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Interrogating Belonging for Young People in Schools pp 93–115Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

‘I am Korean’: Contested Belonging in a ‘Multicultural’ Korea

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Abstract

This chapter examines the politics of belonging through the inter-ethnic relations of primary school children in South Korea. Drawing on ethnographic and interview data of 11–12 year olds from monoethnic and multiethnic Korean family backgrounds, this chapter examines multiethnic and monoethnic children’s experiences of racialised difference in the forced togetherness of school, how children navigate feelings of contested belonging, and their experiences of peer sociality, rejection and marginalisation. Going beyond multicultural education, cultural or linguistic assimilation and an imagined national Korean identity, this chapter argues for an affective understanding of belonging in a society grappling with the meaning of belonging in the face of increasing racial, ethnic and cultural diversity, past and present nation-building, and intensifying globalisation.

For the purposes of this paper and for stylistic reasons, hereafter, ‘Korea’ and ‘Koreans’ will refer to the Republic of Korea/South Korea and South Koreans.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The possibility for these opportunities was supported by increased democratic reform especially after the inauguration of the first democratically elected civilian president Kim Young-sam in 1993.

  2. 2.

    In 2012, 95% of the budget for social integration programmes (about $1 billion) was allocated to multicultural families (Draudt 2016, p. 15).

  3. 3.

    In Korea, a person is one-year-old when they are born. Also, on the first day of the Lunar New Year, everyone becomes a year older.

  4. 4.

    Based on 2014 statistics, the average number of students from multiethnic backgrounds at elementary schools in Gyeonggi province is about 9.7 per school (KESS 2014). Gyeonggi province has the highest number of multiethnic elementary school students compared to the other provinces. However, in terms of the proportion of total multicultural students to the total number of elementary students, other provinces have a higher ratio (e.g., Jeollanam province is 3.46 and Gyeonggi province is 1.59) (KESS 2014).

  5. 5.

    This method is based on an exercise used by Smith (2005) with 9–11 year old children to understand friendship networks and issues of belonging from their perspectives.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Deakin University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Jessica Walton

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  1. Jessica Walton
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Correspondence to Jessica Walton .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Christine Halse

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Walton, J. (2018). ‘I am Korean’: Contested Belonging in a ‘Multicultural’ Korea. In: Halse, C. (eds) Interrogating Belonging for Young People in Schools. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75217-4_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75217-4_5

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-75216-7

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