This study was conducted to provide basic data for education regarding the rights of children with disabilities by examining the awareness of early childhood teachers in Jeju region on the rights of children with disabilities. The participants were 128 early childhood teachers working at early childhood education institutions in Jeju region. The research tool was a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire that was revised and supplemented from previous studies, with an internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) of .989. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 18.0, employing descriptive statistics, t-tests, F-tests, and Scheffe post hoc analysis. The results of the study are as follows. First, the overall awareness of early childhood teachers on the importance of the rights of children with disabilities was high. Second, the awareness of early childhood teachers on the importance of the rights of children with disabilities was not affected by the type of institution, teachers' age, hours of disability-related training, or degree of completion of disability-related courses. However, the awareness was affected by the teachers' years of experience and whether they had experience working with children with disabilities. Third, early childhood teachers’ implementation awareness on the importance of the rights of children with disabilities was relatively lower than the teachers’ awareness on the importance of such rights. Fourth, among the sub-factors of the rights of children with disabilities, there was no difference between perceived importance and perceived implementation in the right to survival. However, for the rights to protection, development, and participation, the perceived implementation was lower than the perceived importance. Lastly, the content of education on the rights of children with disabilities for early childhood teachers was discussed and suggested based on the results of the study.
Young Sun Won (Fri,) studied this question.