South Korean elementary school teachers’ experiences of inclusive education concerning students with a multicultural background

ABSTRACT

Due to the increase of economic immigration over the last few decades, South Korea has rapidly become a multi-ethnic society. The number of students with a multicultural background (SMBs) has increased more than tenfold in the past ten years. Research has revealed that despite physical inclusion of SMBs in general classrooms, SMBs tend to struggle at school as a result of language difficulties, academic underachievement, and social isolation. Shedding light on the Salamanca thinking, this study aims to investigate how teachers’ experiences of SMBs vary according to school cultures. Thirteen teachers from three schools (with different school cultures) were invited to participate in qualitative semi-structured interviews. It was revealed that the teachers, who worked in the different school cultures, expressed differently with regard to (1) teachers’ reasoning about SMBs’ struggles, (2) teachers’ professional knowledge and strategic practices, (3) collaboration with a multicultural education supervising teacher (MEST), and (4) dependency upon external support. The school judged to be contributing to ‘true’ inclusion was characterised by ample support from a MEST and the creation of an inclusive learning environment for SMBs as a whole-school approach. What can further ‘true’ inclusion of SMBs in elementary schools and the implications thereof are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive education
• multicultural background
• elementary school
• teacher experience
• school culture

Introduction

The Incheon Declaration for Education 2030 (UNESCO 2017) has led to 184 member states’ agreement on taking sufficient action to achieve inclusive and equitable quality education for the next fifteen years. For this remarkable progress, The Salamanca Statement (UNESCO 1994) made a significant contribution to establishing groundwork that fosters a paradigm shift in the conceptualisation of inclusive education (IE). The Salamanca Statement broadened the object of IE from ‘students with disabilities’ to ‘students with a variety of special educational needs (SENs)’. It furthermore affirms that in addition to placing students with SENs in general schools, IE should endeavour to promote ‘social inclusion’ of these students for an inclusive society.

To help clarify the scope of SENs in regard to IE, researchers have broadened the definition of SENs by including environmental factors which surround individuals in addition to individual learning difficulties. Slee (2001) argues that SENs should be regarded more broadly and encompass students at risk in the education system ‘across all forms of educational exclusion’ (p.118), which goes beyond a restricted articulation of SENs as referring strictly to individuals’ academic learning difficulties or disabilities (Frederickson and Cline 2009). With this broadened conceptualisation of SENs, the aim of IE lies in eliminating ‘social exclusion that is a consequence of attitudes and responses to diversity in race, social class, ethnicity, religion, gender and ability’ (Kugelmass and Ainscow 2004, Lincoln and Guba 1986, 133). Rose and Howley (2007) further indicate the need for IE to help disadvantaged students gain ‘improved social and learning opportunities alongside their peers’ (p.11).

In this study, the IE refers to educational efforts to further provide equal learning opportunities and social inclusion for those who experience learning difficulties and social isolation due to their environmental factors. The SMBs in Korea, regardless of individual disabilities, tend to experience learning difficulties or social isolation due to the differences in ethnic backgrounds, within a physically inclusive setting of general elementary schools. This study focuses on investigating the IE of SMBs in Korea, who have SENs deriving from their multicultural backgrounds.

Local context: South Korea’s rapid shift to a multi-ethnic society and inclusion

In South Korea (hereafter ‘Korea’), the number of foreign residents has nearly tripled between 2006 and 2015 (Ministry of the Interior and Safety 2015), and Korea has rapidly shifted into a multi-ethnic society during this time. The number of SMBs has grown dramatically from 9389 in 2006 to 109,387 in 2017, and comprises 1.9% of the total student population (Ministry of Education (MoE) 2017b). A majority of SMBs in Korea (88.7%) of total SMBs are from families of international marriage and 81.6% of SMBs were born and raised in Korea (MoE 2017b). The larger number of the foreign parents, mostly the mothers, came from Asia: 33% Chinese, 26.5% Vietnamese, and 12% Filipino. Due to the Korean nationality as half-Koreans and an acceptable level of Korean language proficiency, a majority of SMBs are included in regular classes in regular schools with insufficient consideration of their SENs. Yet, despite this physical inclusion, studies show that Korean SMBs tend to struggle academically and socially (Cho and Ku 2011; Oh 2016a; Sul 2005). According to Oh (2016b), below-standard achievement of SMBs in elementary schools is much higher (7.5%) than non-SMBs (1.45%), and 17.5% of SMBs either do not enter, or fail to complete middle-school, compared to 1.1% of non-SMBs. In addition, 17.6% of SMBs stated that they had experienced bullying from peers (Sul 2005).

