Strengthening Students’ Multicultural Competences in Foundation Courses: Contents Analysis Study in Universities in South Korea

Abstract

This research is to examine the current status of multicultural education at four year university level by analysing the lecture courses syllabi covering multiculturalism, and thereby to provide information for future lecturers with scopes and guidelines for teaching. To achieve this goal, we examined 27 lecture courses from 16 universities that were offered in the fall term of 2013 and spring term of 2014. We have categorized our contents into six categories based on analyzing keywords that showed repetitively in the syllabi; migration, world cultures, multicultural phenomenon, multiculturalism, multicultural practice, and multicultural education. The most important finding of this analysis is that most of them focus on policy implications of the forthcoming multicultural society. Therefore, in order to strengthen multicultural competences of the university students, a further developed curriculum focusing on both practice and theory, is suggested for future university instructors.