The purpose of this study is to examine the awareness of elementary school teachers about multicultural education, their teaching confidence of it and their needs in the region of Gyeongin in a bid to seek ways of providing more efficient muticultural...
The purpose of this study is to examine the awareness of elementary school teachers about multicultural education, their teaching confidence of it and their needs in the region of Gyeongin in a bid to seek ways of providing more efficient muticultural education. Four research questions were posed to serve the purpose:
1. What are the outlook of teachers on multicultural education and their attitude to that?
2. What is their teaching confidence about multicultural education?
3. What problems do they think in multicultural education?
4. What are their needs for multicultural education in and out of class?
The subjects in this study were teachers from 10 different elementary schools in the region of Gyeongin. Out of the selected schools located in Incheon, three schools tried out multicultural education, and two didn't. Among the other five schools selected from Gyeonggi Province, three provided many children from multicultural families with education, and the other two tried out multicultural education. After a survey was conducted, the collected data were analyzed.
The major findings of the study are as follows:
First, most of the teachers investigated approved of multicultural families who lived in our country as Koreans, and they had a firm belief that multicultural families should be esteemed. They had an intention to learn about the cultural characteristics of other races if there would be any chance. But many expressed reservations about whether the diction and behavior of other races were unpleasant or not, which indicated that they didn't feel so good about them. And it also implied that education should be provided for teachers to broaden their mental horizon in preparation for forthcoming multicultural society.
Second, they were relatively better confident of teaching students to cope with cultural diversity, to look at history and society from different angles and to improve their interpersonal relationship by learning to respect others and cooperate with students with a different racial background. But they didn't have confidence about presenting solutions for diverse problems resulting from cultural diversity. In particular, they were scarcely confident of the application of teaching methods tailored to the needs of children from multicultural families and the development of teaching materials appropriate for multicultural education, and it was likely to give rise to serious problems in teaching children from multi- cultural families. To remedy the situations, a supply of effective teaching methods and teaching-learning materials is required.
Third, the biggest problem with multicultural education was a shortage of multicultural education programs and teaching-learning materials, and the second largest problem was that textbooks didn't deal with multi- culture a lot. The third biggest problem was a lack of workshop or extensive training chances, followed by insufficient aid and poor understanding of that education on the side of teachers.
Fourth, in relation to the implementation of multicultural education, they considered it necessary for each school to develop and supply Korean education programs, career counseling programs and pan- academic education programs in partnership with research institutions. The largest group believed that multicultural education cases should be provided to change the way teachers look at children from multicultural families. At the same time, they thought colleges of education should offer multicultural education courses, and they called for support toward related workshop, more overseas training chances and incentives geared toward teachers who teach children from multicultural families only.
In terms of training methods, the largest group wanted to learn about multiculture with foreigners around them, and the second biggest group asked for on-the-job training. The third largest group hoped to be informed about cases of open multicultural classes, and the fourth greatest group asked for online training, followed by self-training through books or journals.