Hayann Lee 

Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

South Korea, Sеоul

E-mail: bulgariyann@gmail.com

Abstract: The aim of the article is to present the results of an analysis of some educational perspectives of multicultural families in South Korea. The first part of the article focuses on a brief theoretical observation on some terms such as ‘official language’ and ‘mother tongue’ as well as the terms ‘multicultural family’, ‘multicultural student’, ‘multicultural teenager’, ‘multicultural classroom’, ‘multicultural education’, etc. The second part of the article is dedicated to elucidating the current state in Korea where the existence of multicultural students has led to the need to formulate and implement a specific educational policy treating the current multicultural diversity of the contemporary Korean society.

Keywords: Korea, school, multicultural family, multicultural student.

Terminological aspects of the study

In this part of the article, we aim to develop a theoretical framework by introducing some basic terms typical of studies on language policies, such as identity, multiculturalism, multicultural students, multicultural family, bilingualism, multilingualism. The reason why we focus on these terms is that the underlying concept differs from the concept adopted in Korea. The Korean, word for multiculturalism is Damunhwa. While most countries have vague and ambiguous multicultural policies consisting of either forcing immigrants to assimilate to the local culture or allowing immigrants to integrate while keeping their traditions, Korea has come up with the concept of Damunhwa. [1] Derived from this, in Korea we talk about multicultural students and multicultural family. Below is a summary of the terminological aspect of the presented study.

Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism has a wide range of meanings in different scientific fields, even in every-day use. For example, in sociology multiculturalism is synonymous to “ethnic pluralism” which refers to various ethnic groups collaborating and entering into a dialogue without having to sacrifice their own identities.

Multiculturalism (Damunwha)

The basic idea is for Koreans to learn as much as they can about immigrants’ original culture while setting up as many cultural immersion programs for immigrants as possible. Although the country has long defined itself as homogenous, foreign residents are now about 5 percent of the population and multiculturalism has become an important question.

In Korea, immigration policies are strict. Migrant workers can renew their visa for only three years before they are forced to leave the country. They cannot bring their family members with them to Korea. Those with investor visas need to invest large sums (approximately 100,000 dollars) to stay in Korea, barring immigrants from investing in small shops, grocery stores, or small restaurants as is the case in many other countries. People who marry Koreans now have to demonstrate proficiency in one of the languages their spouse speaks. Foreign workers have their visas tied to their employer and do not own the visa, which in practice means restrictions on job hopping.

Multicultural family (Damunhwa gajok)

A multicultural family in South Korea is a family made up of people without a background in Korean culture. As the number of multicultural families increased in Korean society, the number of children in multicultural families also increased. New policies have been created to respond to the problems faced by children of multicultural families.

Multicultural students (Damunwha haksaeng)

In Korea, students who come from multicultural families are termed Multicultural students refers to students or Damunwha haksaeng in Korean. Korean multicultural students are largely divided into children of international marriage families and children of foreigner families, and its division is as follows.

1. Children of an international marriage family: only one parent between two parents has a foreign nationality.

2. Children born in Korea: children who were born in Korea among the children born between a Korean and foreigner.

3. Children who entered the country: children who were born in a foreign country among the children of an international marriage family and entered Korea with their parents.

4. Children of a foreigners’ family: both of the biological parents have a foreign nationality.

Official language and mother tongue

An official language is a language used for official purposes, especially as the medium of a national government (MacArthur, 1998) [2] This means that it is given a special legal status.

Mother tongue or mother language refers to a child’s first language, the language learned in the home from older family members (UNESCO, 2003). [3] A related term, home language, refers to the language or languages spoken in the student’s home.

The adult education survey (AES) initiated by the European Commission in 2017, proves that a mother tongue is understood to mean the first language learned at home in childhood. In bilingual homes, the language of either the father or of the mother could be the most dominant, in the sense that it is used for in-house communication, or it could be that both the languages of the mother and father are used, in which case the respondent reports having more than one ‘mother tongue’ (European Commission (2017) [4].

There are cases among the EU Member States where there is more than one ‘official language’ — for example, in Belgium there are three (German, French and Dutch). However, it is not necessarily the case that these official languages coincide with the ‘mother tongue(s)’ of the respondent and if they only speak one of these at home, then the others are considered (for the purpose of this article) as foreign languages.

