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Browsing by Subject "Korean"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Breast Cancer Screening Behavior in Korean Immigrant Women in the United States
    (2017-06) Lee, Mi Hwa
    To address the problem of the underutilization of breast cancer screening in Korean immigrant women in the United States, this study investigates their screening behavior, with a particular emphasis on sociocultural aspects. Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Korean immigrant women. A regular breast cancer screening is recommended for early detection and timely treatments for breast cancer (Elmore, Armstrong, Lehman, & Fletcher, 2005). Despite its effectiveness of screening, Korean immigrant women are reported to have lower breast cancer screening rates than any other racial/ethnic groups (Lee, Fogg, & Menon, 2008; Lee, Ju, Vang, & Lundquist, 2010). This implies that Korean immigrant women are at risk for being diagnosed with breast cancer at an advanced stage due to their low mammogram receipt resulting in increased mortality. This study uses a cross-sectional, mixed-method study design, in particular a sequential explanatory mixed methods design (Creswell, 2015) to understand breast cancer screening behavior in Korean immigrant women. The Andersen’s Behavioral Model of Health Services Use (Andersen, 1995) along with Health Belief Model (Rosenstock, 1974; Rosenstock et al., 1988) theoretically guided this study. Logistic regression was used to examine facilitators and barriers associated with breast cancer screening in the quantitative phase of the study. In the qualitative phase of the study, semi-structured individual interviews were conducted to explore sociocultural views on breast cancer and breast cancer screening from Korean immigrant women and to obtain further evidence supporting the results of quantitative study. Grounded theory methods (Charmaz, 2006) guided the data collection and analyzed the data results. A total of 240 Korean immigrant women ages between 40 and 79 years old from Los Angeles, California, completed questionnaires and 30 of these participants participated in individual interviews. Approximately 90.1% of study participants completed a mammogram at least once in their lifetime and 62.2% had a mammogram in the past two years. In the past two years, women between 60 - 69 years old had the highest mammogram rate (73.3%) while women between 40 - 49 years old had the lowest mammogram rate (26.3%). With regards to associated facilitators and barriers of screening uptake, the quantitative study identified three facilitators (fatalism, regular check-up and heard about mammogram experiences from family, friends, and neighbors) and a barrier (perceived barriers to screening). Study participants viewed breast cancer as a fearful subject. They reported having different levels and concerns about breast cancer (e.g., fear of getting breast cancer vs feeling safe from breast cancer). The majority of participants strongly believed that breast cancer could be preventable. Interestingly, they had different opinions on ways to prevent breast cancer. The qualitative phase of the study also found five motivations (fear of breast cancer, preventive orientation practice, health insurance, doctors’ recommendation, and family support) and various challenges (e.g., complicated and timing consuming procedure, and language) to breast cancer screening. Results showed that fears of breast cancer boosted Korean immigrant women to adopt preventive health practices while still holding fatalistic attitudes. Fatalistic attitudes are influenced by participants’ own observations of people’s death as a result of being diagnosed with cancer while still maintaining healthy lifestyles and regular check-ups. These observations reinforced fatalistic attitudes on health. Despite having this attitude, the participants wanted to maintain their screening because they believed finding cancer at an earlier stage would be better if it turns out they have cancer. They wanted to avoid having feelings of regret or guilt if they had cancer at advanced stages. Health insurance enabled them to initiate or maintain their regular check-ups, and their primary health care professionals played a role in encouraging them to have a screening. Some participants developed their own strategies (e.g., waiting for to get government funded health insurance and visiting Korea to receive medical examination) to deal with multiple barriers to breast cancer screening. The findings of this mixed methods study helps to obtain a more comprehensive view of Korean immigrant women’s screening behavior and to develop more culturally and individually tailored intervention strategies to promote screening uptake.
