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Abstract
The public policy narrative in South Korea as ‘having to be multicultural’ due to a falling birth rate and a demand for labour is linked to an often fragmented and yet highly centralized policy orientation. This institutional limit is complicated by competing narratives on multiculturalism, which often reinforce cultural segregation and hierarchy while simultaneously advocating for select migrant groups a policy of assimilation usually as ‘multicultural families’. This article considers alternative public policy options and approaches, which link the recent development of multicultural education to wider questions of Korean national identity and national heritage. This means an educational policy strategy that questions the setting of boundaries and which substantively interrogates the question of who are the ‘we’ in a multicultural society.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the New Faculty Research Fund at Ajou University, South Korea. I thank the anonymous referees of the Journal of Asian Public Policy for helpful suggestions.
Notes
1. Narratives on past (and future) Korean unification are based on readings of the supposedly ethnically and culturally monolithic Joseon period (1392–1910). These narratives manage to place pre-Joseon regional differences as being integral to the unified period and as part of Korea's homogeneous history. Some South Korean scholars have argued that each Korean is blood-related through the historical figure of ‘Dangun’ who mythically started the 5000-year Korean bloodline. South Korean archaeologists have claimed that they have now located Dangun's place of burial. Many South Korean and Daoist groups argue that this find is scientific confirmation of Dangun's existence, but making such a connection is quite a leap of faith given that there is no actual proof of a connection between ‘Dangun’ and a bloodline. More nuanced and less fervent scholars have instead used archives to question the ‘one race theory' (The JoongAng Daily Citation2010b).
2. http://foa2002.or.kr/bbs/zboard.php?id=new2doc&no=42
, 2006.5.26, 
(The First Committee Meeting, ‘The Main Direction and Development/Implement System for Foreigner Policy’).
4. This is particularly ironic given the official narratives on the ongoing national security threat from North Korea, and yet North Koreans are also believed, in the narratives on Korean history, to be racially and ethnically homogenous and blood-tied to South Koreans. The response is that North Korea is a threat because it is a state led by a ‘foreign Stalinist regime’ but those racial and ethnic ties make dialogue between the two Koreas possible, that is, Sunshine policies. Even when antagonisms take place, at least they are ‘Korean’ antagonisms. One response to this might be, therefore, whether the Korean peninsula really is such a dangerous and finely balanced ‘clashpoint’ as these very same official narratives on national security threat suggest.
5. Migrants who wish to become Korean nationals have to match the following criteria according to the General Nationality Act Article 5. Applicants have to have a domicile South Korean address for 5 consecutive years, be a legal adult over the age of 20, have a history of good conduct, independent financial assets and a cultural knowledge of Korea. Naturalization requires applicants to meet the above requirements for nationality and if applicants were born to a Korean national mother or father after 13 June 1998, then their application is valid, or if the applicant was born between 13 June 1978 and 13 June 1998, then the criteria for naturalization are ‘jus sanguinis’. Once an applicant is naturalized then his or her foreign nationality needs to be given up within 6 months. Dual citizenship is allowed up to the age of 21. A law passed on 21 April 2010 and enacted on 1 January 2011 allows dual citizenship to those born after the 13 June 1998 as well as those applicants born to either a Korean mother or Korean father after 2 July 2010. Applicants for naturalization and citizenship also include those on F5 permanent resident visa status, F4 visa status as former Korean nationals living overseas, those aged over 65, and F2 or F4 spouses of a Korean national, which includes economic migrants and foreign brides of international marriages. For foreign migrants, naturalization as a Korean can occur through the marriage route with a naturalized Korean national. Korean society can often be hostile to inter-racial marriages although this attitude can change when ethnic Koreans from high-status backgrounds marry affluent and high-status foreigners or when successful mixed-race children, once marginalized or regarded as a problem, subsequently return to South Korea and are treated deferentially as celebrities (such as Hines Ward). International marriages are very specific to South East Asian ‘foreign wives’ marrying South Korean men. For instance, non-ethnic Korean spouses of Korean women get little support from the government as compared with the designated ‘international marriages’.
7. Ibid.
8. The Suwon Municipal Council recently celebrated the 4th Together Day, which included a section for awarding the ‘Best Foreigner’. Other events were a performance by a ‘multicultural choir’ and a sample of a foreign cuisine, whereas foreigners were treated to a traditional Korean Folk Dance and applauded for dressing in traditional Korean costumes (Migration and Research Training Centre at http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/activities/asia-and-oceania/east-and-south-east-asia/republic-of-korea).
9. A well-known day in November with often exaggerated and overdramatic fervour, such as parents requisitioning police cars and fire engines to get their children to the exam on time, with noise restrictions on aircraft, and children who are taking the exam being given a tumultuous round of applause and cheering from other pupils as they enter the school gates to take the exam.