Noting Korea’s recognition of its evolving multi-ethnic population, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UNCERD 2007) recommended that Korea explicitly illustrate this multi-ethnicity through cultural and historical information in teaching materials and textbooks for elementary and secondary schools, in order to raise awareness of human rights, and respect for the value of diversity. In response, the Korean government has been attempting to adopt education policies and legislation befitting the multi-ethnic character of contemporary Korean society. A variety of studies on SMBs and multicultural education are in progress in schools as well as government and private organisations (MoE 2017a). New school policies have been developed and implemented to find a best practice model that can be shared with other schools. The three schools that participated in this study either adopted new school policies or none. In the context of Korea’s rapid shift into a multi-ethic society, this study aims to explore South Korean elementary teachers’ experiences of SMBs in three different school cultures, in order to promote the IE of SMBs – marginalised students who have SENs deriving from ethnic differences and are at risk in the Korean educational system.

Teachers’ experience and school culture concerning inclusive education

Considering that, among a variety of stakeholders, teachers are the main implementers of IE with SMBs, investigating teachers’ experiences is a fundamental starting point for investigating IE. The important role of teachers in successful implementation of IE has been reported previously (Avramidis and Norwich 2002; Booth and Ainscow 2002; Sharma and Nuttal 2016). Booth and Ainscow (2002) stress the need for teachers to provide critical self-reflection on their attempts to promote the school’s inclusion policy, and thereby challenge themselves to recognise and reform their own discrimination of students with SENs. School culture was shown to be related to how teachers experience, specifically how teachers evaluate themselves and their work (Cohen et al. 2009; Hosford and O’Sullivan 2016). Zollers, Ramanathan, and Yu (1999) claim that an inclusive school culture is required to achieve successful inclusion. Ainscow and Sandill (2010) suggest that an inclusive school culture encourages the education system to embrace more inclusive values and change sustainably. Kugelmass (2001) holds that school culture determines whether difference is accepted and embraced, as well as a school’s commitment to promoting educational opportunities for all students.

Research aim and questions

Noting that physical inclusion of SMBs does not always mean effective inclusion, the study investigates teachers’ experiences as well as factors that influence inclusion of SMBs in public elementary schools. Specifically, this study aims to explore how teachers’ experiences differ by comparing teachers’ experiences among three different school cultures and policies. The three research questions are:

1. What perceptions do the teachers have of SMBs?

2. What factors do teachers consider promote inclusion of SMBs?

3. How do the teachers’ experiences differ among the different school cultures in the three schools?

Method

Daegu was chosen as the study site to fulfil the study’s aim and for feasibility. Daegu metropolitan city is Korea’s fourth most-populous city. As economic immigrants flock to the industrial complexes in Daegu, so the number of SMBs increases. SMBs now comprise 1% of the total student population in Daegu (Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education 2017). Appropriately placed participants from three schools with different school policies were recruited. A detailed description of the three schools and participating teachers are presented below.