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    Promoting Multimodal Literacy Pedagogies in Elementary Immersion Classrooms with Refugee-Background Students
    (2023-07) Heo, Saem
    Young students learn and communicate via various modes, including writing and the arts. Multiple modes coupled with teachers’ instructional assistance can facilitate language learning for students having diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds and surrounded by multilingual environments, including language immersion contexts. This is because multimodal literacy encourages students to engage in meaning making exploring and using multiple texts and mediums to generate and communicate meanings (Jewitt, 2006, 2008; Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996; Serafini, 2014, 2015; Walsh, 2007). In other words, multimodal literacy involves everyday practices enacted by individuals so that they bring their own perspectives, knowledge, and experience to understanding and interpreting texts and generating new meanings. Teachers in language immersion settings, especially those with refugee-background students, have multiple considerations when teaching students whose first language is different from an immersion language (e.g., Korean) and the dominant language of the society (e.g., English). Depending on students’ first language and culture, for example, students would better learn an immersion and/or second language through a variety of modes and complex combinations of diverse modes beyond time-honored print platforms, such as singing and body movements. Unfortunately, current institutional practices and policies still privilege oral and written language, including word-based platforms, for language and literacy instruction. While students of diverse backgrounds are a growing part of today’s classrooms, including in language immersion contexts, research has yet to pay attention to how such students engage in language learning through multimodal texts. The contexts for this study are first- and second-grade classrooms in a Korean immersion school in a Midwestern region of the United States. Hangul School (pseudonym), the Korean immersion school, is a local public Korean immersion charter school with grades preK-12. To provide students with Korean immersion education, most teachers at Hangul have academic and/or professional backgrounds in Korea and speak Korean and English fluently. Among the total student population in Hangul, 90 percent of students have a refugee background with a Karen ethnicity speaking Sgaw Karen. The first- and second-grade classrooms have twenty students each, and more than 85 percent of the enrolled students in each classroom (17 out of 20 students in the first-grade classroom, 18 out of 20 second-grade students) were Karen refugee-background (RB) students. Although the reasons for Karen RB students enrolling in this immersion school vary, such as parents expecting their children would get more attention from caring and dedicated teachers, a supportive school atmosphere and teachers who legitimize students’ prior experience were likely to have the RB students enrolled in this school. As a Korean-English bilingual with several years of teaching experience in the U.S. and Korea, I negotiated a role as a teachers’ assistant over the span of three years. While working in the classroom, I was able to participate in community building based on a firm rapport with the teacher and students. The strong bond with the class community naturally enabled me to be involved in students’ immersion language learning, including access to material development and instructional practices. This three-part research project examines the ways in which teachers enact multimodal literacy pedagogies to help young Karen refugee-background (RB) students’ immersion language learning in an elementary language immersion classroom. This study is grounded in the understanding that students in the twenty-first century gain literacy skills through multimodal texts that are socially and culturally constructed (Jewitt, 2008a). Study 1 investigates types of teacher scaffolding used to support RB students’ learning of an immersion language, including content knowledge. Study 2 draws on multimodal creative artwork, such as a silhouette identity project, to examine the ways in which young RB multilingual students explore and navigate their linguistic and cultural identities. Study 3 uses critical discourse analysis to delve into teacher decision-making surrounding multimodal text selection and use to facilitate students’ language learning. Findings of the present research project illustrate that the teachers take into consideration complex elements (e.g., standardized tests, school language policy) that impact their instructional decision-making and practices. In addition to teachers’ consideration, teachers provide RB students with a variety of verbal, procedural, and instructional scaffolding to promote their comprehension and language production, such as acting out shapes of vowels through body movement, while remaining attuned to their socioemotional learning. Moreover, respecting students’ various levels of strengths and comfort with and expression, students are provided with opportunities to engage in exploring and navigating their RB students’ linguistic and cultural identities. This dissertation research suggests that teachers serving young RB students consider and implement transformative instructional approaches, such as multimodal literacy pedagogies, to not only cater to learners with diverse linguistic and cultural repertoires and backgrounds, but also help students maintain and/or develop their bi-/multilingual abilities.
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    Review of To Swim Across the World by Frances and Ginger Park
    (Voices from the Gaps, 2005) Peterson, Abbey
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    Unreading multilingualisms of the Korean diaspora
    (2013-07) Kim, Eun Joo
    This project critiques the impulse to read literature and culture of the Korean diaspora as representative of individual(s), culture(s), or community(ies), and the long-standing focus on what difference looks like. Each of my primary texts has been written or performed by Korean diasporic women in the past three decades. My primary materials also include both Korean and English, and most include a third or even a fourth language. While still attending to visual reading practices, my project privileges the sound of difference. I attend to how these different sounds are represented on the printed page, the cinematic screen, and the theatre stage. Each of these genres and media allows multilinguality to be expressed in different and very specific ways. My methodology consists of "unreading" contemporary texts. By unreading, I mean the practice of disrupting and deconstructing more dominant languages, vocabularies, and reading practices, guided by Rey Chow's discussion of "unlearning" and Kandice Chuh's work on deconstructing the "Asian American subject." With this approach, I investigate how relations of power are represented in cultural productions. I begin with a discussion of the modernization and democratization of the Korean language, particularly during the period of Japanese colonization. It is within this context that I read the historical traces that emerge in the language(s) of contemporary works. I then consider the grammatical, social, political, and cultural implications of eliciting a specific Western-derived first-person singular subject from a more (potentially deliberately) ambiguous Korean context. In the second half of this project, I turn to the media of film and television to argue that historical traces of the phenomena of early cinema, particularly during Korea's colonial period inform the translation and communication technologies featured in contemporary films of the Korean diaspora. The layering of subtitling in noraebang scenes enacts a doubling of both screens and subtitles, introducing rich layers of textuality while recalling the titles of early cinema. I conclude by considering the specific contributions of this project to the field of Asian American studies.