Multicultural education has different shapes depending on the culture to which it belongs.
Owing to the tradition of ‘jus sanguinis,’ the right of blood, Korean culture has reproduced its
own identity through the lens of ‘purity of blood.’ It helps to create ‘we-ness’, which could
inspire extraordinary self-sacrifice among Koreans for achieving common national goals.
Therefore, multicultural education could be regarded as a conceptual invasion weakening the
power of we-ness by blurring the boundaries of ‘we.’ However, implementation of multicultural
education has proliferated in the last few years through pan-governmental political investment.
Multicultural education has become an overarching concept that holds the potential of changing
the stereotype of ‘pure Koreaness.’
This study examines the particularity of Korean multicultural education through interview and
literature analysis. The examination of educational policies, statements, and curricula reveals the
ways in which the potentially transformative nature of multicultural education has a limited
meaning in the context of Korean culture. For example, our analysis of multicultural policies
shows that the term ‘multiculture family’ is used as a dismissive term for ‘family of immigrants
with low socio-economic status.’ Also, multicultural education and its coded ethnic discourse
have reduced immigrants as objects without desire. At the same time, Korea’s longing toward
‘advanced nation’ status provides paradoxical impetus for the expansion of multicultural
education. Behind the rapid success of Korea’s multiculturalism, one finds heterogeneous
elements such as excessive zeal for national competitiveness, democratic desire, and a drive for
educational equity.