AN ART EDUCATION AND CULTURAL LEARNING PROGRAM FOR KOREAN TEACHERS

The purpose of this study is to discover the §stakeholders essential nature, meaning, and value §of the intensive one month Florida based art §education and cultural learning program for the §South Korean elementary school teachers. Based on a §phenomenological study, data sources included in-§depth interviews with six Korean teachers, the §program coordinator, the program administrator, the §Korean program coordinator at the teacher §participants home university, and two program §assistants from a university in north Florida, §intensive observations of whole events and §activities, and review of the teacher participants §research journal notebooks, materials, and §documents. Findings indicate that the program can §encourage the teacher participants and other §stakeholders to understand people in different §cultures, provide participants who are interested in §studying abroad with a beginning experience, and §begin, through firsthand experience, to adjust their §fixed or stereotypical views of cultures other than §their own through the construction of new cultural §perspectives.