Exploratory Study of the Potential for Adolescent Children from Multi-Cultural Families to Be Trained as Competent Personnel in Charge of ODA

다문화가정 청소년자녀의 공적개발원조 (Official Development Assistance: ODA) 인력 양성을 위한 탐색적 연구

This study investigates the potential for multi-cultural youths, given their innate bilingual and dual culture, to be trained as the competent ODA professionals. For the purpose of collecting information, we organized two different kinds of FGI in 2015. The first FGI was conducted with a group of 10 expert participants from August 17 to September 25. The second FGI was conducted four times, from October 5 to October 23, with 13 adolescents from multi-cultural families from Russia, Mongolia, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Japan, and China. The semi-structured interview items were passed through a formal review process of the Institutional Ethics Committee. Furthermore, with the participants' pre-consent to recording, all recorded data were categorized through the transcription process. The results are as follows. While the potential for nourishing bilingual and dual cultural capabilities are high for the adolescent children of multi-cultural families, the expert group also emphasized the negative aspects of these capabilities being suppressed due to the relatively oppressed family environment. The expert group therefore suggests the following: building parent awareness of ODA human resources, developing an educational career transition roadmap, and providing institutional incentives for ODA. In addition, to some extent, the researchers were able to detect some positive self-esteem among the adolescent children of multi-cultural families as a result of the bilingual and dual cultural competencies required to be ODA personnel. In sum, the research provides insight into the need for national social support for the adolescent children of multi-cultural families, so that their strengths are not extinguished, in order that they might grow up as competent ODA personnel.