1. Introduction
Entering the 20th Century, people's interests in multiculturalism or multicultural society have been increased greatly together with the phenomenon of the increasing ethnic and cultural diversity as well as the increasing multicultural families due to the increasing foreign immigrant workers and married immigrants in the Korean society. In keeping pace with such social changes, Korea is, being led by the central government, developing, practicing and executing diversified multiculturalism related policies. However, such multicultural society integration policies have not been achieving good results in overall, while various problems have continued to be seen.
Not only in the case of Korea, but also in the case of foreign countries that have experienced multicultural society earlier than Korea, it was predictable that a number of problems could take place, but Korea is in fact sticking consistently to its exclusive attitude while being conscious of its pure-blood custom and racial homogeneity. Such an attitude is not an effective one in responding to the great immigrating trend caused by the recently increasing trend of international immigration. If the multicultural society, which would be accelerated by such a great immigrating trend, is not managed properly, it will remain to be an unstable and inefficient task that will waste the opportunities and resources for contributing to the diversified possibilities owned by multicultural persons and to the national growth and prosperity, and as a result, this could bring about the problem of social integration cost and the political or social conflicts.
Being a country that is keeping a single culture for along time like Ireland, Korea has been classified as a country that sticks to 'one blood vessel - one nation - one culture'. However, according to 'A Study on Analyzing the Nature of Korea's multicultural Family Policies', Korea has already entered a multicultural society, thus, no longer able to stick to the single nation's emotion and principle. If Korea treats its multicultural society with discrimination and prejudice without taking it as it is, it may cause severe social conflicts as he has already pointed out. And the necessity for an open-minded posture for recognizing and embracing the multicultural society has been suggested by him(Shim, 2016). Accordingly, the objective of this study has been set out to make an attempt to suggest the right directions of a multicultural society through analyzing various studies on foreign cases and on the transitions and problems of Korea's multicultural society, which was to be carried out after looking into the concept and current situation of the multicultural society and also into the policy models for regulating the multicultural society after examining preceeding studies.
2. Theoretical Background
2.1. The Concept of Multiculturalism
The concept of 'multiculture' means the coexistence of the people of diversified cultures and ethnic backgrounds while their diversity and difference are being respected. In Korea, the word of multiculture was put into social use when the number of married women immigrants was rapidly increasing in the mid 2000's. With the announcement of the governmental policy of "Construction of an Assistance System for Married Immigrant Families and Promotion of an Atmosphere of Accepting Multiculture" in the 2006 annual administration report of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, the word of 'multiculture' has made its appearance, and starting with this, the government, academic communities and other diversified areas became interest in 'multiculture', and the word 'multiculture' was made to be used in earnest.
Multiculture, being used as the opposite concept of a single culture, is said to be a society in which a diversified culture exists as a mixture of other cultures around a single culture as the center. Entering the 21st century, the children of married immigrant women were called 'Kosian' and the words of 'multicultural education,' 'multicultural policy' and 'multicultural society' were not used in a unified form, but they began to be unified into and used as the word of 'multicultural family' much later in 2008 on the basis of the "Law for the Assistance of Multicultural Families" which was enacted in the same year, Since then, calling a married immigrant family as multicultural family has been generalized legally as well as practically. Also in the programs for immigrant workers, the frequency of using the title of 'multiculture' was increased.
Looking into the multicultural society in a population phenomenological dimension, it means that diversified ethnic groups exist in a society with the phenomenon that foreigners' length of residence in a society becomes longer and longer. Kymlica has divided the background of how a multicultural society is formed as multination and polythnique.
The multination society may be divided into the following two forms. First, it is the form of a society to which the inflow of other ethnic groups and cultures has been made due to external factors, thus becoming a society that is rapidly globalized and becomes information-oriented while its capital and labor markets have expanded due to the activated human and material exchange. Also another form of such a society is that people become to reside in a foreign country in the course of achieving exchanges according to the interests between each two parties of nations or persons. It is the form of a society where the majority group of a nation takes the lead of the mainstream culture while the minor groups representing diversified cultural characteristics coexist, in the process of making diversified cultural entities be integrated into a nation.
The polythnique society appears between the ethnic group consisting of the existing nation and the ethnic group formed by a large scale immigration. It is a society where cultural contact is activated naturally and each ethnic group becomes to recognize any other group and its culture while appearing to be in the form of coexistence. Such nations as Australia, Canada, USA, etc. are the societies that have been formulated by diversified ethnic groups and cultures from the start and they appear to be in the form of constructing the identity of a nation on the basis of their social integration policies from the beginning.
