우리 사회의 구성원의 변화와 함께 다문화사회로의 진입이 이루어짐에 2009 개정 교육과정에서 다문화교육 관련 내용은 중요성이 강조되었다. 그렇지만 국내 다문화교육 관련 교육활동의 대부분은 다문화가정 자녀를 대상으로 하는 한국어교육, 한국문화 및 적응 교육을 중심으로 운영되고 있다. 현행 초등학교 교과서를 분석해보면 외국 곡 익히기, 외국에 있는 친구에게 우리나라의 우수한 문화 소개하기 등의 단편적인 내용을 담고 있다. 본 연구는 현행 다문화교육에 대한 비판적 문제의식 하에 문화다양성의 관점이 반영된 교육프로그램을 개발하고 적용한 후 그 효과를 검증하는 데 목적이 있다. 이를 위해 다음과 같이 연구를 진행하였다. 초등학교 3학년 2학기 각 교과별로 나누어져 있는 다문화교육 내용을 분석하여 문화다양성 영역별로 재구성하고, 이를 바탕으로 교수학습 과정안을 구안하였다. 그리고 이 프로그램을 적용한 후에 학생들의 문화다양성 인식 및 다문화수용성 태도 변화를 파악하고자 하였다. 연구 결과 문화다양성 프로그램은 학생들의 문화다양성 인식을 크게 개선시켰으며 다문화 수용성 태도도 일부 개선시켰다. 그러나 이 문화다양성 프로그램이 일반화되기 위해서는 좀 더 다양한 집단을 대상으로 한 추후 연구가 필요하다. 또, 이 연구에서는 단기간의 적용 효과를 검증하였으므로 보다 장기적인 계획 아래 프로그램의 효과를 검증할 필요가 있다고 보인다.
As Korea becomes a multicultural society with the change in the members of the society, the demand for substantial multicultural education is increasing at schools. The contents related to multicultural education have been increased and more emphasized in the 2009 Reformed Curriculum in comparison with the 2007 Reformed Curriculum. However, most of the educational activities related to multicultural education are focused on teaching of Korean language and culture, and adaptation to Korean society for the children in multicultural families in Korea. Current used textbooks for the third graders of elementary schools include only fragmental contents, such as learning a foreign musical piece and introducing excellent Korean culture to friends in foreign lands. The need for accessing multicultural education from the viewpoint of cultural diversity is increasing to improve the current multicultural education. Recognizing the problems of the current multicultural education from a critical point of view, the present study aimed at the development of an education program reflecting the perspective of cultural diversity as well as the application and verification of the program. For this purpose, the multicultural education contents found in different subjects for the second semester of the third graders of elementary schools were analyzed and reconstructed for individual cultural diversity areas to develop a teaching and learning program. The developed program was applied to the students to investigate the changes in their recognition of cultural diversity and their attitude of accepting diverse cultures. The research questions of the present study are as follows: 1) Is the recognition of cultural diversity changed by the application of the cultural diversity teaching and learning program?; 2) Does the application of the cultural diversity teaching and learning program contribute to the cultivation of the attitude of accepting diverse cultures by the students?; and 3) What are the advantages of the cultural diversity teaching and learning program in comparison with the previous multicultural education? The study conducted to find the answers to these questions showed the following results. First, the multicultural contents found in the society subject as well as other subjects for the third graders of elementary schools were comprehensively reviewed to develop a cultural diversity program through the reconstruction of the contents with reference to the areas and core values of the cultural diversity education. The application of the developed cultural diversity program showed that the students’ recognition of cultural diversity was positively changed. The students’ recognition was increased in all the four areas of cultural diversity, including the meaning and features of culture, the elements of cultural diversity, the diffusion of cultural diversity, and the recognition and respect of cultural diversity. The improvement of the recognition was particularly significant in the three areas of the meaning and features of culture, the elements of cultural diversity, and the diffusion of cultural diversity. Second, the multicultural acceptance test performed after the application of the cultural diversity education program showed that a positive change was found only in the area of relationship out of the three areas of universality, relationship, and diversity. No positive change was found in the other two areas probably because the baseline values of the students were already high in the multicultural acceptance test, and the period of three months was too short to draw a change in the attitude only by the application of the developed program. In addition, although revised to the level of understanding of the students, the acceptance test items might have been slightly difficult to the students, and thus the attitude might have not been measured accurately by the test. Third, the multicultural education contents dispersed in various subjects were integrated and reconstructed to the cultural diversity program, and the students’ degree of satisfaction with the multicultural learning was increased. The students expressed in their learning dairies their understanding of and satisfaction with the learning contents, when the contents of the society, art, physics, and mathematics subjects were integrated to and provided through the cultural diversity program. The students also displayed the attitude to solve the problems of discrimination caused by cultural diversity elements in the society. Generally, the developed cultural diversity significantly improved the students’ recognition of cultural diversity and partly improved their attitude of accepting diverse cultures. However, generalization of this cultural diversity program requires further studies with various subjects groups. In addition, since the present study only verified the effects of the program through a short-term application, a long-term study may need to be conducted to further verify the effects of the program.