초등학생용 학습만화에 소개되는 중동

Presentation of the Middle East in Educational Comics for Elementary Students

Elementary students in Korea are usually exposed to information on different countries and cultures through various medias prior to school curricula. Among those medias, educational comics is one of the most easily accessible and most popular books. The less known Middle Eastern countries and their culture are also available through the educational comics. However, educational comics which deal with the Middle East generally contain errors and information that leads to misunderstanding, if not distortion. Analysis on educational comics on the Middle East from two most popular publishers found serious and frequent problems of definition of the region and its representativeness, religious reductionism, cultural sensitivity, misinformation on religion, history, society and culture, misrepresentation of visual images, and the problem of terms and transliteration. Considering the purpose of educational comics to deliver knowledge and information with interesting stories and formats, it is necessary to have thorough supervision of specialists. In addition, such problems strongly call for more endeavor and cooperation among academics.