The three schools

The three invited schools in Daegu shared certain commonalities, and so the differences in school cultures could be interpreted as valid variables. All three are elementary, public sector schools, educating SMBs in general classrooms with peers. The schools were situated either near the industrial complex or near multiplex housing units for low-income residents in Daegu suburbs. Each school was regarded as having unique characteristics – a so-called ‘school culture’ – which could be influenced by multiple contexts such as school policies, teacher dynamics, leadership, finances and so on. With respect to SMBs, the main differences in the cultures of selected three schools were related to different school policies (or no school policy) concerning SMBs or multicultural education. In regard to the respective school cultures, the main characteristics of the three schools are described as follows:

• Non-Policy-Concerning-SMB (NPCS): NPCS was a general elementary school that adopted no school policy regarding SMBs or multicultural education. The NPCS had 12 SMBs – 4.1% of total student enrolment. In contrast to the other two schools, NPCS had fewer opportunities to receive consulting and resources concerning SMBs. There was simultaneously less pressure on teachers to complete on-line SMB-education teacher training programmes.

• Cultural-Diversity-Focused (CDF): CDF’s school policy aimed to educate students to respect different values and actively cultivated acceptance of diversity. At CDF, diversity and multiculture encompassed not only SMBs’ ethnic differences, but also other diversities embedded in gender, generation, region, religion, and so on. In this regard, the policy did not focus exclusively on SMBs, but all students. The school policy was explicitly displayed on school bulletin boards, school homepage, and the school broadcasting network. CDF had the highest ratio of SMBs enrolment of the three schools – 25 SMBs (7.3% of total student enrolment). The MEST in CDF led the school project ‘how to cultivate cultural diversity via art media,’ funded by Arts Council Korea. The MEST had much experience with SMBs and was trained by MoE as a professional multicultural educator.

• SMB-Focused (SMBF): SMBF had 18 SMBs, 3.8% of total student enrolment. SMBF concluded an agreement with MoE to establish itself as a good practice example of how to educate SMBs and implement multicultural education. Despite the SMB-focused school policy, SMBF did not explicitly display its school policy either in the school campus or on the school homepage. According to the agreement, all teachers in this school were obligated to participate in specific on-line teacher training on SMBs and multicultural education.

The participants

The initial three teachers were recruited from three schools respectively through ‘generic purposive sampling’ (Bryman 2016). Afterward, snowball sampling was conducted within the selected schools. All the participants met the recruiting criteria, namely that they had taught SMBs as main classroom teachers in last three years. Eleven out of 13 teachers (85%) were female, between the ages of 26 and 53. Teaching experience ranged from 2 to 30 years. Eleven teachers currently served SMBs as a main classroom teacher, while two had served SMBs previously. Eight teachers had one SMB in their class, while five teachers had two or three. Six teachers had previous SMB teaching experience; seven were teaching SMBs for the first time.

The instrument

In this study, an individual semi-structured interview was conducted to capture teachers’ experiences with SMBs, as semi-structured interviews place importance on interviewees’ perspectives (Bryman 2016). Since a semi-structured interview involves a flexible process, an interview frequently evolves as the research progresses (Bryman 2016). The flexibility of the semi-structured interview enabled the first author to interact closely with interviewees and to probe the deeper meaning or hidden intentions behind the statements, especially when similarities or differences were discovered among interviewees as the research progressed. The final interview guide was validated by the second author, and piloted with a former Korean elementary school teacher.

Data collection and analyses

The data from the qualitative, semi-structured individual interviews were collected in Korean at the end of the Korean school year (December 20 to December 28, 2017). All interviews were individually conducted by the first author in the participant’s own classroom. The interviews were audio-recorded with the consent of the participants. Duration of the interviews varied from 15 to 35 min, and the total recorded material amounted to 290 min.

The collected data were analysed by coding and thematic analysis. Based on ‘the guiding set of principles’ (Bryman 2016, 587) and ‘6-phase approach of thematic analysis’ (Clarke and Braun 2014, 90), the analysis proceeded with the following five-step process:

• Step 1: Start initial reading of the transcripts and repeat reading through them.

• Step 2: Formulate codes by labelling the fragments of verbatim.

• Step 3: Identify codes which seem central to the inquiry, and categorise the patterns of meaning which appeared among the codes into themes and subthemes.

• Step 4: Evaluate themes or sub-themes, and examine the potential relation among codes, subthemes and themes.

• Step 5: Write findings and insights and tie them to the inquiry, in order to propose a compelling and coherent story.