2.2. Current Situation of Multicultural Society
In accordance with the inflow of diversified ethnic groups and nationalities, there becomes to be a social risk that new thought, religion, culture would evoke conflicts with the existing value, custom, culture, tradition, etc. of the society where the inflow has been made, and due to the weak social capital and network together with economic poverty, there's a concern that social alienation and exclusion along with social disharmony could be built up.
The recent successive proclamation of failure in the multicultural society integration policies of a number of nations like the failure of a number of European nations, Brexit situation, etc. is due to the fact that, because of the childbirth policy, the number of Muslims has overtaken that of the local residents. Encouraging childbirth, Muslims are expanding all over the world and changing the world to a Muslims' world. It has been revealed that, to Muslims, the assimilation, multiculturalism discrimination and exclusion principle as in the multicultural society integration policies are not applicable.
In advanced countries, due to the success of birth-control family planning policies while Islamic immigrants are without birth-control for religious reasons, there becomes to be those nations where the number of newborn babies of the Islamic immigrants has overtaken that of the native residents, which is one of the population phenomenological changes, causing serious aftereffects. Even without the population phenomenological aspect, the aftereffects like increasing number of Muslims, Islamic State(IS), terrorism of Sunni Muslims armed groups are taking place everyday. In case of Korea, the number of foreigner stays is increasing and the increasing rate of foreign criminals is 1.9 times that of foreigner stays. Their methods of committing crimes are evolving to be cruel, thus causing bad impression about multiculture. In such a situation, the increasing speed of the change to a multicultural society is causing people's increased anxiety.
[Table 1] Foreigner Crimes by Type of Crime
Source: Statistics from the National Police Agency (2015)
Through analyzing the statistics by type of crime about the foreigner crimes taking place domestically (Associated with the Ministry of Justice, Establishment of reduction plan, etc.) as well as the factors of the increasing inflow of foreigner population and the increase in foreigner crimes in pace with the internationalization era, preemptive measures are to be taken before developing into social problems by preventing international crimes preemptively and by effectively confronting foreigner crimes. Looking into the trend of foreigner crimes, foreigner stays are on an increasing trend in accordance with the basic principles of such an open policy as the working visit system (March, 2007) for overseas Koreans who are residing in China and Soviet Russia.
The number of foreigner stays has increased from 1,261,415 persons in 2010 to 1,899,519 in 2015, whereas the number of arrested foreigner suspects was 35,443, which is a 24.5%(6,987 persons) increase as compared with 28,456 of the previous year. In type of crime, the number of violence criminals is the highest to be 9,786 persons (27.6%), and the next ones are traffic-related criminals like drunk driving, etc. and other criminals(violation of the Immigration Control Law), accounting for 27.14% and 22.3% respectively.
Voices of concerns are growing as related to foreigner criminal cases while the crime rate is increasing due to the increase in the population of foreigner inflow. In such a situation, the government is executing diversified multiculturerelated policies. Although government policies are being developed and executed in association with interested parties with the central government as the center, they are not enough for coping with the rapidly changing multicultural society while various problems are occurring one after another.
2.3. The Model of Multicultural Family Policy
Kang and Jung(2006) have divided the model of multicultural family policies into assimilation and multiculturalism by using the method of accommodating immigrants, and then, divided them as discriminatory exclusivism, assimilation principle, and multiculturalism. The discriminatory exclusivism is to minimize or exclude social conflicts by minimizing contacts with minority ethnic groups. Such discriminatory exclusivism is considered rather limited perspective, while most countries are aiming at the model of either multiculturalism or assimilation principle. Based on such a background, Jang-Yeop Jeong excluded the discriminatory exclusivism from the model of multicultural family policies in his 2013 study, but in this study, the discriminatory exclusivism is included intentionally.
2.3.1. The Model of Assimilation Principle
The assimilation principle model is a model that wishes immigrants to abandon their linguistic cultural uniqueness and identity and then to be integrated into the society in accordance with the policies of their immigrated country. In many countries, when any minority culture is introduced naturally, they have been absorbing and assimilating the minority culture naturally into their majority culture, and such a tendency is the assimilation principle. As such, the assimilation principle that integrates any minority cultures into the mainstream culture is open-minded and accepts immigrants readily taking it for granted that multicultural families obtain the citizenship of their immigrated country like native residents and accept the language and the mainstream culture. Accordingly, the country to which multicultural families have immigrated demands those families to be melted into the mainstream culture setting their unique cultural identity aside.
Consequently, the assimilation principle seeks cultural homogeneity and the establishment of social integration and national identity that are the same as those of native residents through the assimilation process. This is because of the viewpoint that the political and economical complaints of minority groups due to the difference in culture, language and religion often becomes the cause of arousing social anxiety. Therefore, the assimilation principle model views that various conflicts being taking place in a multicultural society will disappear when a minority group is completely absorbed into the mainstream society.
The typical country that has adopted the model of assimilation principle is France. In France, after its human right revolution, exposing the origin of foreign immigrants is regarded as a taboo on the basis of the universal human right concept and even in various official statistics, it is difficult to know any distribution by origin, while the tendency of not allowing any foreign origin to be exposed in various policies is quite strong. Such a tendency can be confirmed in the matter of citizenship acquisition, thus it is not quite difficult for foreign immigrants to be given the nationality or citizenship if they perform duties like native citizens. However, seeking the assimilation principle, France does not make any policy-related consideration or have no public policies with regard to any specific ethnic group or nationality. This is because the separation consciousness resulting from recognizing minority immigrants is thought to possibly become the causes for a new type of discrimination and hindrance to social integration.
France is viewed to have been seeking for the assimilation principle in order for immigrants to be melted in the value that communities are seeking for, which is, in other words, the French republicanism rather than seeking for the diversity of immigrants. claims that the French Revolution is the origin of the French assimilation principle, and that the most important requirement is whether the ideology of a republic is accepted or not rather than the ancestry, and also that the conflicts with such foreign immigrants that are not harmonized emotionally continue to exist. Viewing such an aspect, the assimilation of foreign immigrants is being criticized because of the aspects that perfect assimilation of foreign immigrant is impractical, and that although the assimilation may have been achieved, the intercultural collision and sense of difference caused by social separation and exclusion can be increased, and that, in the course of performance, a number of conflicts can be induced causing the capabilities for integrating minority ethnic groups to be weakened, and that the intention and the result of a policy can be different.
2.3.2. The Multiculturalism Model
Since the 1970's in the USA, Canada and Australia, they have been using the word of multiculturalism in lieu of assimilation principle, and it is being primarily used recently in Korea as well. In his 2010 study, proposed the necessity of multicultural society integration policies due to the disputes on the identity that are being made by diversified ethnic groups and nationalities coexisting in a society. Being different from the assimilation principle model which is a well refined political doctrine, the multiculturalism model is not a philosophical discourse with profound theories contained. There are those countries that are adopting the model of multiculturalism, but according to Baek(2005), the multiculturalism can in a broad sense be said to be a method or perspective for observing human life, 2014, recited. Such a model of multiculturalism was not a model that had appeared naturally and peacefully. The method that had generally been regarded to be effective for the social integration of foreign immigrants was the assimilation principle model, being introduced in the most cases. However, the number of the immigrants, who had an antipathy toward the coerciveness and closed nature of the assimilation principle model, was increased, thus becoming the cause of social conflicts. Because of such, its limitations were revealed and the necessity for a new alternative model was suggested. The concept that has appeared as a result of seeking for a new model is the multiculturalism model. The purpose of the multiculturalism model is, with the inflow of foreign immigrants of diversified national identities, for both the immigrants who have different cultural background and the mainstream groups to live well together, and the importance of the multiculturalism model is seen to have been magnified by the limitations of the traditional citizenship model. The multiculturalism model is a model that emphasizes diversified cultural identity or cultural right, while it can be an alternative to the traditional citizenship model. The traditional citizenship model was proposed by Kim(2004) and views that all the citizens share their culture jointly aiming at promoting a common national identity while having the same way of doing anything. Due to the difference in the cultural identity of foreign immigrants, they become to have limitations in being integrated into the mainstream group while experiencing continued discrimination and alienation and this also becomes the background of the appearance of the multiculturalism model.
The policy target of the multiculturalism model is to acknowledge the diversity of immigrants while seeking for the identity of immigrants and to find out integration and unity through the acknowledgement. The multiculturalism model in the initial period was used with more affirmative meaning than the assimilation principle model with which diversified cultural society was not realized due to the cultural suppression of a specific society, and they were forced to be assimilated in the course of being integrated as members of that society and they are forced to change their unique tradition, language, culture, living customs, etc. It is because the word of 'multiculturalism' itself is to be allowed to coexist while being recognized of their uniqueness with no suppression and being given officially the same right as that of the mainstream people as society members. According to the study of, those countries that have adopted the multiculturalism model are providing positive support in order to protect and maintain the ethnic groups, languages, traditional cultures and living customs. Also to the native residents, racial discrimination is prohibited by policy measures and the discrimination corrective measures are introduced. The multiculturalism model is in an affirmative meaning, being used for the recognition of minority culture, communication of diversified cultures, communitarianism, cultural pluralism, etc. and it is also used as the tools for emphasizing the politics and morality. As such, it is not only an ideology for integrating the society but also a policy principle to be taken after overcoming political, economic, cultural and social inequality and discrimination.
