other researchers and Choi Donghyeok [MR: Ch’oe Tonghyŏk] at KAIST for preprocessing the data set. Special thanks go to Malcolm Thompson and Allison Van Deventer for copyediting several versions of this article manuscript and the two anonymous reviewers and John S. Lee for their helpful comments. The Python code and the data sets used in this study are available at: https://github.com/robin-na/snakes-or-ladders Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Center for Korean History,Korea University. All rights reserved.

PY - 2021/2

Y1 - 2021/2

N2 - This interdisciplinary study measures the changes in intergenerational exam performance using a model of directed centrality values. Our test case explores the approximately 14,600 higher civil examination degree holders in the Munkwa database (Munkwa pangmok 文科榜目), in particular the underutilized records of each candidate's agnatic and affinal relations. Despite some imperfections in the data set, our provisional findings statistically demonstrate that the devastating Imjin War may have indeed been the watershed event responsible for the emergence of a new social order in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Korea. The network model, data structure, and the Python code developed for this study can be applied to other kinship and genealogical data from the Chosŏn dynasty 朝鮮 (1392-1910) and elsewhere.

AB - This interdisciplinary study measures the changes in intergenerational exam performance using a model of directed centrality values. Our test case explores the approximately 14,600 higher civil examination degree holders in the Munkwa database (Munkwa pangmok 文科榜目), in particular the underutilized records of each candidate's agnatic and affinal relations. Despite some imperfections in the data set, our provisional findings statistically demonstrate that the devastating Imjin War may have indeed been the watershed event responsible for the emergence of a new social order in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Korea. The network model, data structure, and the Python code developed for this study can be applied to other kinship and genealogical data from the Chosŏn dynasty 朝鮮 (1392-1910) and elsewhere.

KW - Kinship data

KW - Munkwa

KW - Network centrality

KW - Quantitative history

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85103590253&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://github.com/robin-na/snakes-or-ladders

U2 - 10.22372/ijkh.2021.26.1.145

DO - 10.22372/ijkh.2021.26.1.145

M3 - Journal Article (refereed)

AN - SCOPUS:85103590253

SN - 1598-2041

VL - 26

SP - 145

EP - 176

JO - International Journal of Korean History

JF - International Journal of Korean History

IS - 1

ER -

Snakes or ladders? Measuring the intergenerational performance of chosņn's munkwa exam candidates

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this