• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• 제43권1호
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• pp.154-169
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• 2008

Geography textbooks often have treated the world as a collection of independent nations. Also, many scholars have warned of ethnocentric bias in geography textbooks. Global education that emphasizes world interdependence and pursues global perspectives offers some possibilities to go beyond the status quo of current World Geography textbooks. The primary objective of this study is to analyze current US World Geography textbooks in terms of global education. A secondary objective is to explore a framework for rereading World Geography textbooks critically. This interpretive qualitative case study indicates that US World Geography textbooks maintain an imperialist and American-centered perspective. Especially, the case of Korea shows that other places and people are underrepresented through dichotomy, negative attitude and exclusion, misconception and stereotyping, and simplification in textbooks. Therefore, we need to detect conscious and unconscious fallacy and bias, to understand the world view and experiences of underrepresented people, and to deal with controversial global issues from diverse perspectives through global perspectives and post-colonial perspectives of global education.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• 제47권2호
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• pp.297-309
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• 2012

This study examines how East Asia is represented in US World Geography textbooks and what kind of cultural and political epistemological frameworks are embedded in those representation focused on China and Japan. For this, four World Geography textbooks that widely used in public middle school throughout the State of Connecticut are selected as the major units of analysis and analyzed using content analysis. The results are as follows. First, The textbooks have the cultural epistemological framework that East Asia are portrayed not only as homegenous and static world but also as exotic world whose mode of life is quite different from that the West. Second, China are represented as having more traditional and negative images, whereas Japan are portrayed as receiving more modern and positive images in the textbooks. This difference is caused by the relationship between the U.S. and them and imply that the epistemological framework on East Asia of American can change according to the relationship between the U.S. and East Asia. Third, the textbooks seem to be dominated by colonialism epistemological framework that emphasize hierarchical order between the U.S. and East Asia and omit East Asian countries' contribution to global cultures and economies as political epistemological framework. These findings suggest the need to investigate the epistemological frameworks underlying World Geography textbooks used Korean classroom about neighbor Asia or non-Western societies.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• 제39권3호
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• pp.409-424
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• 2004

This study examines Korean-related description from 1931 to 2002 in 18 university-level ‘World Regional Geography’ textbooks, being published as English. During this period, the amounts of Korean-related contents in world regional geography textbooks have gradually increased. The main Korean-related topics were generally ‘Colonization by Japan’, ‘Korean War’, ‘Rapid economic development in South Korea’, and ‘North Korea’. The distorted information and erroneous description about Korea were mostly found in textbooks. The national and cultural identity of Korea was severely distorted and made a fallacy by ‘accidental-centered’ thought. It is suggested that foreign geographers who refer ‘Korea’ in World Regional Geography textbooks need to critically re-examine the ways in which Korean-related contents are in proper place.

• Journal of The Geomorphological Association of Korea
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• 제23권3호
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• pp.93-104
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• 2016

High school textbooks of world geography show geomorphic featuresin arid environments such as sand dune, yardang and ventifact which are largely created by aeolian processes. Desert pavements, ubiquitous armored surfaces composed of a mosaic of clasts in hot and arid regions, are introduced as a major landform which can be attributed to wind erosion. However, they are formed by a variety of processes including deflation, surface runoff, upward clast migration and dust accretion that cause coarse particles concentration at the surface. The deflation by wind leaving a lag of coarse clasts has been solely regarded at home, even though the classical mechanism of deflation has been evaluated as a relatively unimportant process of pavement formation abroad through empiricalstudies. The accretionary model is gaining wider acceptance, thus implying that desert pavements could be formed through deposition of aeolian material. In addition, sheetflood and upward migration of clasts, irrelevant to the aeolian processes, could also create stone pavements. As a consequence, the deflation process in high school textbooks has to be urgently modified into a range of processes including aeolian mantling. By stressing that desert pavements are an exceptional geomorphic feature in deserts where wind is a predominant geomorphic agent, they can be used as a good example to demonstrate that a landform is not monogenetic.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• 제22권3호
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• pp.730-744
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• 2016

This study aims to seek for solution to reinforce affective domain in World Geography instruction using travelog. The result can be summarized as follows. First, The World Geography textbooks are given too much emphasis on cognitive domain. This overevaluation is due to the fact that official World Geography curriculum is concentrated in cognitive domain. Second, Travelogs can be effectively used for reinforcing affective domain in World Geography education. They can reinforce the various attitudes and values that students need. I hope that this study could activate discussion on affective domain and graphic skills in geography education.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• 제17권3호
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• pp.332-347
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• 2011

This study is to analyze on territorial education described in geography textbooks in Korea and Japan. The following is the result that shows similarities and differences of the geography textbooks when it comes to territorial education. Korea and Japan have a contrasting territorial background. However, both countries start their territorial education by learning the location and shape of their country. Japanese geography textbooks focus on what people in the world think of Japan, but in case of Korea, the geography textbooks focus on how Koreans look at the world. In short, the territorial education in Japan try to emphasize Japan from the view point of the world. The next common ground is that the two countries provide territorial models in their geography textbooks in order to increase understanding. However, the Japanese students are provided with these territory models much earlier than Korean students and these models help them visualize and solidify their concept of territory. And, the two countries both put great importance on teaching territorial sea. In Japan, they try to include EEZ(Exclusive Economic Zone) in their territory. Considering these facts, it can be concluded that Japan is enlarging their concept of national territory as maritime territory. Lastly, after learning of territory the two countries both treat on territorial problems. But Korea treats passively territorial problem as such Dokdo, but Japan treats actively their territorial problems. Like that, the contents of territorial education described in geography textbooks in Korea and Japan are similar in terms of selection, but differ in quality in terms of organization. Therefore, future territorial education in Korea will be actively and successively done through succession and sequence of geography curriculum.