Similarly, a relatively large proportion of people living in the EU were not born in the Member State where they are resident. Many of these people may have a different mother tongue from the official languages where they are resident, for example, a person who has Russian as their mother tongue living in the United Kingdom. When the survey was conducted this person should reply that Russian is their ‘mother tongue’, while (for the purpose of this article) English would be considered as a foreign language (given the respondent has some knowledge of the English language).

It is important to note that — in spite of the existence of these rules to be applied when collecting the AES data — countries could also implement national preferences when developing their questionnaires.

Bulgaria in particular has been reported to Eurostat about the national collection of foreign languages. Bulgarian was considered as a foreign language for people not speaking Bulgarian as their first mother tongue in the 2007 AES, but not anymore in the 2011 AES. Slovakian, too, was not considered as a foreign language in the Czech survey, while Czech is considered as a foreign language in the Slovakian survey (Eurostat (2018) [5].

Mother tongue in Korea (Moguger)

The Mother tongue in Korea is Korean. Korean, also referred to as Hangul, is the national and official language in South Korea as well as in North Korea. The language is drastically different from western languages. 77.2 million people across the world use Korean as their native language. The language is mainly used in five countries, i.e. in South Korea (48.4 million), North Korea (23.3 million), China (2.71 million), Japan (905,000) and Russia (42,400). Only Korean and Turkish saw their number of language-users rise by tens of millions according to the latest data released by Ethnologue. [6] [7]

First, second, local and indigenous language

A first language, native language, or mother/father/parent tongue (also known as arterial language or L1) is a language that a person has been exposed to from birth [8]. In some countries, the term native language or mother tongue refers to the language of one’s ethnic group rather than one’s first language. [9] Children brought up speaking more than one language can have more than one native language, and be bilingual or multilingual. By contrast, a second language is any language that one speaks other than one’s first language. [10]

The term local language refers to the language spoken in the homes and market places of a community, as distinguished from a regional, national or international language. According to the 2008 UNESCO report on issues related to mother tongue (UNESCO 2008) [11] the term indigenous language refers to the language spoken uniquely by an indigenous community and/or with origins in a given community or country (Spolsky, 2002) [12].

National and minority language

In some parts of the world the term national language is used (including subSaharan Africa) to refer to languages unique to the nation as distinguished from international languages (cf. Tabi-Manga, 2000) [13]. In other countries, ‘national language’ refers to the official language (Bamgbose, 1991). [14].

Minority language refers to the language spoken by a numerically smaller population and/or to the language spoken by a politically marginalized population whatever its size (UNESCO, 2003) [15]. In the second case, the term minoritized language is sometimes used (Lewis and Trudell, 2008). [16]

Bilingual and multilingual education [17].

Bilingual education refers primarily to the use of two languages in a formal education system (UNESCO, 2003) [18]. The most common type of bilingual education (also called mother-tongue-based bilingual education) attempts to use the students’ mother tongue somehow in the curriculum. The more extensive the use of the mother tongue for instruction, the ‘stronger’ the bilingual education programme is considered to be (Malone, 2008). [19].

Multilingual education refers to the formal use of more than two languages on the curriculum (UNESCO, 2003). [20]. Countries with multiple regional languages of wider communication or more than one official language may support multilingual education that includes children’s mother tongues and the more widely spoken languages of the nation. In this case, too, a multilingual education programme is considered ‘stronger’ as the mother tongue is used more extensively as a medium of instruction.

EU perspectives on Multilingualism

The EU announced its mother tongue+2 language education policy during the 2002 Barcelona European Council. It was decided to implement bilingual education so that EU citizens would be able to have a command of two or more foreign languages (languages of neighboring and international countries) plus their mother language. The EU is a multicultural and multilingual space with currently 24 official languages.

Looking at member countries, there are countries that have 2 or 3 official languages, so multiculturalism in Europe is a universal societal phenomenon. In this sense, multiculturalism is an important tool in promoting vitalization of minority, regional, and immigrants’ languages within the whole of Europe or member countries, and maintaining linguistic diversity by protecting languages on the brink of extinction.

On the other hand, multilingualism is also a solution to various problems of communication that can occur in a multilingual society. Multilingual speakers are also big economical contributors to the European society, and this, too, is from the anticipation that it can partially resolve the issues of economical aspect and communication.

