Gov't Vows to Widen Awareness of Multicultural Society

[uledy.livejournal.com]

The government announced a set of measures on Friday to strengthen public education and understanding of a "multicultural society" and raise support for relevant programs.

The number of multiethnic families in South Korea has been on the rise to reach some 250,000 households nationwide last year due largely to an increasing number of Korean men marrying foreign women and a steady influx of migrant workers settling here to take up jobs.

Under the envisioned plan, the government will publish teaching guidelines for preschoolers and textbooks for primary and secondary schools that include contents on multicultural societies, and distribute them in phases starting 2013.

Education sessions on multiculturalism will be held for the general public including for civil servants and employees at welfare facilities, according to the government. 


It also plans to publish diverse materials on the subject in multiple languages so as to improve public understanding of different cultures and histories.

Efforts to promote cultural diversity via the media will also be strengthened, which include supporting the production of media programs and strengthening monitoring of existing ones to correct discriminatory content and expressions against those from foreign countries, the government said.

It also vowed to push for improving the environment of residential areas with a large foreign population to prevent people from harboring negative impressions.

"South Korea is about to become a multicultural society, and those from foreign countries are getting prominent in our society and taking a bigger role. But we still bear prejudice and distorted impressions toward them," Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik said while presiding over the meeting to discuss the measures.

"Efforts to improve understanding on cultural diversity and to embrace them as a true member of our society are a key task to achieve sustainable development and social integrity," Kim added.


Source: Yonhap

Gov't openly pledging to control the media...meep! Also, for real we need a "xenophobia" tag.

Comments

[deerlike.livejournal.com]

Hmm, well, let's see what happens.

[plantbottle.livejournal.com]

I'm glad the govt acknowledged the discrimination.

[tae-hoon.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that they are taking measures to include this in their education! :)

[reelrecnizereel.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of this song

[chunsakuma.livejournal.com]

I think this is a really good step in the right direction. As unfortunate as it is, there's not much that can be done to change the minds of people who are xenophobic if they're already past puberty, but if you teach children about multiculturalism, hopefully they will grow into adults who accept diversity and then instill the same values in their children, etc.

[falling-empress.livejournal.com]

is it wrong of me to want to laugh at how far beyond the fucking curve they are?

[45s.livejournal.com]

no i'm laughing with you.

[xxmannequin.livejournal.com]

I'm glad something is changing. But, still, it really surprises me how late they are on this.
I mean, during my elementary school they were always learning us to respect every human being no matter of his color or religion, we had in our textbooks, in literature, we discussed it. It was always there.
We also had up to 2 languages next to our native to learn, and in high school we have a choice to learn more.

[lightframes.livejournal.com]

I feel like teaching tolerance as early as possible is really important.

[45s.livejournal.com]

i'm also not expecting the government put actual effort into this as we've seen the type of 'naver search engine driven cultural sensitivity' displayed by the media. not expecting the government to do much better. and i highly doubt they're going to bother working reaching out to other countries to help with this.

this seems so transparent bc their only reasoning for this is to make themselves look good to the people they actually want to do business with

here's hoping they learn actual stuff about other countries and cultures and not like, learn the same crap most kids over here are taught through a gross imperialistic lens.

[moronicus-kyla.livejournal.com]

I never really understood how far behind Korea was in terms of this till I actually went there for a student exchange program. The girls in the high school I went to were really sweet and all, but their impressions of Filipinos are quite whack. They were shocked to see me fair-skinned and small-eyed and capable of speaking straight English (they even got me a dark-skinned classmate of theirs and asked why I didn't look as "Filipino" as she did). It got really awkward when they started asking me about farms and horses/native cows (which they think we still use for public transport :|). The thing is I don't think they meant any offense because they are really nice girls, but it's such a gross reality that this kind of thinking exists and that we're viewed in such a backwards way :\

[ullielvidina.livejournal.com]

Good luck with that