• Korean Journal of Comparative Education
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• 제27권3호
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• pp.213-238
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• 2017

This paper aims to point out that the contemporary textbook is a common cognitive construct, and that the realistic drawings in the textbooks have played an important role in shaping the world recognition. The main subjects of this study are the racial-ethnic illustrations of elementary school geography textbooks, published by the Japanese Ministry of Education, the Japanese Government-General of Taiwan and Korea, the educational association of Manchu. By comparing the same factors in various textbooks, it examines how the temporal and spatial recognition of the world is adjusted by visual representation. The main findings of this study are three fold. First, the world was introduced to the extent of the sum that the census and the classifications of racial and ethnic groups were adopted. And the world appeared later in the year supported by the racial and ethnic minorities. Second, the expressive style of racial and ethnic groups changed from an emphasis on a heterogeneous part as an object of scientific observation in the early stage to a later one with a life culture similar to the reader. Third, racial ethnic illustrations have been used differently depending on the publishing region in the Empire, giving readers in different regions with different images of the same category. In many cases, it was possible to know the politics of representation and the use of certain racial ethnic illustrations. The textbooks of the first half of the 20th century gave great recognition to the people who could not meet with the readers by using the illustrations. A child in the mainland is aware of his position in a "viewing position" while viewing various empire people through the textbook. On the other hand, in the textbooks of the colonial children, they stood in the position of 'being seen', and showed a change in internalizing the position of the mainland along with the expansion of the empire.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• 제10권2호
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• pp.223-234
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• 2004

Geography as a field of learning had its beginnings among the scholars of ancient Greece. The emergence of modern Geography was much due to the collection and classification of information about overseas areas. Today, world regional geography, which may be called area studies in other social sciences, is regarded as an introductory geography course in many American universities. World regional geography, however, has been much neglected by Korean geographers. Many factors have made Korean geographers not concentrate their efforts to area studies. The exterior factors include the great expenses for the area studies' fieldworks, and the many geographers' involvement in the writing of geography textbooks and atlases for school students. The interior factors include all the ethno-centric, mysterious, and authoritarian perspectives a large number of Korean geographers strongly stick to.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• 제2권2호
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• pp.75-92
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• 1996

Geography education is one of the best ways to improve the understanding of other countries. By analyzing Korean and Japanese textbooks on world geography, I tried to find out how well they explain the other country and to set forth guiding principles for geography education. To achieve these aims, weight analysis are used. The major findings in this study can be summarised as follow. The contents of Korean and Japanese geography textbooks were analyzed deviding into 2 major topics, 6 minor topics, and 20 key concepts. (1) By analyzing Korean geography textbook of the 5th curriculum the weight percentages which had been given to each minor topics were found. They are as follow: resource problem(57.7%), human right problem(21.4%), population problem (9.0%), mutual dependence(6.0%), environmental problem(3.3%), international competition(2.6%). (2) By analyzing Korean geography text-book of the 6th curriculum the weight percentages which had been give to each minor topics were found. They are as follow: resource problem(42.7%), human right problem(21.7%), mutual dependence (20.9%), environmental problem(7.7%), population problem(4.6%), international competition(2.4%) (3) By analyzing Japanise geography text-book of 5th curriculum ammendment the weight percentages which had been give to each minor topics were found. They are as follows: resource problem(49.9%) human right problem(21.7%), mutual dependence(15.5%), population problem (7.1%), international competition(6.2%), environmental problem(3.8%) (4) By analyzing Japanise geography textbook of 6th curriculum ammendment the weight percentages which had been give to each minor topics were found. They are as follows human right problem (31.6%), mutual dependence(22.8%), resource problem(20.7%), population problem(12.7%), environmental problem(8.6%), international competition(3.6%). We can see that in the field of dependence Korea and Japan put the similar weight but in the field of common problem they put the fairly different weight. It can be viewed as the difference of curriculum. That is to say Korea used both the systematic method on the basis of unit but Japan used only topical method on the basis of unit. Therefore Korean geography textbook introduce agriculture, forestry, fishery, mining industry and manufacturing industry. Japanese textbook, however gives a detailed account about residents' lives in specific area. For that reason in Korean textbook, resource was stressed, while in Japanese textbook, culture was stressed.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• 제2권2호
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• pp.219-231
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• 1996

The aim here is to analyse the system of description of GIS in all of the high school textbooks passed with the official approval, to find the degree to which teachers understand about GIS, and to consider the present condition of GIS instruction. Most of the authors of textbooks generally underestimate importance of GIS, and there is difference among their awareness. In the system of description of GIS, there are only a few kinds of textbooks in which explanation of GIS is made coherently from the purpose of instruction aim through the chapter summary and to overall test in both of the Korean Geography and the World Geography. This trend is due to the degree of distribution of the GIS specialists in writing a textbook while the other texts books shows just a brief introduction of GIS concept. Although there is the limit for teachers to study how to teach GIS due to its very technological aspect as well as few previous training and teacher's guide. Thus it is evident that about a half of teachers who responded taught high school students without a knowledge on GIS, and a few of them even never referred to that concept. These facts may negatively affect the status of a geography in the society of information. For the solution of these issues, it is considered how to repair the description system and its contents. Besides, the variation among textbooks is reduced at the further revision of the 7th curriculum. And the printed matters of GIS are sufficiently provided for the teachers to use as their teaching aids. It is desirable that the GIS instruction models should be further developed for college education, and the programs for the on-the-job teachers training should be arranged. Besides, the previous training for the on-the-job teachers should be achieved more practically with enough time before the revision of curriculum.