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KMID : 0379220080280030663
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Journal of Korea Gerontological Society
2008 Volume.28 No. 3 p.663 ~ p.685
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Presentation of the Elderly in Elementary Textbooks
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Jun Mi-Kyung
KIm Jeong-Hyun
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Abstract
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This study is an attempt to analyze the ways of representation of the elderly in elementary textbooks.
By virtue of the mechanism of publication and distribution under the control of government, the national textbooks tend to embody the stereotypes on the old people in Korean society. The present study analyzes the discourses on the elderly which appear in 77 textbooks(from the first grade to sixth grade). In the first place, the elders usually wear Korean traditional old-fashioned clothes. Second, the elderly often appear when the aim of the lesson is learning ’Korean tradition’. Third, the old are generally associated with the subjects such as ’kindness,’ ’reverence,’ ’caring’. Fourth, old people are mostly buried in grief over their family members who were dispersed and separated in Korean War. Fifth, while they are mostly associated with family obligations and traditional moral codes, the elders are not mentioned in the discourses on the public morals or the public hygiene. Sixth, the elderly are represented to live in the countryside, not in the cities. As a result, the elementary schoolbooks tend to regard the elders as passive in everything and remote from the ordinary living, thus making them totally different from the young people. In addition, their personal experiences are also excluded from their representation, which reproduces the stereotype about them as a fixed and unified group. This analysis therefore leads to the suggestion that elementary textbooks provide the opportunity to share the experiences and the points of view of the elderly with elementary students, in order to improve generational communication and understanding.
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KEYWORD
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Elementary Textbooks, Discourse on aging, Stereotype on aging
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