Pre-service Teachers’ Awareness and Attitudes on South Korea’s Increasing Cultural and Ethnic Diversity and the Role of Multicultural Education in K-12 Schools

Sunnie Lee Watson,Gilbert C Park,Hong-Soo Lee

doi:10.5296/ije.v3i2.709

Abstract

As the number of multicultural students in South Korean schools continues to grow, activists and educators argue that South Korean schools are not meeting the needs of both multicultural and mono-cultural students and advocate for multicultural education. While educational literature looks at the meaning of multicultural education and how it can be implemented in the South Korean context, relatively little attention has been given to pre-service teachers’ understanding of cultural diversity and multicultural education. This paper explores how South Korean pre-service teachers understand the increasing ethnic and cultural diversity in South Korean society and multicultural education in South Korean schools. The responses suggest that multicultural education for pre-service teachers should facilitate a critical examination of South Korean identity as a political construct. Furthermore it should empower them to actively define multicultural education in their own contexts as a way to politically engage multiculturalism in and out of school.

Highlights

People finger pointed at me and my mom saying, “the dad is an American G.I.”They whispered behind my back
While educational literature looks at the meaning of multicultural education and how it can be implemented in the South Korean context, relatively little attention has been given to pre-service teachers’ understanding of cultural diversity and multicultural education
Responses to our multiple-choice and narrative survey instrument indicate that most pre-service teachers are aware of the recent trend toward diversity in South Korean society and feel ambivalent about this change

Summary

Introduction

People finger pointed at me and my mom saying, “the dad is an American G.I.”They whispered behind my back. Lim (2010) reports, for instance, that the number of non-South Koreans living in South Korea increased 2000 percent to one million in 2007 from 50,000 in 2006. The majority of them choose to stay longer illegally, while some obtain permanent residency through marriage to South Korean citizens (Park, 2007). Another significant group that has been growing since the 1990s is non-South Korean spouses of South Korean men in rural villages. In 2005, Lee, Seol, and Choi (2006) found that nearly 14 percent of all marriages in South Korea included a non-South Korean citizen

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion