Designing new Korean mothers, daughters-in-law, and wives: an analysis of Korean textbooks for newly arrived marriage migrants in South Korea

Abstract

Abstract Textbooks are sociocultural materials, reflecting political decisions, educational beliefs and priorities, cultural realities and language policies. As part of a larger ethnographic study which investigated the multilingual socialization of foreign wives in South Korea, I present the nature and extent of the gender-making process through an analysis of Korean textbooks for recently arrived female marriage migrants, which provides an understanding of the extent to which gender and race are ingrained in shaping linguistic nationalism in globalized times. I first introduce a four-stage life cycle designed by the South Korean government and situate Korean textbook series called Korean Language Learning With International Marriage Migrant Women as an intervention used early in the settlement period for foreign mothers. Then, I analyze the textual and multimodal representation of family identities taken from six textbook series, focusing on lessons, dialogues, and characters that are presented. The results of the study demonstrate how the state presents its attempts to transform foreign wives into a new type of ‘wise mother good wife’ in the globalized, multilingual world. I demonstrate the ways in which state-driven gender identity production is not simply (re)producing the gender divide but also aligned with nation-making processes that are facing challenges in these globalized times.