Through repeated reading of transcripts and the identified codes, certain patterns of meaning were interpreted and categorised as sub-themes and themes (Patton 2015). As a result, the identified codes in the study were aggregated into four central themes in findings.

This study endeavoured to establish the trustworthiness (Lincoln and Guba 1986) of the research. The research was validated by the second author in each stage of progress and all the data formulated during the research were preserved. The research findings were crosschecked through discussion with the second author and the former primary school teacher. In addition, the first author referred to ‘15-point checklist for a good thematic analysis’ (Clarke and Braun 2014) in order to assure the credibility of research findings.

Research ethics

This study followed the general ethical principles and guidelines for human-involving research (Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences 1993), by obtaining the informed consent of participants prior to the interviews, and ensuring anonymity and confidentiality of personal information.

Findings

Via thematic analysis, themes related to research question (1) and (2), namely teachers’ perceptions and factors that promote inclusion of SMBs were identified. Similarities and differences in school cultures embedded in the themes were also discovered. The four central themes in the findings were teachers’ reasoning about SMBs’ struggles, teachers’ professional knowledge and strategic practices, collaboration with a MEST, and dependency upon external support. The four central themes and teachers’ responses are presented as follows:

Teachers’ reasoning about SMBs’ struggles

The teachers, regardless of school culture, identified SMBs as Koreans, mainly due to the SMBs having been born and raised in Korea, having Korean names, and speaking Korean. Likewise, teachers recognised SMBs’ struggles both inside and outside school, compared to their native Korean peers. The SMBs’ struggles included academic underachievement – especially in Korean literature and mathematics, emotional difficulties such as emotional withdrawal, passivity, lack of self-confidence, and social isolation. Economic hardship and insufficient parental nurturing were mentioned as SMBs’ difficulties outside school. One teacher captures how SMBs’ academic underperformance fosters social exclusion:

The child with a multicultural background in my class reads Korean texts very slowly and does not understand what the text means even after reading it. Because of this, he has difficulty solving math problems as well. He does not understand the meaning of the texts in the problems. […] Some peers refused to be in the same group with the child. It was not because of his multicultural background, rather because he was not contributing to group assignments. (Teacher at SMBF)

However, teachers were reluctant to admit that SMBs’ difficulty could derive from a multicultural background. Moreover, some teachers showed concern about the misconception that their additional attention to SMBs or SMBs’ SENs could be interpreted as discrimination toward SMBs:

My student has a Vietnamese mother, but the child was born and raised in Korea. Therefore, she is Korean. She lacks comprehension ability, as many other underperforming (non-SMB) peers do. Then, why should I pay additional attention to her multicultural background? […] I assume that the underperformance is a matter of personal ability, not a matter of her foreign background. […] If I take extra care of the multicultural background, it can be regarded as discrimination toward the child as well as other (non-SMB) peers in my class. (Teacher at NPCS)

Despite general agreement that SMBs struggle, especially with academic underachievement and social isolation at school, teachers differed in their reasoning about the cause of the struggles. NPCS and SMBF were similar, where teachers tended to ascribe SMBs’ underachievement to insufficient parental support, and social isolation to SMBs’ unfavourable personal attributes:

Korean parents put a lot of effort into making their children learn many things from early childhood. They send children to private educational institutions in order for the child to learn Korean, mathematics, English, and so on, even before the child actually enters school. Otherwise the parents teach their children themselves at home. […] However, I assume that the student in my class was not given these opportunities from their parents. […] This lack of (parental commitment to) education has accumulated since early childhood, so the gap is quite big now, and it will become even bigger as time passes. (Teacher at SMBF)

The student does not have many friends because she has many personal attributes that her peers are not fond of, for example underperforming in the school’s examinations, hygiene problems like dirty hair or clothes. These are not related to her multicultural background. (Teacher at NPCS)

On the contrary, all three teachers at CDF suggested that SMBs’ social isolation was related to a restricted concept of multiculture based on ethnic and national difference rather than personal attributes. They criticised that the nation-focused approach of current multicultural education aggravated difference between SMBs and their peers and led to SMBs’ social isolation.

