Multicultural Education Policy in South Korea: Current Struggles and Hopeful Vision

Abstract

The global immigration of people has increased the call by governments for multicultural education. Across the globe, in country after country, multicultural education have come to represent the theory and practice to teach majority and minority citizens and immigrants and to explore issues of policy and practice as it relates to: ethnicity, religion, gender, immigration, language and race. This article is concerned with the approach to multicultural education that the South Korean government has employed to meet the needs of its people and those of immigrants and South Korean citizens. Using framework of “politics of difference” and five different approaches of multicultural education discussed by Grant and Sleeter, the article examines how South Korea’s multicultural education policy treats new comers as ”different.” This article argues the significance of movement from a discourse about cultural difference to multicultural social justice education that challenge oppression and structural inequality and illuminate the politics of difference.