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Development, Application, and Verification of Cultural Diversity Program

  • Journal of Studies on Schools and Teaching
  • Abbr : JSST
  • 2018, 3(2), pp.45-71
  • DOI : 10.23041/jsst.2018.3.2.003
  • Publisher : Education Research Institute at CNUE
  • Research Area : Social Science > Education
  • Received : August 14, 2018
  • Accepted : August 30, 2018
  • Published : August 31, 2018

Park, KiHyang 1

1오송초등학교

ABSTRACT

As Korea becomes a multicultural society with the change in the members of the society, the demand for substantial multicultural education is increasing at schools. The contents related to multicultural education have been increased and more emphasized in the 2009 Reformed Curriculum in comparison with the 2007 Reformed Curriculum. However, most of the educational activities related to multicultural education are focused on teaching of Korean language and culture, and adaptation to Korean society for the children in multicultural families in Korea. Current used textbooks for the third graders of elementary schools include only fragmental contents, such as learning a foreign musical piece and introducing excellent Korean culture to friends in foreign lands. The need for accessing multicultural education from the viewpoint of cultural diversity is increasing to improve the current multicultural education. Recognizing the problems of the current multicultural education from a critical point of view, the present study aimed at the development of an education program reflecting the perspective of cultural diversity as well as the application and verification of the program. For this purpose, the multicultural education contents found in different subjects for the second semester of the third graders of elementary schools were analyzed and reconstructed for individual cultural diversity areas to develop a teaching and learning program. The developed program was applied to the students to investigate the changes in their recognition of cultural diversity and their attitude of accepting diverse cultures. The research questions of the present study are as follows: 1) Is the recognition of cultural diversity changed by the application of the cultural diversity teaching and learning program?; 2) Does the application of the cultural diversity teaching and learning program contribute to the cultivation of the attitude of accepting diverse cultures by the students?; and 3) What are the advantages of the cultural diversity teaching and learning program in comparison with the previous multicultural education? The study conducted to find the answers to these questions showed the following results. First, the multicultural contents found in the society subject as well as other subjects for the third graders of elementary schools were comprehensively reviewed to develop a cultural diversity program through the reconstruction of the contents with reference to the areas and core values of the cultural diversity education. The application of the developed cultural diversity program showed that the students’ recognition of cultural diversity was positively changed. The students’ recognition was increased in all the four areas of cultural diversity, including the meaning and features of culture, the elements of cultural diversity, the diffusion of cultural diversity, and the recognition and respect of cultural diversity. The improvement of the recognition was particularly significant in the three areas of the meaning and features of culture, the elements of cultural diversity, and the diffusion of cultural diversity. Second, the multicultural acceptance test performed after the application of the cultural diversity education program showed that a positive change was found only in the area of relationship out of the three areas of universality, relationship, and diversity. No positive change was found in the other two areas probably because the baseline values of the students were already high in the multicultural acceptance test, and the period of three months was too short to draw a change in the attitude only by the application of the developed program. In addition, although revised to the level of understanding of the students, the acceptance test items might have been slightly difficult to the students, and thus the attitude might have not been measured accurately by the test. Third, the multicultural education contents dispersed in various subjects were integrated and reconstructed to the cultural diversity program, and the students’ degree of satisfaction with the multicultural learning was increased. The students expressed in their learning dairies their understanding of and satisfaction with the learning contents, when the contents of the society, art, physics, and mathematics subjects were integrated to and provided through the cultural diversity program. The students also displayed the attitude to solve the problems of discrimination caused by cultural diversity elements in the society. Generally, the developed cultural diversity significantly improved the students’ recognition of cultural diversity and partly improved their attitude of accepting diverse cultures. However, generalization of this cultural diversity program requires further studies with various subjects groups. In addition, since the present study only verified the effects of the program through a short-term application, a long-term study may need to be conducted to further verify the effects of the program.

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