Abstract: Korea has been under deep influence of Confucian culture since its ancient times. Confucian moral education has been valued all the time, and has developed into ideological and political education with distinctive characteristics both in theory and in practice in the economic and social development and transformation. By investigating the history, course setting in schools, and the social operation of ideological and political education in Korea, we find that the distinct characteristics of ideological and political education in Korea is that it is carried out around the central task and future trend of social development and therefore plays a positive role in promoting economy, politics and culture development. Another feature is the integration of explicit and implicit ideological and political education courses. The third feature is the integration of Confucian culture into Korean society and daily life and the combination of traditional Confucian culture and Korean popular culture. The Korean practice of ideological and political education sends important message for the development and innovation of ideological and political education in China in the respects of education concept and function, content improvement, curriculum setting and medium selection.

Key words: ideological and political education in Korea, Confucian moral ethics, serving the society, curriculum education, cultural education