By Kim Rahn
Kim So-hee, a middle school third grader in Daejeon, has an aunt who is from Cambodia.
Watching the aunt adapt herself to Korean society, she said she learned a lot about cultural diversity.
“Different cultures should be respected. If the nation has various cultures, races, skin colors and lifestyles, we can learn a lot from the diversity,” she said.
With Korea having a growing number of foreign members of society and becoming more racially diverse, such openness toward multiculturalism is becoming important. Fortunately, a recent survey showed that many teenagers, like Kim, embrace the coexistence of various races and cultures here.
According to a survey by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family on 2,500 middle and high school students nationwide between last November and December, the respondents were more opened to multiculturalism than adults.
It was the first such research on teenagers, while a similar one was conducted on adults about a year before.
The Korean Women’s Development Institute, which conducted the survey on behalf of the ministry, presumed that the young generation have more openness toward foreign people and culture because they have less strict standards about “being Korean.”
“In the survey, 40.1 percent said having Korean ancestors is important to be recognized as a Korean. The ratio is much lower than adults’ 86.6 percent. They are less narrow-minded about the qualification to be a Korean national than adults,” Ahn Sang-soo, a researcher at the institute, said.
The survey also showed that students were more opened to different cultures if they have had education about multiculturalism at schools or had programs in which children of interracial families and those of Korean native parents mingle together, such as camping or cooking classes.
The more they had overseas trips or stays or the more they had chance to talk with foreigners or interracial family members, the more widely they were opened to different races and cultures.
In order to raise the openness, Ahn said it is important to provide children with more chance to get educated on multiculturalism and to mingle with foreigners or interracial family members. But he also said such education programs should be diverse and be given in stages because people have different levels of understanding and openness.
“For children who rarely have a chance to meet foreigners or interracial families, the education should be focused on eliminating prejudice against them. For children who frequently meet such people as classmates or relatives, they should be told not to demand those foreigners follow only Korean ways, and not to treat people from advanced countries and those from underdeveloped nations differently,” he said.