Research Trends of Diversity Education for Young Children during 1998-2021
Authors:   Korean Association For Learner-Centered Curriculum And Instruction, Gu Jungmin , Kang Grace Eunjoo 
Published: February 2024

Objectives The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze the current research trends of multicutural(MC) education(ED) for young children during 1998-2021, and to collect basic data to predict research directions for Early Childhood Education(ECE) in multicultural perspective in the future.
Methods 610 final academic journal articles were selected and analyzed after 3 step filtering process were made for 909 original data collected by key words 'early childhood multicultural education' from RISS(Research Information Sharing Service). 299 data was excluded for its’ duplication, irrelevance, and no full texts provided. Most frequently used analytic criteria for searching research trends were adapted from preliminary studies in EC multicultural(MC) education(ED) research trends. Data analysis was made by research publication year & 4-year-term, research object, research method, research topic, and researcher's academic area.
Results As a result of multicultural education research for young children in the 4th(2010-2013), 5th(2014-2017), 6th(2018-2021), 3rd(2006-2009), 1st(1998-2001), and 2nd term(2002-2005) in order. There was an increase from the 1st term(1998-2001) to the 4th term(2010-2013), and a decrease from the 5th term(2014-2017) with a steady trend of many studies since then. According to research objects, the most studies were conducted for in-service teachers for young children, infants, parents, materual resources, education resources, education re-lated workers, According to research method, quantitative research showed the highest frequency, followed by qualitative research, literature reviews, and mixed research in research trend. The most popular reserch topics were contents of multicultural education, followed by multicultural families, multicultural teaching goals, multi-cultural educational programs, multicultural teachers, multicultural education environment, multicultural educaion institutions, multicultural policies, and curricula. As analytic results by researcher’ academic area, social sciences with education mostly occupy the result persentage, and followed by humanities, inter-disciplinary sciences, nat-ural sciences, arts and physical education, and engineering.
Conclusions This study show that the resarch trend on early childhood multicultural education over the past 24 years has been on a continuous increase since the third quarter of 2006, and has been on a downward trend since the fifth quarter of 2014. however, research on basic early childhood multicultural education since 2006 has been conducted. it was receiving continuous attention. Not only is there a need for high-quality qualitative research that can complement quantitative reserch as a research method, and greater interest in research targeting young chil-dren is needed, but it is also necessary to go beyond the current research trend that mainly focuses on pedagogy for children in a rapidly changing multicultural society. It suggests the need for national policy support and atten-tion to peripheral disciplines such as socio-cultural, humanities, and complex studies.