Teachers’ professional knowledge and strategic practices

Participating teachers tended not to support modifying or changing curriculum specifically for SMBs. They felt that increased professional knowledge and more teacher training would improve the current difficulties concerning SMBs and multicultural education. However, teacher’s experiences regarding teacher training differed by school culture as participation in external in-service teacher training was primarily determined by individual school policy. All teachers at CDF and SMBF were obligated to join the in-service teacher trainings on multicultural education, due to their school policies. Despite a considerably high participation rate (12 out of 13 teachers) in the teacher training, teachers reported that they still lacked the professional knowledge required to educate SMBs in an inclusive classroom setting. Since the training was given through the on-line form of lecture and focused on facilitating conceptual understanding of multicultural education and its theoretical approaches in addition to sharing successful cases of multicultural education, teachers felt insufficiency of practical knowledge and advice especially when the SMB had academic or behavioural issues. The CDF teachers were more satisfied with internal teacher training provided by the MEST at school.

The teachers considered peer co-learning a valuable strategy for resolving SMBs’ academic underachievement. They felt that peer co-learning helped SMBs to solve difficult problems during class, saved teachers’ time and energy, and enhanced social interaction between SMBs and their peers. Irrespective of the differing school cultures, teachers were divided into two groups regarding strategies for promoting social inclusion and the emotional confidence of SMBs. One strategy was to consistently encourage SMBs through explicit and positive statements about their multicultural backgrounds. The other strategy of concealing an SMB’s multicultural background from peers contrasted with the former:

My student with a multicultural background was passive and lacked self-confidence in the beginning of the school year. […] When we had an open-class with parents, I realized that she felt ashamed of her (foreign) mother. […] Since then, I tried to highlight her multicultural background in a positive manner. For example, I praised the child’s foreign language skills in front of peers or asked her to share the experience of her visits to her mother’s home country. (Teacher at NPCS)

The child and his parents do not want to reveal their multicultural background. […] I think it is rather helpful for his relationship with peers that the peers do not know about his multicultural background. (Teacher at CDF)

Depending on school cultures, teachers tended to have different professional knowledge competences concerning multicultural education and employed different teaching strategies for promoting inclusion of SMBs. One of the main differences was teachers’ professional knowledge of the topic of multiculture. In NPCS and SMBF, the teachers tended to have insufficient professional knowledge regarding multiculture, restricting the notion of multiculture to ethnic or national differences, which was called ‘nation-focused approach.’ On the contrary, CDF teachers understood multiculture more broadly to mean respect for all diversity, not only deriving from ethnic or national differences, but also from differences embedded in gender, generation, region, religion, and so on. As a result, CDF teachers tended to be more opposed to the nation-focused approach common in current multicultural education. They criticised the nation-focused approach for limiting learning outcomes to learning about foreign countries, and felt it did not sufficiently contribute to changing student perceptions about SMBs and multiculture. CDF teachers recommended that other schools also adopt a broadened conceptualisation of multicultural education, which aims to respect all diversity:

Through the current approach of multicultural education at (other) schools, students only learn facts about different countries. […] For example, what people eat and what people wear in Vietnam. This (nation-focused) approach does not change perception or attitudes toward students with a Vietnamese background. That is why we need to abandon that approach focusing primarily on ethnic diversity, and adopt a new approach of respecting all diversity, which my school is doing. (Teacher at CDF)

Due to CDF’s whole-school approach with regular and frequent activities, CDF teachers had sufficient opportunity to implement various strategies for effective multicultural education and SMB inclusion, compared to the teachers at the other two schools. Despite having no explicit focus on the inclusion of SMBs at CDF, an inclusive culture for SMBs was naturally created through the school’s emphasis on respecting all diversity:

The students in my school do not regard different skin colours as strange. They think it is just different, as we all have different appearances and different characters. We (teachers in CDF) have been focusing on educating students about respecting these differences, through daily, bi-weekly, and monthly programmes, as a whole school. (Teacher at CDF)

In addition to these regularly scheduled out-of-curriculum school activities, CDF teachers were also encouraged to connect multiple subjects within the curriculum, in order to encourage students to be open-minded and respectful towards all diversity. On the other hand, none of the teachers in NPCS and SMBF reported regularly scheduled out-of-curriculum activities or in-depth education about diversity in their school.

