Abstract:

Since the 1990s, the increasing number of immigrants arriving for marriage and work in South Korea has reshaped the country to represent a more diverse cultural population. This population change has impacted the educational curriculum in terms of how to prepare South Korean young children to become good citizens nationally as well as internationally. The purpose of this paper was to explore the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of Korea’s early childhood teachers in order to acquire a better understanding of how they are currently preparing young children and share more ideas on how citizenship education (CE) can be transformed for the future society. The research clarified Korean citizen identity by investigating early childhood teachers’ PCK about the goals and content of early childhood CE and provided pedagogical possibilities fostering cosmopolitan citizen identity for young children. Data collected included individual interviews with 41 early childhood teachers and analyzed by content analysis. Results demonstrated that teachers frequently prepare young children in their use of community–based compared to individualized goals. Also, the majority stated knowledge for a sustainable society, communal relationship-oriented values, and interpersonal skills for developing positive relationships as important content areas for early childhood citizenship education. Based on the PCK, the researchers identified South Korean teachers’ conceptions of citizenship as representing their national identity of citizen. Moreover, pedagogical possibilities in transforming South Korean early childhood education toward cosmopolitan citizen identity were discussed.

Keywords:

Citizenship, citizenship education (CE), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), cosmopolitan citizenship, early childhood education.