It is possible to consider the language policy implemented by the EU and the Council of Europe as a convergent one (Stoicheva, 2006) [21]. In this context, we need to look into the Council of Europe’s vision of language policy. It emphasizes on multilingualism as a policy with respect toward minority languages and cultures, and consideration for the minorities. But this is based on the situational premise that all languages of Europe are equally educated and have become a tool of communication, so if the issue of authority among languages isn’t alleviated, and multilingual education opportunity isn’t provided to Europe citizens, including immigrants, it will just end up being an impossible concept.

According to the Language policy division of the Council of Europe, while ‘plurilinguism’ designates societal coexistence and usage aspect of various languages used in a certain region, ‘multilingualism’ describes an ability to be able to have a command of various languages within the ability of a speaker who can speak two or more languages.

Therefore, a multilingual speaker’s linguistic repertoire consists of two or more languages alongside one’s mother language. The concept of multilingualism proposed by the Council of Europe is based on the following two premises.

First, all humans have the inherent ability to learn multiple languages, so everyone is a potential multilingual speaker, and second, all humans are able to learn a new language in any point of their life. Multilingualism as defined by the Council of Europe bases itself on the human’s ability of multilingual acquisition, prioritizes itself as creating ability to use multiple languages.

Bilingual speakers or multilingual speakers in Bloomfieldian terms [22] were designations for those who have a perfect command of two or more languages like their mother language. Since Bloomfield’s times, extremely diverse concepts of bilingualism have been proposed, from an opinion of extreme objection against perfect bilingualism, which claimed that an ability in any one of the four linguistic areas should be considered bilingual [[23]] or Gros Jean, who claimed a bilingual speaker isn’t the sum of two monolingual speakers [24], and to recent research, which has demonstrated the linguistic cultural hybridity of bilingual speakers. But instead of depending on any one of these theories, the Council of Europe functionally selects diverse dimensions of bilingualism under a unification policy.

For example, in the language policy of the Council of Europe, multilingual education based on intercultural respect, which doesn’t identify linguistic diversity of immigrants as a tool for discrimination within the resident country, is emphasized. This can be seen as multilingualism which reinforces the language unification policy, and development of multilingual abilities in an intercultural context can be seen as a supplementary societal solidarity, by also serving as educational role which identifies linguistic diversity of the others, through self-perception of linguistic diversity. Secondly, existence of difference of standard by language is acknowledged in multilingual ability, and this standard is certified as a tool of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. (2001) [25] and this is also related to societal and economical activities of immigrants. Thirdly, the view that each language on the multilingual list of immigrants have a different function. For example, a mother language, as a communication tool domestically, can act to symbolize cultural identity within individual and communal units, and the language of the resident country can fulfill the role of handling occupational and societal functions within the society immigrants are transferring to.

Above all, it is worth noting that linguistic ability in the language of the resident country is emphasized for reinforcing competency within EU’s employment market, and, by extension, as a tool for fulfilling EU economic goals.

Integration Laws and Multiculturalism Policies in Korea

Korea has long seen itself as a monocultural country, however, immigration patterns over the past decades have begun to change not only the actual situation but also the way multiculturalism is understood and treated in South Korea. That is why it is important to establish what is understood by multiculturalism in the context of South Korea, if and how this understanding has changed and what policies on multiculturalism have been implemented. In addition, issues related to multicultural education policies and practices need to be researched.

Several factors have led to the adoption of certain integration laws and multiculturalism policies in South Korea. Among them are the rising numbers of immigrants and the economic destitution of and ethno-cultural discrimination towards migrant brides. Despite the voices of conservative Korean media, which proposed the idea that migrant brides and their mixed-ethnic children were potentially more of a source of social unrest and violence than of a relief to the country’s demographic problems (Kim, 2014) [26], the Roh Moo-Hyun administration asked the Presidential Committee on Aging Society and Population Policy to draw up plans for the creation of a ‘multicultural society’. The result was that the Roh administration implemented ‘multicultural’ integration laws and policies, i.e. the ‘Basic Law on the Treatment of Foreigners in Korea’ (2007), the ‘Multicultural Education’ (2007) and the ‘Multicultural Family Support Law’ (2008). Since the introduction of the above, however, Korean researchers have criticized the government’s understanding of ‘multiculturalism’. Thus the Roh Moo-Hyun administration first started using the word ‘multicultural’ as a ‘politically correct replacement’ for the term ‘mixed-blood’. According to Lee (2015) [27], subsequent Korean governments have used the term ‘multicultural family’ to refer to families consisting of a Korean spouse and a spouse with ‘ethnic or cultural backgrounds different from’ native Koreans’. The question of how far Korean governments recognize the objective diversity in Korean society and to what extent these laws affect the status of migrant brides and children of mixed ethnic origins arises here.

