From homogeneity to plurality: Reimagining language policies for ‘multicultural’ children in South Korea | Melbourne Asia Review
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Customarily celebrated for its racial/ethnic, linguistic, and cultural unity, South Korea (henceforth Korea) has long leveraged this conceptualisation of homogeneity as a cornerstone for its national pride and identity. However, the forces of globalisation have ushered in a substantial demographic shift, with Korea now accommodating a significant influx of international visitors and residents. As of the latest available data, foreign nationals numbered 2,507,584, accounting for 4.89 percent of the overall population. According to the OECD standards, Korea stands at the threshold of a transformative period, poised to become a multiracial/ethnic, multilingual, and multicultural society.

Among varied groups, the first large-scale settlers moving to Korea have been female marriage migrants, primarily from less industrialised neighboring countries such as China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Typically wed to underprivileged Korean men, these women are perceived as a prospective remedy for chronic social problems such as declining fertility rates, an aging populace, and ongoing labor shortages. Yet, the ingrained idea of homogeneity in society has led to this form of family being labeled as ‘multicultural,’ a categorisation that subjects both marriage migrants and their mixed-race children to prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination.

This article revisits policies pertaining to ‘multicultural’ children and examines the political dynamics of language education vis-à-vis their positioning in Korea. It also aims to discuss more constructive strategies to bolster the well-being of these children.

Policies on developing ‘multicultural’ children’s linguistic repertoires

The surge in (contract) international marriages between Koreans and foreign nationals after the 2000s has prompted policy change, including the introduction of the Multicultural Families Support Act, the Master Plan for Immigration Policy, the Basic Plan for Multicultural Family Policy, and the Support Measures for Multicultural Education.

Among these various initiatives, central to language policies for ‘multicultural’ children is the teaching of Korean. These ‘mixed-race’ children are often presumed to inherit economic, linguistic, and cultural difficulties from their locally and globally disadvantaged parents, which may trigger developmental and educational challenges. Their hybridity in a society widely regarded as homogenous is thus seen as an issue to be addressed. This stereotype persists despite the fact that 90.9 percent of ‘multicultural’ children were born and raised in Korea, with most reporting no issues with communication in Korean. The assumption of inadequacy in Korean is evident in the very first version of the Multicultural Families Support Act, in which Article 10 explicitly urges state and local governments to provide educational materials and assist the teaching of the Korean language. It was only in 2013, six years after the law’s enactment, that a revision included heritage language education. Indeed, to rectify the perceived inadequacies in ‘multicultural’ children’s immersion in the Korean social fabric, all ministries involved in policies for ‘multicultural’ families offer (often remedial) Korean language courses and cultural awareness events via the newly established 200+ Multicultural Family Support Centers. This emphasis implicitly suggests that mastering Korean, whether as a first or primary language, along with an understanding of Korean culture, is key to becoming ‘genuine’ Koreans.

Notwithstanding the prevalent narrative that promotes monolingualism and monoculturalism, some policies seek to capitalise on ‘multicultural’ children’s linguistic and cultural hybridity to develop them into global human resources for Korea’s marketplace competitiveness. Measures such as bilingual instructor training programs, heritage language publications, and bilingual speech contests exemplify these efforts. However, as the very languages and cultures that frequently marginalise ‘multicultural’ children are in some contexts recognised as valuable assets, they face a tension between the longstanding priority on societal homogeneity and the emerging push toward embracing diversity. For example, on the one hand, these children are encouraged to be competent in their heritage languages, but on the other hand, their mastery might lead them to be marked as foreign. Additionally, if their Korean language development is not as advanced as that of other children, they could be deemed deficient, regardless of their proficiency in the languages spoken at home. The absence of many robust bilingual education options, such as dual language programs and content-and-language integrated learning (CLIL) programs, also complicates the situation, because it reflects the lack of systemic recognition of these languages and cultures within mainstream Korean society. The tendency to undervalue yet commodify their linguistic resources and social practices ultimately paves the way for the dehumanisation of ‘multicultural’ children.

In the midst of conflicting discourses that highlight Korean and sometimes endorse migrant languages, teaching ‘multicultural’ children English—a language of substantial symbolic power in Korea—is often neglected. This oversight goes beyond a mere weakness in the acquisition of a foreign language. In a social atmosphere where English is enthusiastically taught from a very early age, many ‘multicultural’ children begin to be exposed to English in the national curriculum only from Grade 3 owing to their family’s financial standing, despite their cognisance of the importance of English language education. As a result, a noticeable gap in English achievement exists between ‘multicultural’ children and their peers (see the longitudinal trajectories of their Korean and English proficiency for a more complex picture).

