Learning Experiences of Young Adults with Immigrant Background in Local Communities in South Korea

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

South Korea is presently one of the globalized countries with large number of foreign population in which multiculturalism is importantly considered in its policies (Watson, J Contem Asia 40:337–346, 2010; Kim and Jeon, Curric Perspect 37:181–189, 2017). Yet, little consideration has been given to multiculturalism and young adults with immigrant background in South Korea. This study invites a critical perspective to examine how multiculturalism has influenced the horizon of lifelong education and adult learning and how young adults with immigrant background have been affected by that. As the members of second-generation multicultural families, they consist of two heterogeneous groups, either South Korean-born or foreign born: while Korean-born group of young adults was born and raised by international marriage of Korean men and foreign women, those of foreign-born belong to multicultural step families who are invited to Korea mostly in their teens by one of their parents’ remarriage with Korean nationals. Taking all these into account, they seem to have more differences than similarities in terms of their race/ethnicity, language, culture, and the experiences through their youth period but are indeed similarly positioned at the margin of Korean society, where their complex identities drawn by immigrant background have hardly gotten attention yet. As a part of a nationwide study on young adults with immigrant background in South Korea, this study adapts qualitative methodology and aims to identify the features of learning experiences of ten young immigrants, questioning how they have struggled to be adults and envisioned their future in Korea or elsewhere. As results, it has revealed that during the process of growing into an adult both groups of young adults have shared their stories in which their identity becomes vulnerability when they try to access to educational or learning networks and resources. Despite difficulties, they reported they have pursued Korean formal and non-formal education and learning programs with bilingual and bicultural competencies while struggled with identity confusion, discrimination, and lack of social networks where the more inclusive learning supports in Korea would have played for their ways to stably settle in their early adulthood. This study suggests that lifelong education policies in Korea should meet their diverse needs of learning in transition to adulthood in local communities and make a step forward to a more inclusive and equitable society.