Collaboration with a multicultural education supervising teacher

The research discovered that teachers experienced different degrees of access to information and collaboration among teachers. At the centre of collaboration and information sharing, there was a MEST. The current education system assigns one teacher at a school the role of MEST. As a school representative concerning multicultural education, a MEST receives information from MoE and other external organisations, including personal information about SMBs, the introduction of programmes or events, instructions, and multicultural education resources. A MEST’s duty is to disseminate relevant content to other teachers in the school. However, the MESTs at NPCS and SMBF reportedly tended to simply provide the other teachers with information, rather than share it in an interactive way. In these two schools, main classroom teachers tended to remain be passive with respect to multicultural education.

During the week of multicultural education, the MEST gives me instruction on how to perform related activities with students. For example, the MEST shares a web-link that my students should watch. Then I just follow the instruction. (Teacher at NPCS)

Another difference lay in collaboration between a MEST and main classroom teachers. No CDF teachers mentioned insufficient collaboration with the MEST and therefore did not experience restricted access to information about multicultural education. In addition, the SMBF teachers tended to become more stressed by obligations laid down by the MEST and complained about restricted information and resources. On the contrary, CDF teachers were more positive and collaborated readily with their MEST. There was a strong contrast between SMBF/NPCS teachers and those from CDF:

Frankly speaking, it is so stressful to satisfy the request from the MEST. It is hard for me to manage the current school curriculum within time, but she requests submitting some outputs, for example, students’ writing after watching a videoclip about multicultural education that she shared. I know that she asks those outputs in order to present to Ministry of Education later, because my school adopted a school policy focusing on students with a multicultural background. (Teacher at SMBF)

The MEST has the right to access information about students with a multicultural background, which I don’t. […] Probably the MEST knows where I can get external advice regarding multicultural education, too. But I don’t really ask her. (Teacher at NPCS)

The MEST in my school shares an amount of useful information and resources regarding ‘study on cultural diversity’, such as previous studies, other successful schools’ cases, examples of how to discipline students with a multicultural background, and so on. […] The in-school training from the MEST was more helpful than the training from the Ministry of Education. (Teacher at CDF)

Dependency upon external support

Teachers regarded two external supports – parental attention and involvement, and governmental investment – as core factors necessary for promoting inclusion of SMBs. However, there were differences between CDF and the other schools regarding teachers’ dependency on the external support. Compared to the CDF teachers, NPCS and SMBF teachers tended to put more importance on external support from parents or government, specifically for improving SMBs’ academic achievement and for enhancing social inclusion. Considering the parental support, some NPCS and SMBF teachers reported that parents’ Korean language proficiency or parental efforts to attain external support positively influenced academic achievement of SMBs.

Usually in primary school, if a child has an underachievement issue in academic performance, teachers contact the parents. […] Parents are willing to take actions, either teaching the child by themselves at home or sending them to the private educational institutions. Then the underachievement issue gets solved to a great extent. […] But, generally speaking, parents of students with a multicultural background are not interested in education, and that is why the academic issue of students with a multicultural background is not easily fixed. (Teacher at SMBF)

Moreover, there was a tendency for NPCS and SMBF teachers to depend more upon support from external organisations. The teachers felt that the external child-care programmes greatly helped SMBs to close the achievement gap with peers, because their ability to help SMBs after school was limited.

The child in my class is excellent in academic achievement as well as in terms of behaviour. […] The economic status of his family is not so good […], and the mother does not speak Korean well either. But the mother ensures all the time that he goes to the Welfare Centre after school and gets help with homework and keeping up with the difficult subjects at school. (Teacher at SMBF)

On the contrary, CDF reported that internal school programmes as a whole-school approach promoted better social inclusion of SMBs, namely school broadcasting, school assemblies, and a journal writing programme for promoting cultural diversity.