The Korean National Assembly adopted the ‘Basic Law on the Treatment of Foreigners in Korea’ (the Basic Law) in 2007. According to Younghee Shim (2010) [28], the Basic Law aims to “help foreigners in Korea adapt to Korean society and to use their individual abilities fully and to contribute to the development and social integration of Korea”. However, the law itself can be seen more as a declaration of intent as it does not contain formultaions on specific policies. Its importance cannot be denied, however, as it poses the requirement for the Korean government to formulate a ‘Basic Plan for Immigration Policy’ every five years in order to specify the country’s concrete integration programs.

Thus in 2008 the ‘First Basic Plan for Immigration Policy’ (hereafter: Basic Plan) was adopted by the Lee Myung-Bak administration. This Basic Plan is aimed at solving migrant brides’ socio-economic and ethno-cultural discrimination problems but the sources of these are attributed to migrant brides’ failure to adapt to the Korean society. It is noted that ‘the failure of immigrants through marriage to adapt to Korean society undermines the foundation of families and incurs major social costs… Despite their having lived in Korea for a long time, most immigrants through marriage lack sufficient knowledge of the Korean language and culture to live conveniently in Korea… Insufficient understanding of Korean society exposes migrants through marriage to discrimination and human rights abuses’.

The Korean government’s understanding of ‘multiculturalism’ as policies on non-ethnic Korean migrants is also reflected in the ‘Multicultural Family Support Law’ (hereafter: MFSL). The MFSL is the first and only law which carries out the policies detailed in the Basic Plan. The MFSL does so by providing existing migrant support NGOs with project-based funding to function as Multicultural Family Support Centers (hereafter: MFSCs). This means actually providing government-sanctioned services to ‘multicultural families’. Although MFSCs seems to target ‘multicultural families’ in the broadest sense, in reality they only provide services to the primary targets of South Korea’s immigration policies: migrant brides and their children (Kim, 2014) [29].

According to researchers, the MFSCs support programs actually lead to assimilating migrant brides into Korean society culture so that they can bring up their children as ‘Korean’ children. MFSCs do this by offering their support services based on preconceived notions of Korean women’s life-cycles. These pass from ‘preparation for marriage’, to ‘pregnancy and child-birth’, to ‘child-rearing’ and ‘entering the labor market. As such, MFSCs prioritize migrant brides’ role as mothers regardless of these brides’ educational background, work experience or career goals and expect them to go through the same cycles as the ideal ‘Korean woman’ (Younghee Shim, 2010) [30].

In addition, Kim (2011) [31] notes that MFSCs provide Korean language and culture classes to migrant brides through the Korean Immigration and Integration Program; provide marriage education to Korean spouses; provide support for victims of domestic violence; provide pre- and post-natal care in the form of home-visits by child-rearing specialists before birth and nurse-support specialists after birth, provide education on ‘good parenthood’ and provide education which teaches parents to assist their children with reading, writing and homework; prevent discrimination against members of multicultural families and offer extracurricular Korean language and culture classes to Korean children. Thus, MFSCs emphasize migrant brides’ reproductive function and multicultural families’ assimilation into Korean society.

Another example of recent legal changes is the fact that the Ministry of Health and Welfare (2011: 265) [32] recently declared that it will provide all ‘multicultural families’ with subsidies on childcare and education for children between 0 and 5 years old, regardless of their income. By providing migrant brides with benefits through MFSC support measures and special subsidies, the Korean government expects to relieve migrant brides’ socio-economic problems and thus continue to use these brides as a tool to solve South Korea’s economic problems. Simultaneously however, these special support measures have a significant downside for migrant brides’ social integration. Namely, as the government provides support programs through the MFSL and not through the regular welfare system, these support measures are only available to migrant brides and not to native Koreans with similar socio-economic problems. As a result, to speak in Radtke’s terms (2010) [33]. the governments’ ‘multicultural’ support policies create ‘the migrant bride’ as a separate, minority social group and thus makes itс differences irreconcilable with the majority population.

