The number of multicultural families in Korea is increasing every year. Because the overall number of students is decreasing, the proportion of multicultural students is also increasing every year. As a result, the importance of multicultural educatio...
The number of multicultural families in Korea is increasing every year. Because the overall number of students is decreasing, the proportion of multicultural students is also increasing every year. As a result, the importance of multicultural education in Korea is growing. The goal of multicultural education in Korea is to ensure educational opportunities for multicultural students and to close the educational gap for these students. Critical race theory began in American law and was introduced into the educational world in an effort to explore and resolve racial inequality. In order to try to eliminate racial prejudice and to have a balanced perception of race that understands and respects diversity, I applied critical race theory to analyze pictures of people in science textbooks in Korea. To this end, the following three research problems were established.
First, I examine whether the examples of photographs of people in middle and high school science textbooks may reflect any racial prejudice. To this end, an analysis framework was developed to identify and categorize images based on whether the image was perceived to be Korean (PK) or not perceived to be Korean (NPK). After sorting the images into these two categories, the images were further sorted based on whether the images reflected people positively or negatively (PK+, PK-, NPK+, NPK-). Using this analytical framework, I searched 27 middle school and high school science, integrated science, and life science textbooks for depictions of people(photographs or cartoons). Then I analyzed each image to determine if the image depicted a person who was perceived to be Korean or not and then these images were sorted based on whether the image would cause readers to have positive or negative perceptions.
The first level of analysis revealed that the overwhelming majority of all photos depicting people were images that were perceived to be Korean (PK).Few images were of people perceived to be non-Korean (NPK). The second level of analysis examined whether the images may cause viewers to feel bias towards people of different races. To do this, all images were categorized based on what the person in the image was doing. Using this framework, the NPK+ and the NPK- images were subdivided into different categories. Generally, my analysis revealed that photos in the textbook were overwhelmingly of people who were perceived to be Korean and the photos depicting people perceived to be Korean induced more positive feelings than photos of people perceived to be non-Korean.
All NPK+ images were sorted into similar groups and four categories emerged: 1) people engaging in science experiments, 2) images of real scientists, 3) images of actors portraying scientist in movies, and 4) people engaging in everyday tasks. The NPK- images were sorted and three categories emerged, including, 1) representations of people who have a disease or genetic difference (such as Down Syndrome), 2) people who are experiencing a natural disaster(desertification), and 3) people being used as negative examples (such as drug abuse). Analysis showed that more than half of all (58%) of the NPK+ images represented people engaging in everyday activities (such as playing soccer). This means there were few images of people not perceived to be Korean who represented as engaging in science experiments, real images of scientists or portraying scientists as actors in movies. On the contrary, 100% of images used to represent human-related diseases and 88.3% of images used to depict people experiencing a natural disaster or representing a negative example were people who were perceived to be non-Korean (NPK-). The majority of the images portraying people not perceived to be Korean were negative. By contracts, no images of people who appeared to be Korean were used to depict disease/genetic difference, natural disaster, or negative examples. This could give students the impression that Korean people do not experience disease, genetic difference, and natural disasters, and nor do they engage in negative activities. As such, these images could subconsciously make students feel that non-Koreans are somehow inferior genetically, more likely to experience natural disasters and more likely to participate in “bad” activities.
Finally, when examining science textbooks from the perspective of whether they promote multicultural education, it was determined that the textbooks are not very inclusive of human diversity. Currently, the proportion of multicultural students in Korea is gradually increasing each year, so the importance of multicultural education is gradually emerging. To reflect this change in demographics, the textbooks should include more images of people perceived to be non-Korean. To assess how effectively the middle school science textbooks published in 2020 reflected these changes in the demographics, the ratio of photos in textbooks of students who appeared to be multicultural were compared to the ratio of multicultural students in Korea..Analysis revealed that the ratio of multicultural students appearing in textbooks was slightly higher than the actual ration of multicultural students(2.8%:2.51%). Images included both photographs of real people and cartoon characters engaged in science investigations and positively participating inactivities in school and society.
For students who use these textbooks they will see a reflection of the reality of Korea’s increasingly multicultural society. While this may not increase students’ acceptance of multiculturalism, it at least provides a realistic view of how Korean society is changing. For both Korean and multicultural students in the classroom – these images offer positive reflections of students who may not be perceived as Korean who are actively engaged in science learning. Multicultural students need to appear in other textbooks, not only science, in order to promote the creation of a society where diversity can be recognized and people can learn to appreciate and accept the need to coexist in accordance with changing social conditions.