The purpose of this study was to examine young children's teachers' belief and actual scene application of multi-cultural education and then provide basic data for the development of multi-cultural education program. For this, study questions were est...
The purpose of this study was to examine young children's teachers' belief and actual scene application of multi-cultural education and then provide basic data for the development of multi-cultural education program. For this, study questions were established as follows:
1. What is young children's teachers' perception and belief in multi-cultural education and what has influence upon it?
2. What kinds of multi-cultural programs (subjects, drawing up into daily work, classroom environment composition) do young children's teachers' apply to actual scenes and what is the direction for them to develop the program?
3. Do they have any difficulties in the application of multi-cultural education?
Study subjects were 213 teachers who were working for kindergartens in Yangcheon-Gu and Gangseo-Gu, Seoul and a questionnaire survey of them was carried out. The questionnaire consisted of 6 general characteristic-related questions, 4 multi-culture perception-related questions and 6 actual application-related questions (total 16 questions). In order to examine teachers' belief and practice of multi-cultural education according to their experiences of multi-cultural education and of young children from multi-cultural families, data were statistically processed with the SPSS 12.0 program. Study findings are as follows:
First, as for teachers' perception of multi-cultural education necessities, there was no significant difference by their background variables. Among the necessities of multi-cultural education, the highest was that 'multi-cultural education makes people understand the fact that they are all equal regardless of their races, genders and social positions.' As for the aim of multi-cultural education, the highest was that 'to make people understand the fact that they must play the role of respecting others and cooperating with them in a community.' As for teachers' role and intervention in multi-cultural education, the most important role was that 'they interact with young children', whereas the most insignificant role was that 'they teach them educational contents directly.'
Second, as for the preparation extent of classroom environment in relation to the application of multi-cultural education to actual scenes and whether they were carrying out multi-cultural education actually or not, such areas as language, role-playing, operation, mathematics and science, rhythms and painting were prepared. As for the method of practice of multi-cultural education (extent), the highest was that by selecting a certain subject they carried out it in an intensive manner. The lowest was that they did not carry out multi-cultural education in a particular manner. The time of activities for multi-cultural education consisted of conversation, musical activity, formative activity, arrangement and so on in order. The most useful reference for multi-cultural education was mass media audiovisual material dealing with a variety of cultures and races. The most unused reference was the educational materials published by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Audiovisual media were mostly preferred as educational media of multi-cultural education, but printed media were least used. However, there was no significant difference between them.
Third, as for the difficulty in the application of multi-cultural education to actual scenes, the highest was insufficient time for research due to excessive workload, whereas the lowest was teachers' prejudice or stereotype for multi-cultural education.
In conclusion, young children's teachers highly perceived the necessity of multi-cultural education, but the extent of understanding and knowledge on multi-culture was low. In addition, concrete educational courses and its actual application to classes were unsatisfactory. Therefore, it is necessary to provide teachers various opportunities of training so that they can harmonize theories and practices. A variety of systematic programs and educational courses which are appropriate for domestic situation must be developed. In addition, by developing teacher-participating training programs, opportunities for training and education must be provided to teachers. It is also necessary to provide environment, such as workforce assistance and so on, in which teachers can sufficiently carry out researches on multi-cultural education.