Korean Mode of Racial/Ethnic Diversity Awareness: Korean Elementary Teachers’ Speculations on Diversity

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday I)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Teaching and teacher education (TETP) round-table 1

Proposal

This proposed round-table presentation examines Korean elementary primary grade teachers’ perspectives and ideas on multiculturalism and people from diverse ethnic backgrounds with a color-blindness ideological approach in order to reflect and understand the current multicultural Korean reality. This presentation aims to scrutinize a case of Korea and its social, cultural context of multicultural education in order to construct a synthesis of international perspectives of multiculturalism. It therefore intends to provide valuable implications for teachers, policy makers, and curriculum developers interested in cultivating democratic dispositions and habits of reflection in relation to diversity and multicultural education.

Despite the Korean demographic change, discourses about diversity issues are still controversial in Korea because applying the concepts of multiculturalism in education and social spheres is a relatively recent adoption. Thus, educating children can be challenging and arduous not only because the general curriculum requires teaching about a strong national identity based on history and the traditions of the country. It is also because Korean education needs to promote unity in a social reality that includes different ethnic minorities. Therefore, this presentation looks closely at Korean teachers’ perceptions of different cultures and children from multiethnic backgrounds with the multicultural education framework.

It is especially crucial to examine Korean elementary teachers’ beliefs, expectations, and concerns because they teach and influence young Korean children who are having their first mandatory educational and social experiences (Gay 2010; Kim 2014; Smith and Shepard 1988; Taylor and Sobel 2001). Keeping in mind that multicultural educational issues and practices must be understood in a particular context and paradigm in which each society is situated, a critical question is the motive of the research presentation: How does Korea respond to the new reality of recent immigrants and their children in elementary education? This presentation will start this inquiry by examining Korean primary grade teachers’ perceptions of and experiences with multicultural Korea and children from multiethnic backgrounds.

In the study, twenty Korean primary grade teachers from eight different elementary schools (first to third grade) located in Seoul, Cheong-Ju, or Jin-Ju, participated. This presentation will discuss two major points: one is that the color-blindness tendencies were displayed among these teachers, and the other is that the color-blindness ideology was not completely applicable in understanding their standpoints. For the latter, many teachers in the study indicated that their intention of multicultural education did not stem from their interests in a socially just Korean society, but from their professionalism and personal motivation. This presentation will discuss some suggestions for future research and practices of Korean elementary education.

Author

• Lena Lee, Miami University