Excellent point. An important issue to address. While the general racist (e.g., "native" = white) hiring culture of South Korea is "out of their hands," the one thing Park English could do is remove that "Ethnic background" question from their application. Any other recruiters who have that question on their applications should be pressured to do the same. Park English, you ARE working for the teachers as much as you are working for the schools, right?! Concerned applicants could take steps such as submitting a Halloween costume photo as the "photo"--a little humor there, but it's just a thought. -RWP -------------------------------------------------------------------------- In response to.... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The only response I've gotten on this website is the DELETING of a message very similar to the (revised) one below, which is on an important and relevant issue that many people have probably been too "polite" to address: Browse through any Korean beauty magazine, and you will probably see quite a few foreigners among the models, but most likely all of those non-Koreans will be white. Likewise, it is well-known that Korean employers tend to prefer white people when they hire foreign English teachers. Koreans need to get with the times and shake off this nonsense, and ESL teachers and recruiters can play an important role in this "diversity education" of sorts. One barrier to achieving this end is the "ethnic background" question on the application. Isn't it enough that we have to submit a photo? I understand that submitting a photo with a job application is standard practice in South Korea and many other Asian countries, and that in itself could be justifiable, though it can also be used to make racist judgments, which is probably why it is not the practice in countries like the U.S. The age and gender discrimination that is so common in Korea can also be disturbing to Westerners, but these practices might be dismissed as "cultural," as they are applied to Koreans, no doubt, as much as to foreigners. However, Koreans learn English in order to communicate with foreigners, many of whom are not white, and it is inexcusable to say that racism against foreigners is just a part of the culture and therefore it must be accepted. It is time that Koreans recognize that English is by far not just a white people's (or even North American) language, and to discriminate based on "ethnic background" is absurd as it has no relation to an ability to speak or teach English. Since Korea is such a homogeneous society, such racist policies are absent from everyday Korean life; instead, they are a direct offense to the foreigners who wish to live (and work) in Korea. It is therefore the responsibility of the ESL education community to go beyond the call of duty and educate the students, the parents, the employers and the recruiters that the English-speaking world is truly diverse--far from being just a white people's domain, and quite the opposite of the Korean-speaking world, which is made up almost entirely of ethnically Korean people. Korean students whose foreign English teachers are all white will merely perpetuate the very obsolete stereotype of a white native English speaker. Park English, I was disappointed to see that your application form required an "ethnic background" entry; I tried to leave it blank, but it did not allow me to do so. The least you could do is to adjust the application so that teachers have the option to leave the "ethnic background" field blank. Much better than that would be to remove that question altogether; it only encourages the employers to use the information to try to pick out the whites and offer less pay or no job at all to the others. The "ethnic background" question only allows unfair discrimination, and it has no business being on an ESL teacher application, or just about any application, for that matter. I'm sure most other applicants on this site would strongly agree with me on this matter. Thank you for your time.