A study on the effects of multicultural education experience of university students on social distance and multicultural acceptance: Focus on university students of Cheungbuk

The recent of internationalization in many Korean universities has resulted in a rapid rise in the number of foreign students, yet most universities are inviting foreign students without receiving proper training on perceptions and understanding for other cultures to result in a rise in Caucasian-oriented or English-oriented cultural perceptions. Under the belief that discussions on multicultural acceptance are necessary, this study investigated the characteristics of dorm life of university students in the Cheongbuk region with foreign students and investigated the influencing relationships between their multicultural education experience with social distance and multicultural acceptance. Results show that the multicultural education experience of university students has an influencing relationship on social distance for multiculturalism, which was shown to have a correlation with multicultural acceptance. Such study results indicate that Korean ethnic identity can increase social distance for multiculturalism and have an effect on multicultural acceptance of university students. Such results demonstrate the importance of formal and informal educational experiences. Multicultural education must be based on efforts to understand or communicate with others while Korean multicultural society must be achieved based on understandingand respect for other cultures.