In conclusion, South Korea’s ‘multicultural’ laws and support measures intend to resolve migrant brides’ most stringent problems of economic destitution and ethno-cultural discrimination. However, these support measures are predicated on migrant brides’ function in reproducing the Korean nation and on their assimilation into Korean society. In fact, rather than instituting a multiculturalism predicated on the notion of recognizing difference, the South Korean government attributes migrant brides’ economic problems and problems of socio-cultural discrimination to their lack of understanding ‘Korean culture’. In doing so, the South Korean government fails to renegotiate Korea’s mono-ethnic, mono-cultural national identity with South Korea’s society at large, which relegates those migrant brides and mixed-ethnic children that fail to meet the ethnic and cultural norms of ‘Koreanness’ to positions of second-class citizenship.

What further exacerbates this problem is the fact that support measures aimed at multicultural families constitute ‘the migrant bride’ and her ‘multicultural family’ as dependent social groups and thus perpetuate their differences from South Korea’s ‘indigenous’ population. This speaks of the need for the South Korean government to engage Korean society as a whole to negotiate its self-identification with a mono-ethnic, mono-cultural national identity in order to facilitate the easierintegration of immigrations as South Korean citizens. In order to see whether and how the South Korean government aims to do so, the next chapter investigates how the contents of South Korea’s ‘multicultural education’ re-negotiate what it means to ‘Korean’ in Korea’s multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society.

Korea’s Initiatives in Multicultural Education

As noted above, the Korean society has been diversifying. According to a recent study, 43,121, or 13.6%, of the total marriages reported in 2005 were international marriages, 35% of which occurred in fishery and agricultural areas. In addition, workers from foreign countries rapidly increased to 630,027. Saeteomin (North Korean defectors) have also steadily increased since the great flood of 1995, reaching 1,387 in 2015 [34].

In fact, this phenomenon of diversity has led to Korean society becoming more open and to its economy growing up to the top ten economies in the world.

In parallel to this diversification of society, a number of issues have arisen in the field of education. For instance, multicultural children from international marriages have to deal with many obstacles: poor language skills lead to confusion and a state of isolation. children of foreign workers face the failure of attending schools [35].

Efforts have been made to actively support children of multicultural background since 2000: Proposals on “The Act for Protection and Support of Immigrant Families.” Intended to provide a compulsory multicultural education and government welfare for immigrants by marriage, “The Act to Support Inter-Racial Families’ requiring schools to provide them with education based on anti-discrimination and non-prejudice ground, and ‘The Act to Support Multicultural Families’ requiring members of multicultural families to learn the Korean language and to be educated for social adaptation (Office of Lawmaker Gyeong Hwa Ko, 2006, 2007) [36]. Additionally, the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development announced the ‘Plan to Educate Children of Multicultural Families’ in 2006 and 2007, urged its implementation, and revised the National Curriculum adding ‘Multicultural Education’ as a subject.

Multicultural students in Korea

The first survey on multicultural students in Korea was carried out in 2012. A look at the resulting numbers for four years only confirms the number of multicultural students has been increasing quickly.

Classification	Total	Elementary School	Middle School	High School
2012	46,776	33,740	9,627	3,409
2013	55,498	39,360	11,280	4,858
2014	67,465	48,225	12,506	6,734
2015	82,135	60,162	13,827	8,146

Table 1 Number of Multicultural students in South Korea

The number of multicultural students has increased by about 10 thousand since 2012. The number of multicultural students in 2016 was about 98 thousand which is 1.68% of total students in South Korea.

The ratio of all multicultural students shows a similar trend according to the respective region size; the ratio of multicultural students among the total number of students was high in the following order – isolated areas, towns, small and medium-sized cities, and metropolis. As for the elementary school, the ratio of multicultural students in metropolises and small and medium cities out of the total number of students is 2.2%; about 2 out of 100 men are multicultural students – 5.4% in towns, and 8.4% in isolated areas. This trend appears similar in middle schools and high schools as well. The ratio of multicultural students is higher on islands than in cities and megalopolises; this phenomenon appears similar in middle schools and high schools as well. The ratio in Jeollanamdo was the highest with 5.1% and the one in Gyeonggido was the lowest with 2.4%.