To be sure, I do not advocate for eloquence in English for all. Yet, the limited attention to ‘multicultural’ children’s learning of English can adversely affect their integration and chances for social mobility. For instance, they may encounter difficulties fully comprehending lessons in school, achieving higher academic success, and accessing broader educational opportunities. Their prospects for future employment may also be compromised, especially in sectors where English is a requisite. Moreover, the exclusion may undermine their self-esteem, deter their willingness to engage in various activities, and silence their voices. Dismissing the English educational needs of ‘multicultural’ children has the potential to perpetuate biased assumptions about their capabilities and confine them to lower socioeconomic strata.

Overall, in devising legislation and policies regarding ‘multicultural’ children and their language learning, the Korean State paradoxically maintains social hierarchies and reinforces dominant concepts related to ownership, authority, and authenticity, thereby essentialising what it means to be Korean. It propagates connections between a national language, membership in an ethnolinguistically defined group, and a specific geographical region. A manifestation of this form of exclusionary nationalism is the strong focus on assimilating ‘multicultural’ children into Korean language and culture. This framework presumes that people are innately monolingual and that monolingualism is an integral aspect of citizenship. It subsequently discourages the appreciation of heterogeneity and imposes ascriptive identities on ‘multicultural’ children. Nevertheless, language policies also function as arenas where various communities contest and renegotiate these norms. This dynamic is particularly evident in the everyday lives of ‘multicultural’ children. Their experiences highlight that the simplistic projections of language onto monolithic identities, as well as the neglect of inherently multilingual realities in Korea, no longer hold in the context of intensified globalisation.

Critical multicultural education and revisiting the notion of ‘Koreanness’

Given that more than two million foreign nationals live in Korea and that the number of school-aged ‘multicultural’ children reached approximately 3.5 percent of the total student population in 2023, a return to the old world is unfeasible. Every member of Korean society, therefore, needs to consider and reconcile the tension between ethnolinguistic nationalism and pluralism. One progressive means is to deconstruct the normality of a monolingual totality and combat the fears that multilingualism threatens national security. In this process, we must also dismantle cultural essentialism by questioning binary assumptions associated with ‘Koreanness’ and by revisiting the relationship between membership and legitimacy. Through these efforts to produce counter-hegemonic discourses, ‘multicultural’ children can expand their viable repertoires of identity, and Korean society can reassess the issue of integration within its territory. This would be a first step toward critical multicultural education.

Implementing bilingual programs in public education

Concrete ways to destabilise conventional language education are necessary. This subversion should first address the mismatch between the exclusive focus on Korean language and culture at the national and institutional levels and the complex, dynamic linguistic and cultural practices of ‘multicultural’ children at the interpersonal level. To defend their rights to learn their heritage languages in the public domain and to prepare for the imminent influx of multilingual children into schools, it is time for Korea to seriously explore the prospect of deploying quality public bilingual schools in areas with a high concentration of ‘multicultural’ children from the same linguistic background. For example, in Ansan, where the proportion of students from migrant backgrounds exceeds 80 percent in three elementary and middle schools, the government could survey the most dominant heritage languages spoken and begin offering well-designed bilingual programs in these pilot schools.

A possible and ideal form of bilingual schooling that could be implemented is a dual language program. Also known as two-way immersion, it is similar to Content-Based Instruction in North America or CLIL in Europe in that all three fuse language learning with content learning. Unlike a transitional program, where multilingual students start their academic journey in their home language before switching to Korean-medium instruction after a few years, a dual language program brings both minority and majority language speakers into a single classroom. In this setting, students are taught content areas in two languages, enabling them to learn from each other. This approach facilitates language acquisition, as well as valuing and nurturing all students’ emerging bilingualism. Given that the Ministry of Education launched nationwide bilingual instructor training programs in 2009 and that all bilingual instructors possess a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree and undergo six months of coursework at a Korean university, recruiting teachers who can instruct in children’s heritage languages should not be a significant issue. Considering the substantial number of international students within the country, it would also be feasible to recruit them as needed.

