This study understands the various and complex aspects of conflict and communication issues experienced
by youth in their everyday lives. Accordingly, an integrated culture & arts education program for the
communication of youth was developed. As the developed integrated culture & arts education program was
applied, positive changes were shown among youth.
According to the 2012 data by Statistics Korea, the percentage of middle school students was high
with 27.8% among those that seek counseling from the youth counseling support centers across the nation
and Korea Youth Counseling Institute that consists of 20% of elementary school students, 28% of middle
school students, 22.4% of high school students, 1.5% of university students and others (unemployed youth,
parents). As for the main issues of youth, it can be seen that middle school students are the representative
subjects that experience communication issues among the issues of study & career path (25%), personal
relationship (19.4%), computer/Internet use (7.2%), deviation & delinquency (13%), personality problem
(7%), mental health problem (9.2%) and family relationship (7.4%).
Upon recognizing the importance of communication of the youth, ‘Tong Woo’ team was formed at the
intensive course 1 for school culture & arts lecturers that was offered by Korea Culture & Arts Education
Institute in November 2011. During the ‘integrated culture & arts education program development project’
training, ‘like-minded & communication friend making’ program was developed as a program that
integrates various genres of theater, dance, Korean classical music and cartoon animation for youth
communication.
The participants of the study are the ‘youth’ in the category of ‘age above 9 and below 24’ defined in
the basic law for the youth and 19 upcoming middle school student that are attending five local children's
centers located in Asan-si, Chungcheongnam-do.
For the purpose of verifying the effectiveness of the program, a program that consists of 32 parts & 16
session developed as a local program through local cooperations was implemented by modifying it into a 2
days & 1 night program upon recognizing its potential effectiveness even as a nature program at the
implementation stage according to the field characteristics.
After the implementation of the integrated culture & arts education program, it was found that the
participants' self-expression abilities in peer group was improved, while also showing positive changes in the
communication of the youth.