The purpose of this study was to develop an elementary muticultural education program for the clothing section of practical arts and to examine its effect on the awareness of students about multiculture. After a multicultural education program was dev...
The purpose of this study was to develop an elementary muticultural education program for the clothing section of practical arts and to examine its effect on the awareness of students about multiculture. After a multicultural education program was developed to teach the clothing section of practical arts, third-grade elementary schoolers received education according to the program, and whether there were any changes in their awareness of multiculture was checked to analyze the effect of the program. In addition, the students wrote about how they felt about each learning theme of the program, and their writing was analyzed to find out how they responded to the program.
The findings of the study were as follows:
The multicultural education program for the clothing section of practical arts aimed at teaching students to understand and value foreign cultures and to cope with multicultural problem situations. Most members of domestic multicultural families were from underdeveloped countries in East and South Asia, against which there were strong social prejudice and stereotype. So the program covered seven cultural components of those countries: traditional costume, traditional housing, holidays, festivals, the looks of life, animals and multicultural families. And the program was composed of sewing and design activities that could make learners have fun and utilize what they learned in daily routine life, and activity materials that were appropriate at their level were presented. Photographs and video clips were employed to show the culture of the foreign nations that was difficult to describe in the classroom so that the students could have a better understanding of the foreign cultures. The program was conducted in 16 sessions and dealt with eight different learning themes.
As a result of implementing the multicultural education program in the clothing section of practical arts, there was a significant improvement in openness, receptivity and respect for multiculture(p<.05). When the response of the students was checked in terms of knowledge, emotion and attitude, they made progress in every aspect, and found the program to be interesting and satisfactory.
Based on the findings of the study, the following conclusion was reached:
The multicultural education program for the clothing section of practical arts was effective at boosting the awareness of the students about multiculture(openness, receptivity and respect), and that had a good effect on fostering their cognitive, affective and behavioral muticultural competency as well.
In the future, the kind of education that teaches students to understand and esteem cultural diversity should be conducted to keep up with social changes instead of merely stressing the cultural homogeneity of our country. As there are many elements related to practical arts in culture, efficient practical arts education should be provided for learners to learn how to get along with people with different cultural backgrounds, and intensive research efforts should be directed into the development of multicultural education geared toward students from ordinary Korean families as well as those of multicultural families.