Makingup the Multicultural Identity by Visualizing Human Difference/Homogeneity: Focusing on Minjok Narrative in Educational Discourses

• In Event: Rethinking "Good Faith" Educational Practices Through Historical Discourses in International Contexts

Abstract

Objectives
This study historicizes ideas of multicultural education in South Korea by examining how race and culture have been visualized in educational discourse. While multicultural education appears to accommodate increasing diversity, it often visualizes people through Western epistemes of race and culture, creating specific ways of seeing and identifying individuals. The study investigates how racial and cultural differences and homogeneity have been visualized in the Korean minjok (the complexities of race, ethnicity, national identity, etc.) narrative and how classifications of people are portrayed through imaginary borders.

Theoretical framework
This study historicizes multicultural discourse in South Korea by focusing on visuality. The Korean minjok narrative, emphasizing ethnic homogeneity and national identity, illustrates how it has been recontextualized to both accommodate and resist multiculturalism (Shin, 2006). Based on the “history of the present” (Foucault, 1977), the study views current educational practices and discourses as products of historical processes. And the study critiques how visualizations reinforce specific ways of seeing and identifying people, thus creating a visual biopower that governs populations through normative representations. The interplay between images and words illuminates how visual narratives influence perceptions of race and culture (Mitchell, 1994) while considering how visual representations shape social identities and power structures (Mirzoeff, 1999).

Methods
This study collected educational materials from the early 2000s to the current era, including the 2007 curriculum revision and the 2006 initiation of multicultural education policies (Hong, 2010). It examines primary resources like curricula and textbooks from elementary and secondary levels, along with materials from multicultural programs sponsored by the Ministry of Education in Korea. These resources were chosen for their relevance to multicultural education and their depiction of racial and cultural diversity. Using postmodern discourse analysis that incorporates visual culture and historical context, the study assesses how these materials visually and textually fabricate multicultural students, while rethinking minjok narrative.

Findings and Scholarly Significance
Firstly, since 2007, the curriculum has progressively integrated diverse racial and ethnic representations through visual elements like skin color, hairstyles, and clothing. Multicultural education materials essentialize and exoticize differences contrary to normality. Despite promotion of the discourse “we are different but the same”, the curriculum objectifies multicultural students as a new invention. Secondly, despite the removal of the term “single minjok,” history curricula continue to highlight Korea’s singular lineage with Dangun as the progenitor, reinforcing cultural and racial boundaries. These curricula also maintain a narrative that victimizes Koreans and preserves a pure Korean identity, treating them as a protected asset. Thirdly, since the introduction of the global bridge program in 2011 and an emphasis on global citizenship in 2015, multicultural students are reframed as global citizens. While this promotes a responsible Korean-global identity, it visualizes multicultural students’ language and cultural heritage in a fossilized form. Hence, the use of "multicultural" and "non-multicultural" categories reflects (ab)normality in Koreanness under (post)colonial modernity. The multicultural discourse, which seemingly remedies racism and discrimination, essentializes differences. This study implicates rethinking the multicultural discourse in South Korea, aiming to repair visual cultural injustice.

Author

• Ji Hyun Hwang, University of Wisconsin - Madison