When it comes to the change of the multicultural student ratio by their parents’ homelands according to the year, while Japan accounted for the largest percentage with 27.5% in 2012, this number rapidly decreased to 13.0% in 2016; Vietnam accounted for the smallest percentage of 7.3% among parents’ homelands in 2012 but it increased to occupy the largest percentage of 24.2% in 2016. While multicultural families from Chinese parents increased by 4.9% from 16.4% in 2012 to 21.3% in 2016, multicultural families from Korean-Chinese parents decreased by 5.0% from 17.4% in 2012 to 12.4% in 2016. When it comes to the number of multicultural students by their parents’ homelands in 2016, the first place belongs to Vietnam followed by China, Japan, and the Philippines.

Different South Korean governments have promoted the marriage migration of migrant brides in order to solve the demographic problem of a low national birthrate and low rates of marriage in the countryside. Consequently, the number of children born out of ‘multicultural families’ increased rapidly, from 44,258 children in 2007 to 183,732 in 2015 [37]. Since the majority of these children has been born in the previous five years, 67,806 of these children are currently of school age – 47,297 of them (71.2%) attend elementary school. Although this number seems small, the amount of ‘multicultural students’ as a percentage of the total number of South Korean students has increased rapidly, from 0.44% in 2010 to 1.07% in 2014 (Ministry of Education , 2015: 1). ) [38]

Multicultural students face various interrelated problems at school, which prevents them from equal participation in the South Korean education system. Among the most significant issues are their underdeveloped Korean language abilities, a poorly developed scholastic attitude and being socially excluded by their Korean native peers. One of the official responses to this situation was the announcement of the Roh Moo-Hyun administration in 2006 that the South Korean government would implement ‘multicultural education’ in Korean schools “as a solution to underachievement in schooling and minority disintegration” (Lee, 2015) [39]. Later, the Lee Myung-Bak administration implemented ‘multicultural education’ in 2009 as part of the seventh curriculum. This development is important because the national school system, as one of the state’s primary tools for nation-building, has the potential to bridge the difference between South Korea’s multi-ethnic, multi-cultural reality and the vision of a mono-ethnic, mono-cultural national community which is still dominant among the South Korean population.

It is indisputable that this ‘picture’ is very complex and it is the result of many interrelated factors, among which the influence of mass media. It has also been established that South Korean elementary school textbooks provide one-dimensional descriptions of nation-states in which they do not distinguish between ethnic and cultural variety within the nation-states in question. One ‘instrument’ in this process are school books. For example, South Korea’s elementary school textbooks do not recognize, to speak in Parekh’s (2010) [40] terms that ‘cultures’ contain a plurality of elements. Rather, by conflating culture, ethnicity and nation into one essential, homogeneous image these textbooks teach students that cultures, ethnic groups and nations are mutually exclusive. Furthermore, as these textbooks combine essential descriptions of ‘Other’ nations with subjective narratives on the relative development or ‘historical character’ of these nations, textbooks do not ‘reduce prejudice’ but rather perpetrate the existing ‘hierarchy of nations’ in elementary students’ national imaginary’. Thus these textbooks abet the perpetuation of negative stereotypes toward ‘multicultural families’ nation-states of origin, such as ‘underdeveloped’ Vietnam or ‘hostile’ Japan.

Conclusion

It is clear that diversity is a natural state of contemporary societies. However, the way diversity is perceived by a society’s members and whether it is catered for to a large extent depends on the ways in which the existing education policies treats multiculturalism and helps the younger generations (and with them – their parents and teachers) respect multiculturalism and see it as a societal asset. Although Korea has generally started to acknowledge the fact that the Korean society is not monolithic anymore and certain legal changes have been adopted, here is still a lot to do in this respect.

References and Notes:

[1] South-Korea Redefines Multiculturalism. (2014). The Diplomat, 18 July 2018, https://thediplomat.com/2014/07/korea-redefines-multiculturalism/, Retrieved on 10.10.2018.

[2] MacArthur, T. (1998). Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford University Press: Oxford.