In order to understand the multiculturalism, it is necessary to make a comparison with the cultural pluralism. Both the models are similar in the sense that they are seeking for social integration and acknowledge the diversity, but in the case of the cultural pluralism, it acknowledges the plural nature and diversity of culture on the one hand, but it is rather passive in acknowledging the existence of various diversified minority nationalities with the mainstream society as the center, which is the difference, The multiculturalism model is a more developed concept in which equal acknowledgement of diversified cultures is being emphasized rather than propounding the mainstream society.
Has defined the concept of multiculturalism as 'acknowledging the equal values of multicultural families, supporting the preservation of those values and preparing preferential measures like positive measures, etc.
[Table 2] makes it possible to compare the assimilation principle model with the multiculturalism model.
[Table 2] Comparison of Characteristics Between Assimilation Principle Model and Multiculturalism Mode
Source: Kim(2011), Ko(2011), Ha(2011), reconstituted.
Through reviewing [Table 2], the difference between the assimilation principle model and the multiculturalism can be understood: the assimilation principle model seeks for cultural homogeneity without understanding minority cultures and urges minorities to be assimilated to the mainstream society unconditionally whereas the multiculturalism model acknowledges their uniqueness and makes them participate in the society positively wishing to form an ideal society.
2.3.3. The Discriminatory Exclusion Model
Has defined the discriminatory exclusion model as a multiculturalism model that is aiming at the cultural unity with the jus sanguinis on its basis through the acquisition of nationality under the strict standards including very restrictive and exclusive immigration policies. Pursuing the monoculturalism that appears as pure blood ties, and also pursuing strong homogeneity of the nation and its people, the discriminatory exclusion model appears to be in a closed form. Germany is one of the typical countries that have enforced the discriminatory exclusion policies and due to its national consciousness that is given the highest value, the multiculturalism policies of the discriminatory exclusion can be enforced. For a nation of its people, their cohesiveness is required and these people constitute their nation. In the case of Germany, social problems were prevalent in the 1960's because of the continued stay of those workers and their children who had not returned to their country after the expiration of their labor contract period. And the German government chose the discrimination and exclusion as its strong immigration policies. In addition, through institutionally adopting the social discrimination by law, the government controlled foreigners' job types, residential environment, working hours, etc. Moreover, in order to prevent permanent settlement of them, policies were enforced as for maintaining a special police force that would conduct surveillance through government agencies, and be committed to deportation on occurrence of working immigrants' illegal acts.
3. Overseas Cases of Turning to Multicultural Society
Every country has a different meaning of the multiculturalism and also the formation process of it and response to it are different by country. The United States was the first country of starting discussions on multiculturalism, where the highest number of multicultural policies have been enforced and diversified but it is also a country that has not formalized multiculturalism. Being compared to this, in the case of Canada, multiculturalism has been formalized being stipulated in the Constitution and relevant laws have been enacted. Australia was restricting immigration by its 'White Australia' policy, but it abolished the 'White Australia' policy on various needs and now it is enforcing various policies that accept multiculturalism, whereas it is reviewing its policies due to the fact that conflicts between races are becoming social problems. France is formally enforcing the assimilation principle rather strongly and viewing the increasing number of Arab immigrants, multiculturalism is being officially discussed, but it has not been adopted as a policy by France yet.
3.1. American Case of Turning to Multicultural Society
As is safe to say that the American history is that of immigrants, the national establishment was achieved by immigrants from Europe. The United States culture was mixed with that of African blacks who had been brought to the United States as slaves, thus it is a country that was started as a multicultural society. The multiculturalism in the initial period of the United States was that of the discriminatory exclusion principle, and not the native culture but the culture of immigrants was taken as the mainstream culture in the direction that the American indians and black slaves were thoroughly excluded.
The greatly conversive event in the United States history was the Civil War, after which the slavery of over 200 years was abolished and the leading power being taken by the south in the early years of the United States had to be taken over by the north. In the later years of the 1900's, the United States was boasting its status as the No. 1 industrial country that became to be in need of additional workforce, thus prompting a lot of people to come to the United States. In the period of the World War I, over 20 million people immigrated to the United States.
The nativistic movement was revived as triggered by the flooding immigrants, but because of those employers who were in need of cheap and abundant workforce among the nativistic power groups, the movement was not able to show any progress, but a large scale of immigration was followed (Kim, 2004). This means that assimilation of the native culture to that of Anglo-Saxon America was difficult, and the United States formulated the melting-pot concept as an alternative to the assimilation concept, which means that the United States culture has to be built up in common. However, comparing to melting-pot is a kind of myth and a mainstream's wish of very low practicality. The reason is that taking the white Puritan culture to be kept as the mainstream culture in mind, other cultures were hoped to be melted into the mainstream, but the confrontation between the old immigrants and the new immigrants continued. The United States participated in the World War I belatedly and jumped up to be the strongest country, but inside the country, conflicts between races were bearing profound social problems. This period of time coincides with the time when the status of indians was influenced, and the policies of the federal government in the initial stage was to negotiate with indians the treaty prepared by the Senate, but due to the pressure from white settlers, it didn't work. White settlers intended to take lands of indians but negotiating with indians could be against their intention. Indians have experienced a series of blood-shed conflicts and as a result, the tribe dispersion policy of the Congress was withdrawn in 1967 and then the proposal for rearranging two reservation areas was submitted and consented, but this was not enforced well causing indians' resistance. The fight between indians and whites was being continued from 1852 to 1880's.
Among the characteristics of the multicultural education of the United States, there are the positive discriminationcorrective measures and the canon debate. The canon debate is a debate about what is worthy of reading and teaching and it expanded the horizon of American literature by including the women and black writers. Also, the positive discrimination corrective measures were debated about employment and college entrance screening as a result of a civil rights movement, and the Supreme Court ruled that the quota system is unconstitutional but that race can be acknowledged as an evaluation factor when individual applicants are considered and competing with each other.
3.2. Canadian Case of Turning to Multicultural Society
In the case of Canada, from the colonial pioneering days, it was consisted of the two groups of immigrants from the United Kingdom and France and these two groups are the mainstream groups. Canada was enforcing lenient policies to Europeans and exclusion policies to immigrants of colored races, but in 1967, it withdrew the traditional policies and adopted a point system for immigrants by education, ability, age, etc., and as a result, the number of colored immigrants has increased. Canada has an affirmative recognition about cultural diversity, which had been greatly influenced by the 'Silent Revolution of Quebec.' French immigrants became discontent about the lead that had been taken by British immigrants, and they were seeking out their root with pride while part of them became to exclaim for secession. In such a situation, the government tried to resolve the situation with the dual culturalism and dual language, and its interest was gradually shifted to the communities of other cultures, and as a result, it became to reach the point at which it declared that all the cultural groups are equal by claiming multiculturalism in 1971. Later in 1982, the Constitution was revised to insert the multiculturalism, and in 1988, the multiculturalism law was enacted to acknowledge its diversity as the basic nature of the Canadian society. Also, the characteristics of Canada's multicultural education can be pointed out to be taking the nurturing of cultural identity and confidence of minorities as a target, emphasizing the communication between the minority groups, providing dual language education by remote education, etc. For educating teachers, multicultural education is a prerequisite, and antidiscrimination and anti-prejudice education is to be supported. In overall, it is said that efforts are being made to make the whole school be in a multicultural education environment.
Although the multiculturalism is taking roots, it is true that many problems encountered as well. With the full-scale inflow of colored people, their diversity which was beyond expectation was spread over the Canadian society. This has caused a sense of insecurity about the difference in skin color or the cultural difference as well as the rapid growth in the number of colored people, and since the 1970's, because immigrants were competent and familiarized with a merit system, they could participate readily in the mainstream society, thus being recognized as a group to compete with the mainstream group. Also, such insecurity feelings were causing various cases of prejudice and discrimination to be expanded, thus sparking oppositions against multiculturalism. In the second half of the 1980's, an opinion was expressed that multiculturalism was interrupting the social integration, and in addition, the necessity for revising the immigration is being advocated.
Canada's multiculturalism follows the mosaic theory. The mosaic theory is that several adjacent minority groups' unit cultures are being maintained in the mainstream society in their own way and therefore subcultures coexist and achieve an harmonization of themselves. Not like in the initial period when the British and French immigrants were taken as the mainstream, after the 1970's, diversified minority groups are achieving a form that they are maintaining their cultures and coexisting with others.
3.3. Australian Case of Turning to Multiculturalism
Taking the White Australia immigration policy, Australia was accepting only the European immigrants and in 1901, Australia enforced its immigration policy by legislating its policy. Australian people's identity is based on the culture of whites, and this was seen to be changing after the World War II, and then experiencing the war, Australia felt a crisis in its self-defense due to its small population size. In order to promote its economic growth, Australia placed its highest priority on securing abundant workforce, which prompted Australia to establish a large scale immigration plan. Hence the White Australia policy was abolished in 1973 and multiculturalism was beginning to emerge. In 1977, the 3 major principles of multiculturalism of equal opportunity, cultural identity and social cohesion were proposed and in 2003, the basic principles of multiculturalism were announced in the 4 ways of common duty, mutual equity, mutual respect and common benefit. However, recently in Australia where the 'Multiculture Australia' was promoted, changing policies is being sought and movements of opposing the 'Multiculture Austalia' are increasing due to the interracial conflicts. This means that multiculturalism was not exerting an affirmative influence to social integration and ended in failure, and therefore, the economic redistribution is in a state of repose becoming a structural inequality, thus appearing as criticism to multiculturalism.
Looking into the characteristics of Australia's multiculture education, the education of English and native language for immigrants and foreigners is pointed out. English language institutes are operating for free in each area, and from the primary school year, students are allowed to select any of the languages of minorities as their secondary language class, thus improving their understanding and insight about multiculturalism.
4. French Case of Turning to Multiculturalism
France has its principle of embracing even those of different cultures from the starting time of the republic that was established by the French Revolution. In addition, in order to form a homogeneous group of people, France has dissolved the local cultural communities of heterogeneous nature. Such a republican assimilation policy was allowing the acceptance of those immigrants from its colony of Algeria for overcoming its lack of labor force. And as the number of immigrants from Algeria was growing high, France became to confront a severe challenge. In 1960's and early in 1970's, small and large scale demonstrations of the immigrants protesting about poor environment, poverty and discrimination and the confronting extreme rightists as well as the violent response of the police were aggravating the social conflicts while the policies of regulating immigration were strengthened.
With the expulsion of the middle school girls wearing hejab in 1989, arguments surrounding the event continued without an end, and in 2004, the prohibition of wearing religious symbolic thing within public schools was enacted. Strengthening of immigration policies and enactment of the above-said prohibition seem to let us think that there's no place for multiculturalism to survive, but looking into the 'Stasi Report' which triggered the prohibition enactment, it can be guessed that the assimilation principle was reaching its limit. The said report was prepared by the presidential advisory council, and a number of proposals on multiculturalism were contained in it. Although they have not been adopted, the official discourse of the said council shows that a new equilibrium point is being sought between the republican integration of people and the multiculturalism.
Being different from the formal republican assimilation policies, on the spot of schools, multiculturalism has recently been directed to be strengthened through diversified educational programs. Teachers have been learning how to teach effectively about immigration, de–colonization, human rights, etc. through seminars and reeducation and then they are teaching about the historical facts in the colonial era, diversity of ethnic group races and cultures, unequal distribution of wealth, etc. so that students can understand the history and culture of immigrants.
5. The Multicultural Society of Korea
5.1. Korean Multicultural Society Integration Policy
Since the 1990's in Korea, the inflow of foreign workers and married immigrants has been increasing, and in 2009, the number of them exceeded one million, and later in 2015, that number increased to be on the level of over 1.7 million as can be seen in [Table 3], thus making Korea a multicultural society. Viewing the immigrants among the whole population residing in Korea by the proportion of population, it increased from 1.5% in 2007 to 3.4% in 2015, being an over 2 times increase. Even though it may be said that such a proportion to its population may not be regarded as a high-level one as compared with that of the western European countries where the proportion is around 20% in general, but the increasing rate of over 2 times within a period of less than 10 years is a meaningful number that requires a policy-making response. In such a situation, the central government and each of the local autonomous bodies are enforcing diversified multicultural society integration policies in order for the immigrants to be well adapted to the Korean society.
[Table 3] Current State of the Population Residing in Korea and the Population with Immigration Background
Source: Statistics of Ministry of Justice (2015)
Korean multicultural society integration policies have in the meantime been staying at the immigration control related policies and the foreign workforce related policies that are first or second stage policies. Korea is a type of the country that started to allow foreigners to immigrate belatedly. Taking the 1980's as the turning point, Korea has changed to be an immigration-overbalance country where the number of immigrants is higher than that of emigrants. Since the early 1990's, Korea had been addressing itself to the establishment of foreign workforce related policies, and not until the mid-2000's, Korea began to seek for social integration related policies for foreigners.
