• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.988-1003
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• 2013

This research was conducted to investigate the perception of pre-service early childhood teachers regarding the importance of the rights of young children and necessity of the education of the rights. The survey covered 525 students attending six three-year-course colleges in Seoul, Gyeonggi-do, Chungcheong-do, Chonra-do, Gyeongsang-do, and Jeju-do, Korea. They were in their freshmen, sophomore, and junior year majoring in early childhood education. Firstly, the research found that pre-service early childhood teachers' awareness towards the importance children's rights was relatively high. The higher grade they were, the better perception for the importance of the rights of young children they had. Additionally, the teachers who were registered for courses related to the rights of young children understood the importance of children's rights especially well. Secondly, pre-service early childhood teachers highly recognized the necessity of education for the rights of young children. Compared to the freshmen and sophomores, the juniors had higher awareness levels about the necessity of early childhood education rights. On the other hand, being in a related course or not made no difference in their perception for the necessity of early childhood education rights. Lastly, pre-service childhood teachers had greater concern for the necessity of education rights rather than the importance of the rights of young children.