A Study of Korean Children's Participation in American Classrooms

A Study of Korean Children's Participation in American Classrooms

This case study investigates how five Korean children who attended American schools participated in their classrooms. Using the data collected through classroom observations and interviews, the researcher inductively discovered a few characteristics of their class participation. Among the five children, the three younger children in the lower grades (kindergarten, second and third grade) participated actively and voluntarily in performing class activities; the other two older children in the upper grades (seventh and eighth grade) participated passively and involuntarily. This study also reveals that all five children showed a goaloriented attitude in carrying out class activities, when compared to their American counterparts. Such a competitive attitude in class kept the children from working together in the American classrooms. Several personal and sociocultural factors were found to influence their class participation: the degrees of English proficiency, the degrees of academic ability in a certain subject area, Korean school experiences, and parents' strong emphasis on their children's education. This paper will describe the patterns of their class participation in detail and show how these patterns can be explained by the personal and sociocultural factors.