Uncovering monolingual ideologies embedded in South Korean multicultural education

ABSTRACT

Despite an increasing number of children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds living in South Korea, their languages have not received sufficient attention in Korean schools and society. This article aims to identify the language ideologies operating in Korea by examining the ways languages are situated in multicultural research and practices. To present the background of the study, the author reviews the demographic complexity of the culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) populations in terms of language and ethnicity. Then, by examining multicultural research and policies regarding use and education of diverse languages in Korea, the author argues that three interrelated language ideologies (language stratification, double standards in multilingual education, and deficit and remedial paradigms towards multilinguals) underlie Korean multicultural education, supporting monolingualism rather than multilingualism. The article highlights the discrimination and inequity that minoritized students encounter when their languages are not considered cultural capital or a valued part of their identities. Then, the author offers the following suggestions for redesigning multicultural education in Korea: providing institutional support for multilingual teachers, integrating critical multilingualism in teacher education, and implementing translanguaging practices in language classrooms.

KEYWORDS:

• South Korea
• multicultural education
• multilingualism
• language ideology
• CLD students
• linguistic inequity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Due to the complexities and insensitivity of the Korean terms, ‘damunhwa’ and ‘ijungeoneo,’ this article uses the terms ‘CLD’ and ‘multilingualism’ instead, except in cases where the Korean terms are necessary in reference to specific Korean research or policy.

2 The term Chosunjok is commonly used in China and Korea. It originates from China where it is the standard demonym for people of Korean origin. However, in Korea, there is a growing awareness that the term is discriminatory since a term like ‘Korean Chinese’ would be more appropriate, just as Koreans living in the U.S. and Japan are called as ‘Korean Americans’ and ‘Korean Japanese’ respectively.

3 This section cites an 860-page government report by MOGEF (2019) comprehensively because 70.1% of a total sample household (17,550 out of 25,053 households) completed the surveys. The surveys have been conducted in collaboration with the Korean Statistical Information Service in 2009, 2012, 2015, and 2018.

4 The numbers in the report represent the proportion of people who responded 4(Agree) and 5(Strongly Agree) on the 5-point Likert scale.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the 2023 Research Fund of Seoul National University of Education.

Notes on contributors

Eun-Young Jang

Eun-Young Jang is an associate professor in the Graduate Program of Multicultural Education at Seoul National University of Education, South Korea. She received a Ph. D. in Language, Literacy, and Culture from Vanderbilt University, USA. Her academic interests are critical pedagogy, multiculturalism, multilingualism, and teacher education. Topics covered in her recent scholarly work include pedagogical translanguaging for linguistically minoritized students and multilingual teacher education.