Comparative Study of Early Childhood Care Curriculum in Korea and the United States : Focusing on Characteristics and Approaches to Learning

The purpose of this study is to compare and analyze the characteristics of the national-level early childhood education curriculum and approaches to learning in Korea and the United States. The Korean data analyzed for this study is the 4th standard childcare curriculum of the Ministry of Health and Welfare (2020), and the U.S. data is the ‘Early Learning Standards’ of 28 states. As a result of the analysis, first, Korea has a national-level early childhood education (education) curriculum that the state enacts, revises, and announces, but the U.S. specifies early learning standards at the state level. The Korean early childhood education curriculum is a comprehensive approach that emphasizes autonomous play and voluntary learning of infants and toddlers, while the U.S. has an academic approach that emphasizes learning readiness as a measure of infants and toddlers’ readiness for school. What they have in common is that both Korea and the U.S. emphasize play throughout the childcare curriculum, and they view play as the optimal way to integrate various elements of the approach to learning into various educational contents and activities. Second, the results of comparing the approaches to learning presented in the childcare curriculum in Korea and the United States commonly include curiosity, initiative, creativity, and problem solving as approaches to learning. Almost all states in Korea and the United States include ‘curiosity’ as a major element of the approach to learning for infants and toddlers. Based on these results, the national-level childcare curriculum is the minimum standard presented by the state, so it is suggested that an implementation study be conducted to see how it is implemented in the context of each institution’s situation and environment, and it is suggested that the approach to learning should be presented as one area in the childcare curriculum.