[3] UNESCO (2003). Education in a multilingual world, Published in 2003 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

[4] European Commission (2017). Working group Labour market statistics. TF2: Detailed topic on ‘Labour market situation of migrants and their immediate descendants.

[5] Eurostat (2018). Foreign language skills statistics. Statistics explained. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Foreign_language_skills_statistics

[6] Simons, G. F. & Fennig, C. D. (2018). (Eds.). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Twenty-first edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com. Retrieved on 10.10.2018.

[7] 77.2 million people use Korean as mother tongue (2014). Korea.net.15 May 2014,

http://www.korea.net/NewsFocus/Society/view?articleId=119391

[8] Bloomfield, L. (1984). Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[9] Davies, A. (2003). The Native Speaker: Myth and Reality (Bilingual Education and Bilingualism). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

[10] Saniei, A. (2011). Who Is An Ideal Native Speaker?! , English Language Department, Science and Research Branch. International Conference on Languages, Literature and Linguistics IPEDR vol.26, IACSIT Press, Singapore. http://www.ipedr.com/vol26/16-ICLLL%202011-L00033.pdf, Retrieved on 10.10.2018.

[11] UNESCO (2008). Mother tongue matters: local language as a key to effective learning.

[12] Spolsky, B. (2002). Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[13] Tabi-Manga, Jean. (2000). Les politiques linguistiques du Cameroun. Essai d’aménagement linguistique. Paris: Karthala.

[14] Bamgbose, A. (1991). Language and the Nation. The Language Question in Sub-Sahara Africa. England: Englewood University Press. https://www.scirp.org/(S(351jmbntvnsjt1aadkposzje))/reference/ReferencesPapers.aspx?ReferenceID=1414918, Retrieved on 10.10.2018.

[15]. Minority language refers to the language spoken by a numerically smaller population and/or to the language spoken by a politically marginalized population whatever its size (UNESCO, 2003)

[16] Lewis, M. P. & Trudell, B. (2007). Language cultivation in contexts of multiple community languages, in: B. Spolsky, F. M. Hult (eds.) Handbook of educational linguistics. Oxford, Blackwell, 266-279.

[17] Education in a multilingual world, Published in 2003 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

[18] UNESCO (2003). Education in a multilingual world, Published in 2003 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

[19] Malone, D. (2008). Mother-Tongue-based Multilingual Education in Multilingual Contexts: How Strong Must It Be? International Conference on Multilingual Education, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. 5-8 February 2008.

[20]. UNESCO (2003). Education in a multilingual world, Published in 2003 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

[21] Stoicheva, M. (2006). European Language Policy. Sofia: University Publishing House “St. Kliment Ohridski” (In Bulgarian).

[22] Bloomfield, L. (1984). Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[23] Macnarama, J. (1967). The linguistic independence of bilinguals, Journal of Verbal Leaning and Verbal Behavior, 6: 729-736.

[24] Grosjean, W. (1985). The bilingual as a competent but specific speaker-hearer. The Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 6: 467-477.

[25] CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. (2001) Cambridge (England): Cambridge University Press).

[26] Kim, N. (2014). Korea: Multiethnic or Multicultural? In Multiethnic Korea? Multiculturalism, Migration and Peoplehood Diversity in Contemporary South Korea, ed. John Lie, 58-78. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies. 64-66.

[27] Lee, E. (2015). An Analysis of Multicultural Education in Korean Elementary Schools. San Francisco State University. MA-thesis, 7.

[28] Shim, Young-Hee (2010). Globalization and Change of Migraiton-Related Laws in Korea: Focusing on the Change of Marriage Migration-Related Laws. Journal of Korean Law, 9: 201-223.

[29] Kim, N. (2014). Korea: Multiethnic or Multicultural? In Multiethnic Korea? Multiculturalism, Migration and Peoplehood Diversity in Contemporary South Korea, ed. John Lie, 58-78. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 70.

[30] Shim, Young-Hee (2010). Globalization and Change of Migraiton-Related Laws in Korea: Focusing on the Change of Marriage Migration-Related Laws. Journal of Korean Law, 9: 213-214.

[31] Kim, J. (2011). The Politics of Culture in Multicultural Korea. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 37 (10): 1593-1595.