The laws that are dealing with stipulations of immigrants and their status among the Korean laws are the Constitution, the Act on the Treatment of Foreigners Residing in Korea and the Nationality Act. The Section 1, Article 2 of the Constitution stipulates that 'the requirements for becoming a citizen of Korea are to be made into a law' and the requirements for becoming a citizen of Korea and foreigners are defined in the Nationality Act. In other words, the Section 1, Article 3 of the Nationality Act stipulates that a foreigner is ‘a person who is not a citizen of the Republic of Korea’ and therefore, the legal basis for a foreigner to become a Korean citizen is already given.
The ‘Act on the Immigration and Legal Status of Overseas Koreans’ enacted on September 2, 1999 stipulates about the basic rights of overseas Koreans and the treatment of them. In this Act, the freedom of immigration, stay and employment for overseas Koreans is stipulated, and special cases are stipulated about real estate transaction, financial transaction, foreign exchange transaction, pension, health insurance, compensation pays for persons of national merit, persons of independence contribution and their bereaved families.
In 2008, the Multicultural Family Support Act was enacted and enforced on the purpose of contributing to improving the social integration as well as the quality of life of members of multicultural families through enabling them to manage their stable family life. Also in May of the same year, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced the measures of providing support to multicultural families with the support customized to life cycle. In May, 2010, the multicultural family policy committee determined to adopt the basic plan of the multicultural family support policy which was prepared to promote the economic self-supporting ability of multicultural families. Due to the fact that, along with their Korean spouses, married immigrants give birth to and nurture their second generation babies, thus creating new different social members, the national policies have become to be focused on both the married immigrants and their families (Kim, 2009). As such, looking at the multicultural society integration policies of the government, the national policies are being strengthened with the focus placed on the married immigrants whose purpose is to start a family, to acquire Korean nationality and to live as citizens of the Republic of Korea, which can be the most prominent characteristic.
5.2. Characteristics of Korean Multicultural Policies
Thought that the multicultural policies of the Korean government are closer to the 'multiculture-aimed' policies rather than the 'multiculturalism' policies, have a very strong nature of assimilation, and are closer to the policy networks between the 'state and civil society' rather than the 'state-led' or 'government-led' policies, and then proposed the stage-by-stage multiculturalism as measures to practically combine the ideal of the state-led and citizen-led multiculturalism discourses with the reality in a policy-making dimension.
Also, Explained the characteristics of the multicultural family policies as 4 different ones. First, regarding the government's multicultural family policies, it was revealed that the given tasks of the policies on foreigners or the policies on multicultural families as taken by the government were covering both the assimilation principle and the multiculturalism each taking a similar proportion, but that among the tasks that have been worked out as divided by policy, without any consistency among policies, there were the tasks leaning toward the assimilation principle while there were others leaning toward the multiculturalism.
Second, dividing the recognition of both local residents and married immigrants on multicultural family policies by detailed policy, it was revealed that both of them were recognizing the immigration adaptation, employment, welfare, etc. related multicultural policies as multiculturalism, and the culture related multicultural policies as assimilation principle. However, as for the education related multicultural policies, it was found out that married immigrants recognized them as assimilation principle while local residents recognized them as multiculturalism. This illustrates that, in the policies on married immigrants, a field is needed for immigrants to communicate with local residents through developing and providing cultural programs that are related to the mother country of immigrants. In addition, it can be seen that, in the aspect of language education, programs that married immigrants teach their mother tongue to Koreans, etc. should also be developed.
Third, it was found out that in the recognition about the multicultural family policies, there's a gap between married immigrants and local residents. Among the multicultural policies related to immigration adaptation, as to the 'understanding the behavior different from that of a Korean,' local residents' understanding was found out to be higher than that of immigrants. This means that local residents are understanding better than immigrants about the very fact that married immigrants behave differently from Koreans. Among the education related multucultural policies, as to the 'support to Korean language related education,' 'support to Korean life customs (Korean cuisine, courtesy, etc.) related education,' 'opportunity for families or relatives to learn the language of married immigrants' country,' etc., it was found out that married immigrants' understanding was higher than that of local residents. This means that, as to the Korean language related education, Korean life custom education, married immigrants' mother tongue education, etc., married immigrants are recognizing that the government-provided supports are better than those recognized by local residents. However, among the multicultural policies that are related to culture, as to the 'Korean recognition and understanding about the culture of married immigrants' mother country,' it was possible to realize that there's no difference between married immigrants and local residents.
