Rethinking Diversity in South Korea: Examining the Ideological Underpinnings of Multicultural Education Policies and Programs

• In Event: 30.021 - Immigration and Multicultural Urban Educational Policies and Their Implementation in India, Korea, Japan, and Singapore

Abstract

Purposes of the Study

Given the glamour of South Korea’s high levels of educational achievement initiating a discussion on how to provide equitable educational opportunities in Korea might seem gratuitous. However, the rapid growth of the immigrant population over the past two decades has challenged South Korea’s urban education system to create more equitable educational environment for migrant children. In response, Offices of Education at the local and national levels have developed multicultural (Damunwha) education programs and policies with great expediency. This study aims to analyze the effectiveness and fairness of such programs and policies.

Perspectives

Seol & Skrentny (2009) term Korea’s complex social and cultural system of intra-ethnic stratification “hierarchical nationhood.” While nationhood is usually understood as horizontal and equalizing concept, ethnic return migrants are stratified in South Korea according to their diasporic origins. In this study, we expand the notion of “hierarchical nationhood” to the population of migrant children with diverse linguistic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds and examines ideological underpinnings of hierarchy that informs multicultural education policies and programs in South Korea.

Modes of Inquiry

This study examines the published documentations of multicultural education initiatives in three major metropolitan cities—Seoul, Incheon, and Busan and analyzes those initiatives with particular focus on program offerings, intended target of program participants, budget allocations, and budget beneficiaries (i.e. institutions and schools) to highlight the progress and pitfalls of the multicultural initiatives in South Korea.

Data Sources

Data for this study are drawn from multicultural education programs and policies in three metropolitan cities’ Offices of Education and a program and policy survey of multicultural education published by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology in South Korea (Park et al., 2010).

Results

The analysis of data revealed that, first, multicultural policies and programs vary widely with regard to budget allocations, prioritized areas of education, number of schools, and beneficiaries. Second, despite these differences, the programs largely focus on teaching Korean language and culture and on helping multicultural students to adjust in Korean society; these programs largely ignore the migrant heritage of these students, creating a void in heritage language and culture education. Third, multicultural education largely concerns itself with students who are already in school and does not address non-enrollment and dropout rates, which are serious issues and stands in stark contrast to the general enrollment rate. Fourth, it is apparent that South Korea’s multicultural education operates under a strong ideology of ethnic and cultural nationalism and
under a complex mechanism of hierarchy informed by neoliberal logic. We suggest four-part vision of what an inclusive and fair multicultural education might look like and what it might to take to achieve.

Significance of the Study

This study examines the effectiveness and fairness of multicultural programs and underlying ideology that operates such programs, which advances the discussion of multicultural education from liberal/democratic argument to critical/transformative pursuit, which has been largely absent in recent scholarly works. This study calls for a more fundamental call for expanding the notion of Korean peoplehood to embrace the growing diversity of Korea’s student population.

Authors

• Ji-Yeon O. Jo, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Minseung Jung, Korean National Open University