The Influence of Foreign Exchange Teachers on Multicultural Acceptance by Korean Students

The purpose of this research is to analyze the influence of the Asia-Pacific Teacher Exchange Program on multicultural acceptance of Korean students. Two research questions are set forth to achieve the goals of this research. First, does the level of cultural acceptance by Korean students differ depending on their individual backgrounds and the placement of foreign teachers? Second, does contact with foreign teachers increase multicultural acceptance of Korean students? Based on the placement of foreign teachers fro m the Asia-Pacific region, a survey was conducted on a total of 2,000 elementary and secondary school students enrolled in 37 schools with foreign teachers and 37 schools without foreign teachers. The responses were analyzed using t-test, F-test, and hierarchical linear regression analysis. The findings suggested that female students had a higher multicultural acceptance level than males, while the elementary-school students showed the highest multicultural acceptance. In addition, it was found that students' contact with teachers from multicultural countries increased the level of students' multicultural acceptance. This study is significant in reaffirming the importance of the teacher exchange program between Korean teachers and foreign teachers from the Asia Pacific region. Also, based on the findings, the implications necessary to increase the multicultural acceptance of Korean mainstream culture students were presented.