Fourth, as for the future direction of the multicultural family policies, it was revealed that the most wanted thing of married immigrants was 'better support and treatment during the course of finding a job or when starting a job' and that of local residents was 'support to the social welfare service so that married immigrants can be adapted to their life in Korea.' In other words, married immigrants want the multicultural family policies to be promoted so that the first priority will be placed on providing jobs for them, while local residents want the first priority to be placed on providing social welfare services.
6. Summary
Among the multicultural society issues, the most prominent ones being shown up these days are about the civil war with Islamic extremists and the issue of refugees. Immigrants from the South West Asian Islamic countries have been settling down in Europe having the same rights as the native people and sticking to their life while preserving their religion and culture. Differently from the West where population growth has been restricted by birth control, because of the immigrants who are free of birth control according to Islamic principles while helping the European countries in solving the problem of low birth rate, European countries are endangered of having to see their majority ethnic group race being changed owing to the ever-increasing number of immigrants, With such a situation of the times, European countries suffering from various social problems and conflicts that may be called the second war of religion. Here, with the Syrian refugee issue overlapped, the number of Europe-bound refugees in the single year of 2015 is known to have exceeded one million. This is a 3~4 times increase as compared to the number in 2014, an enormous scale of an increase caused by not only the Syrian situation, but also by Ebola virus disease, Boko Haram-the extremist armed group in West Africa, great earthquakes in Nepal, civil war in Libya, bloodshed of South Sudan, civil war of Afghanistan, etc. Due to such refugee issues, the European society is experiencing the risk of splitting the EU and at last, the United Kingdom declared the Brexit and withdrew form the EU.
In view of the fact that multiculturalism issues are taking place in the Western countries where they were yelling multiculturalism much earlier than us in Korea, the Korean society is being alerted to the caution that it should step off on the right foot from the start of its multicultural society that has recently started with married women immigrants as the center. The Korean multiculturalism has characteristically been constructed to be its multicultural society with the marriages as the center, and the marriages have been made mostly with the immigrants from the Central Asia and the South East Asia. The current multiculturalism policies are being taken to the extent that, with these immigrants as the center, they are encouraged to understand the Korean culture and their difficulties are being solved, which indicates that a limitation exists in that the majority of these policies are multicultural family related ones. However, the Korean government is trying to construct an Islamic halal food theme park in Iksan, Jeonbuk, whereas on-line signatureseeking drives against it are spreading among netizens. In March, 2013, when President Park Geun-hye visited the United Arab Emirates(UAE), an agreement for promoting mutual cooperation in the field of halal food between both governments was signed and the religious circles in Korea and various civic groups came out against it. However, these oppositions are those made by the religious part, and the government's policies are for only the benefit of the economic segment, and without any consideration being made on the resulting social problems or various situations of other countries, the policies are being enforced.
If the Korean multicultural society up until now should be regarded as that of married women immigrants, it should be, from now on, regarded as the multicultural society of immigrants through projects and policies between nations. This is an inevitable process in the international society, and it is an issue that can be a big threat especially to the Korean society where the principle of maintaining a single race is pervasive, Through this study, characteristics and problems of various countries have been investigated. As a result, from the view of the directional nature of the Korean multiculturalism, it seems that they are not enough to recognize and accept the immigrants soundly. In particular, the religious peculiarities of Islamic immigrants are quite strong and as there are some parts in them that are against the Korean laws and order, it seems that the education and institutional parts must be supplemented in order for them to be accepted in our society. Even so, if policies are taken too much in the direction of excluding discrimination, it may be against equity while it can be a problem between nations. Due to such reasons, it is intended that a proposal should be made for suggesting the direction of respecting the culture of immigrants and of accepting them within the limit that is not against the culture, laws and sentiment of the Korean society. In addition, multicultural policies with other perspectives are required apart from the languageoriented education and support-centeredness. They have to be based on the cultural understanding and coexistence through conducting studies on the cultures including the religions in each cultural area. In accordance with the increasing trend of the immigrants who are becoming diversified away from the concentration in the South East Asia, it is necessary that systematic studies and approaches on the immigrants from diversified cultural areas and diversified countries should be conducted. As Korean current multicultural family policies are being taken to provide support to multicultural families and especially to married immigrants with the Multicultural Family Support Center standing in front, there are limitations in making a systematic intervention about immigrated children. The immigrated children are confronting the adaptation difficulties of immigrants including the cultural and language-related difficulties in addition to the youth problem that must be encountered in their developmental stage. An examination on the actual conditions about them as well as the education and policies for them are additional matters that will have to be considered.
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