Discussion

This study began with questioning what is ‘true’ IE, considering what The Salamanca Statement (UNESCO 1994) and The Education 2030 agenda (UNESCO 2017) have claimed. Within a broader context of world development and migration, education systems need to respond to the special needs of SMBs in order to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all’ (UNESCO 2017). In this regard, the study pointed out that true inclusion of SMBs in Korean elementary schools had not been accomplished yet, despite impressive numbers of SMBs’ physical inclusion in the general classroom.

In the study, teachers’ perceptions of SMBs’ struggles tended to be ambivalent. Some teachers avoided admitting that the difficulties could be caused by multicultural backgrounds, and attributed SMBs’ struggles to personal attributes or parental indifference. Even though it is difficult, from this sample, to generalise what most successfully promoted inclusion, peer co-learning, concealment (or disclosure) of a learner’s multicultural background, collaboration with a MEST, support from parents, and external organisations all contributed to promoting inclusion of SMBs. Comparing teachers’ experiences across different school cultures revealed that school culture plays an important role in creating an inclusive learning environment, furthering teachers’ inclusive practices, and encouraging collaboration with a MEST. The school culture which cultivated welcoming attitudes toward all diversity with a whole-school approach and efforts of a MEST was found to be an effective model. Based on these findings, the following points are discussed in order to further investigate what promotes ‘true’ inclusion of SMBs in elementary schools.

Sufficient consideration of the multicultural background

The majority of SMBs in the study were automatically included in the public elementary school system due to their apparent Korean identity or nationality. In an inclusive classroom setting, the SMB’s SENs which derived from their multicultural background were often neglected and hidden behind the SMBs’ apparent Korean identity. This study discovered that many SMBs had issues in common, both at school and at home. The issues that arise in the education of SMBs were previously observed by a number of international research studies: academic underachievement (Bondy, Peguero, and Johnson 2017; Castles 2009; Martinez-Taboada et al. 2017); language difficulty (Kang 2015; Obondo, Lahdenperä, and Sandevärn 2016; Sinkkonen and Kyttälä 2014; Suarez-Orozco and Suarez-Orozco 2009); importance of parental collaboration in IE (Angelides and Hajisoteriou 2013; Hamaidi, Homidi, and Reyes 2012; Lee and Low 2013; Soto-Chodiman et al. 2012); and emotional difficulties and social isolation (Cherng 2015; Malsbary 2014; Plenty and Jonsson 2017). However, the difference in perceptions of SMBs’ difficulties between the teachers in this study and teachers in other international studies, was quite striking. In Swedish and Finnish studies, for example, language issues were considered the pivotal issue in SMBs’ struggles, and the main cause of teachers’ difficulties with trying to remedy SMBs’ academic underachievement (Obondo, Lahdenperä, and Sandevärn 2016; Sinkkonen and Kyttälä 2014). However, this study found that the teachers’ opinions about SMBs’ Korean language capabilities tended to be ambivalent and contradictory. Despite the teachers’ clear recognition that SMBs’ Korean language proficiency was often insufficient to meet academic demands, the teachers tended to attribute learning problems to SMBs’ general comprehension abilities, or parental indifference to education, rather than Korean language proficiency itself. In addition, the study found that when teachers were attempting to solve the SMBs’ educational issues, they did not pay sufficient attention to SMBs’ multicultural background. Instead, the teachers tended to ascribe SMBs’ difficulties to poor economic status, lack of parental nurturing, or personal attributes. The teachers were reluctant to directly connect SMBs’ difficulties to their multicultural backgrounds, even though SMBs’ economic status and lack of parental nurturing were closely related to SMB’s multicultural background. This insufficient consideration of SMBs’ multicultural background also had a negative effect on the development of the teachers’ professional knowledge concerning SMBs. Sufficient consideration of SMBs’ multicultural background can therefore be a pivotal starting point in the discussion about IE of SMBs in Korea.