[32] Ministry of Health and Welfare. 2011. The Second Plan For Ageing Society and Population. http://www.momplus.mw.go.kr, Retrieved on 01.06.2016.

[33] Radtke, Frank-Olaf. 2010. Multiculturalism in Welfare States: the Case of Germany. In The Ethnicity Reader: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Migration, ed. Montserrat Guibernau and John Rex, (pp. 291-298). Cambridge: Polity Press.

[34] Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs, 2015: 1.

[35] There are 25,488 school age children; registered with the Ministry of Law as of 2006, and 8,349 of them attended international schools. Considering that 1,209 students were attending local school as of 2007, the number of the students who are children of workers is very low (Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development, 2007)

[36] Office of Lawmaker Gyeong Hwa Ko, 2006, 2007.

[37] Reflecting the ethnic and national origins of their parents, 57,856 children (31.4%) have a Vietnamese background, 42,791 children (23.2%) have a Chinese background; 30,039 children (16.3%) have an ethnic-Korean Chinese background, 20,584 children (11.1%) have a Filipino background and 17,195 (9.3%) have a Japanese background (Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs, 2015: 1).

[38] Ministry of Education (2015: 1).

[39] Lee, Eunyoung (2015). An Analysis of Multicultural Education in Korean Elementary Schools. San Francisco State University. MA-thesis. 6-8).

[40] Parekh, B. (2010). What is Multiculturalism? The Ethnicity Reader: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Migration, ed. Montserrat Guibernau and John Rex, (pp. 238-242). Cambridge: Polity Press.

Bibliography:

1. Bloomfield, L. (1984). Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

2. Davies, A. (2003). The Native Speaker: Myth and Reality (Bilingual Education and Bilingualism). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

3. Kim, J. (2011). The Politics of Culture in Multicultural Korea. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 37 (10): 1583-1604.

4. Lewis, M. P. & Trudell, B. (2007). Language cultivation in contexts of multiple community languages, in: B. Spolsky, F. M. Hult (eds.) Handbook of educational linguistics. Oxford, Blackwell, 266-279.

5. MacArthur, T. (1998). Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford University Press: Oxford).Related Laws in Korea: Focusing on the Change of Marriage Migration-Related Laws. Journal of Korean Law 9: 201-223.

6. Macnarama, J. (1967). The linguistic independence of bilinguals, Journal of Verbal Leaning and Verbal Behavior, 6: 729-736.

7. Parekh, B. (2010). What is Multiculturalism? The Ethnicity Reader: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Migration, ed. Montserrat Guibernau and John Rex, (pp. 238-242). Cambridge: Polity Press.

8. Radtke, Frank-Olaf. 2010. Multiculturalism in Welfare States: the Case of Germany. In The Ethnicity Reader: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Migration, ed. Montserrat Guibernau and John Rex, (pp. 291-298). Cambridge: Polity Press.

9. Shim, Young-Hee (2010). Globalization and Change of Migraiton-Related Laws in Korea: Focusing on the Change of Marriage Migration-Related Laws. Journal of Korean Law, 9: 201-223.

10. Saniei, A. (2011). Who Is An Ideal Native Speaker?! , English Language Department, Science and Research Branch. International Conference on Languages, Literature and Linguistics IPEDR vol.26, IACSIT Press, Singapore. http://www.ipedr.com/vol26/16-ICLLL%202011-L00033.pdf, Retrieved on 10.10.2018.

11. Simons, G. F. & Fennig, C. D. (2018). (Eds.). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Twenty-first edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com. Retrieved on 10.10.2018.

12. Shim, Young-Hee (2010). Globalization and Change of Migraiton- Kim, N. (2014). Korea: Multiethnic or Multicultural? In Multiethnic Korea? Multiculturalism, Migration and Peoplehood Diversity in Contemporary South Korea, ed. John Lie, 58-78. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies. 64-66.

13. Spolsky, B. (2002). Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

14. Stoicheva, M. (2006). European Language Policy. Sofia: University Publishing House “St. Kliment Ohridski” (In Bulgarian).

15. Tabi-Manga, Jean. (2000). Les politiques linguistiques du Cameroun. Essai d’aménagement linguistique. Paris: Karthala.

Сп. „Реторика и комуникации“, брой 37, ноември 2018 г.

Rhetoric and Communications Journal, Issue 37, November 2018