To amplify the benefits of dual language education nationwide, it is important to factor in a few key criteria. First, because of the unbalanced distribution of heritage languages among ‘multicultural’ children, it may not be realistic to introduce all these languages in pilot schools. In such cases, these languages could be taught as a subject during regular school hours to ensure that their symbolic value is recognised by the public education system. Second, to ascertain that qualified bilingual teachers can gain legitimate membership within the local teaching community, they must be given opportunities to participate in professional development and ultimately obtain teaching licence/credentials in public schools. The Ministry of Education should also collaborate with other ministries to support their legal status and job security. Third, dual language programs should be established in both primary and secondary schools to guarantee that children receive education over several years, allowing them to attain balanced language and literacy proficiencies in both languages, despite the challenge of achieving continuity in such long-term educational initiatives. Last but not least, these programs should be provided not just to ‘multicultural’ children but also to language-majority children, returnees, and children of migrant workers. This additional parameter is crucial because, in circumstances where non-English bilingual education is seen as applicable to ‘multicultural’ children alone, this more inclusive approach underscores the significance of multilingualism and multiculturalism for everyone. Only by reaching this consensus can dual language programs help resist assimilative and monolingual agendas, inhibit the suppression of minoritised groups’ funds of knowledge, and cultivate a more integrated society.

The promise of translanguaging as a pedagogical tool

When introducing dual language programs into the Korean public education system, it is essential to diverge from the orthodox notion of language as a monolithic entity composed of discrete skills. To move away from language separation ideologies and parallel monolingual models in bilingual education, these programs should aim to develop students’ ability to flexibly incorporate their entire linguistic repertoires. Translanguaging, a concept developed within this paradigm and reflective of communication patterns among multilingual subjects, involves leveraging a wide range of semiotic resources to understand and communicate meaning. By acknowledging the complex, changing, and interdependent nature of language and literacy behaviors, translanguaging promotes the ideological view of language as a set of evolving, temporal, and spatial social practices deeply intertwined with power dynamics.

For the past decade, many researchers and educators have endeavored to employ translanguaging as a pedagogical strategy. For instance, teachers model dynamic bilingualism and celebrate hybridity, allow students to codemesh in academic writing (by, for example, reshaping the context to permit multiple discursive practices and creating a mutually supportive and collaborative interactional environment), and draw on resources for designing multilingual instruction and assessment. These evidence-based methods affirm that, if well-integrated into schools, translanguaging can enrich the process of meaning-making, emphasise the multilingual potential inherent in all children, develop their confidence and identities as multilinguals, and bridge the knowledge divide between community and school. Indeed, such a model aligns well with the norms and aims of communication in a world that is becoming more multilingual.

A comment on the market pressures for English

Learning English holds equal importance for both ‘multicultural’ and ethnically Korean children, as access to English, or lack thereof, can either facilitate or impede meaningful engagement in domestic and global realms. Yet, the current educational environment fails to offer a blueprint for promoting plurilingualism among ‘multicultural’ children. In fact, it fosters subtractive bilingualism by causing them to lose their heritage languages and pressuring them to identify solely as Korean. This pattern starkly contrasts with the experience of native Korean children by descent, who are encouraged to achieve additive bilingualism in Korean and English. Therefore, discussions about language policies regarding ‘multicultural’ children must explicitly tackle the challenge of balancing the dominant influence of English with the imperative to preserve heritage languages in the domestic setting. Although it may sound challenging and ambitious, incorporating English into the vision of bilingual education for ‘multicultural’ children, hence transforming these programs into trilingual initiatives, needs to be more seriously considered in the future. Given that trilingual education has been successfully implemented in other parts of the world and that it is not necessary to perfect bilingual education before experimenting with trilingual education, it is timely to formulate more innovative approaches that afford minoritised children crucial avenues to demonstrate proficiency in different languages and cultures.

Conclusion

Beyond ‘multicultural’ children in Korea, an increasing number of children growing up in a globalised context speak languages at home that differ from the mainstream language used in society. This means that rigidly enforcing a single language would inevitably disadvantage children whose home language deviates from the norm. To ensure non-discriminatory learning opportunities for all children, future policy measures must promote carefully designed, robust, and effective polyglot projects and support translanguaging practices. Certainly, dramatically changing ideologies tied to (pure, native, standard) language, identity, and patriotism, which help sustain current economic and political structures, will be difficult. However, because upholding monolingual and monoglossic ideologies will continue to threaten social justice and educational equity, it is imperative to nurture the principles of pluralism. This would first and foremost involve advocating for everyone and their right to learn and use various linguistic and semiotic resources creatively, thereby maximising communicative potential.

Image: Gwangjang Market, Seoul. Credit: Patrick Vierthaler/Flickr.

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'multicultural' children homogeneity identity language policy marriage migrants South Korea