This study is a critical analysis of the contents of elementary social and moral textbooks in the
light of a multicultural education. After a series of analysis two kinds of issues were raised.
First, the textbooks were written based on homogeneous nationalism, which means of the same
blood and sharing the same national characteristics. Even though countries like Ko-gu-ryeo and
Bal-hae were made up of various nations and different races according to historical documents,
textbooks give us no indications about these facts. In Ko-ryeo's case, even though different races
became naturalized individually or in groups, and influenced widely on Ko-ryoe's political systems
and cultural, technological and military activities, their existences and cultural influences were not
described. This is the result of being selective and exclusive as they write the history solely based
on homogeneous nationalism. This in result produced an imaginary community of the same blood
and the same race in textbooks, where it does not match the historical facts.
Second, it is the writing method that they use, which is based on ethnocentricism. They have
contents which seem to look down on other nations and cultures in order to bring out the brilliance
of Korean nation and its culture. For the parts related to Japan, the fact that Korea had passed its
riches of the culture on to Japan and the fact that Japanese invaded Korea are emphasized too much.
Historically the relationship between Korea and Japan was not always as bad as one thinks, but they
have produced bad images about Japan by focusing on the negative incidents. It is not to say that
there were no unfortunate incidents between Korea and Japan historically, but it is not wise in the
view of multi-cultural education to focus only on the negative incidents about Japan.
In the light of the pluralization and the globalization, a reconsideration is needed in writing
method of the textbooks, which have their bases on homogeneous nationalism and ethnocentricism.