Abstract
Purpose: The present study purposed to investigate the current state of harmful business places around schools and to survey and analyze how much middle school students know about school environment hygiene purification zones, which have not been much effective. Methods: In addition, this study clarified the problem of harmful environment around schools by inquiring into students' value and perception on worsening harmful environment around schools and provided basic materials necessary for making policies on school education and the protection of educational environment. For these purposes, we conducted a questionnaire survey of 1,000 middle school students in Gyeonggi-do on their perception on harmful environment around their schools, and drew conclusions as follows. Result: Students' knowledge about the School Health Act was low, and they generally thought that the law does not play its role substantially and efficiently in purifying and regulating harmful environment and regulations are superficial and temporary. To the question of whether harmful businesses observe laws for purifying environment around schools, most of the students replied negatively. In actuality, as most of harmful businesses running at school environment hygiene purification zones are stationeries with game rooms, comic book stores, PC rooms, etc., which are highly accessible to students, they become serious problems in school environment. Conclusion: As it is required to make continuous and systematic surveys and researches on the school environment hygiene purification zones, we need to manage school environment efficiently through cooperation among the government, education offices and individual schools.