School culture

Through the comparative design that investigated teachers’ experiences in three different school cultures, this study identified the importance of school culture in promoting inclusion of SMBs and reached similar conclusions to that of previous IE studies (Ainscow 1999; Ainscow et al. 2012; Ainscow and Sandill 2010; Kugelmass 2001). This study found two main factors relating to school culture in a Korean context: school policies and a MEST.

CDF school policy fostered the school culture to cultivate a respectful and open-minded attitude to all diversity. This policy showed real potential to become an effective model through promoting inclusion of SMBs as well as educating all students about being respectful of diversity. CDF school culture provided an inclusive learning environment which enabled all students to experience a welcoming community without discrimination, or prejudice, and without dissonance between SMBs and peers. CDF teachers did not understand multiculture to be merely about national and ethnic difference, but had a more comprehensive understanding of multicultural education that allowed them to teach respect for all diversity, including age, gender, region, ethnicity, etc. Consequently, the interviewed CDF teachers were further encouraged to develop professional knowledge in teaching about multiculture, and were given opportunities to implement regularly scheduled activities for cultivating the value of diversity as a whole school approach.

The MEST at CDF was identified as playing a key role in effectively implementing school policy and laying the foundation for an inclusive school culture. The qualification and effort of a MEST influenced the main classroom teachers’ experiences, specifically in terms of teachers’ acquisition of professional knowledge about multiculture and positive attitudes toward SMB-related school activities. Considering that the Korean educational system has positioned a MEST at the centre of multicultural education at each school, governmental investment in fostering qualified MESTs is a fundamental requirement for building an inclusive school culture.

Despite increased government investment and considerable effort from teachers, the educational system in Korea still falls short of accomplishing true inclusion of SMBs. To effectively and equitably include SMBs in Korea’s prosperous multicultural society, this study calls for further consideration of SMBs’ cultural background which is frequently hidden in the Korean context. Further development of teachers’ professional capacity to manage the SMB’s multicultural-specific SENs within a broadened concept of multiculture is required. Reforming school cultures to embrace diversity and fostering qualified MESTs are necessities.

Limitations and implications

This study admits to the limitations inherent in its own methodology and small sample in only one city of Korea. The findings of qualitative research are limited to the milieu of research, such as specific places and time period (Bryman 2016). In this regard, the findings are not representative of Korea as a whole, nor all elementary schools worldwide. The time period of the study is limited to December 2017 and participants to three specific schools in Daegu.

However, in order to affirm the findings of the study, the research design can be replicated in other schools which have adopted the same school policies, in different regions, and with more participants from each school. Especially, CDF’s school policy offers real potential for fostering an inclusive school culture and positive attitudes to diversity. Further large-scale investigations of this school policy model can contribute to IE research generally, while in-depth, qualitative and longitudinal studies including classroom observations in Korea and other countries would promote IE globally.

Conclusion

Within the context of Korea’s rapid demographic and societal development into a multi-ethnic and multicultural society, the teachers in the study reported that SMBs struggled academically, experienced emotional difficulties, suffered economic hardship, and generally lacked parental support and nurturing. The teachers attempted to resolve the difficulties that SMBs encountered at school, but their profession knowledge and strategies were insufficiently developed to solve those problems. Despite the pivotal role of school MESTs, the lack of qualified MESTs was noted. Through investigating various teachers’ experiences in different school cultures, the study confirms that the creation of an inclusive school culture is key to promoting true inclusion of SMBs, and calls for greater efforts to foster inclusive school cultures in order to achieve the kind of educational equality for all students embodied in The Salamanca Statement.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the teachers who took part in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Soo-Kyung Kim

Soo-Kyung Kim, M.A. is an education researcher. Her research interest lies in inclusive education, multicultural education, and education for citizenship competence.

Shu-Nu Chang Rundgren

Shu-Nu Chang Rundgren is a Professor of Education at Stockholm University. She leads a research group called competences for modern citizenship (CMC) in the Department of Education.