목차

The object of this study is to confirm the concept of national identity and to find out what factors affect a person’s thinking about their national identity. By correctly identifying these factors then it will be possible to improve the current educational system by not only helping to integrate everyone into a more open minded society, but also by cultivating self awareness and a sense of belonging through appropriate educational aids.
This study is a qualitative case study for multicultural students in an elementary school (‘A’), located in Yongsan-gu. This qualitative type of study overcomes the limitations of numerical quantified studies to provide a detailed insight into the national identity of multicultural students.
According to results of the study, most of the participants considered themselves to be Korean citizens. Their reasons for this and the strength in which they believe it were wide and diverse. Regardless of the Korean Nationality Act each of the participants had their own thoughts and ideas regarding their own national identities. According to these thoughts and opinions the students determined their nationality as either Korean or not. The factors which mostly affected their thoughts on national identity were: birthplace, the place where he/she has grown up or lived, their parents and their relationships with others. Add to those, language, appearance, travel to parents’ country (outside of Korea) and their personal opinions and experiences of Korea and Korean people.
Based on the above findings, there are four distinct groups of people whose thoughts about national identity are affected by four main factors. The first type is the native-centric group. A person in this group determines his/her nationality by the place where he/she was born. The second type is place-centric group. People belonging to this group, regardless of their actual nationality, perceive their national identity as being from the place where they’ve grown up or where they are living currently. The third class is a parent-driven group of people. These peoples are influenced by genetic characteristics or the nationality of their parents, or indeed, both. The last group is a relationship-driven type. The person’s national identity depends on acceptance or exclusion by the people who are native to that country.
The results of this study suggest that education should be focused on the place centric type. Making people feel like they are ‘the same’ and not ‘different’ to native people in the country will help them to feel part of the place and community in which they reside. In turn, this may help to minimize conflicts and divisions within the society.
Additionally it is important to consider how best to educate people with multinational backgrounds. In Korea it is illegal to have dual citizenship; however it is important to recognize that some people do in fact consider themselves to be citizens of two or more countries. In the future the number of multinational citizens in Korea is bound to increase and the current law regarding nationality in Korea does nothing but add to the confusion regarding national identity for these citizens. It is important that we think of solutions to this problem and potentially consider amending the current laws and education regarding dual nationality.
As with all studies it is important to recognize that the results declared here are bound by certain limitations. Firstly, the number of students who were interviewed and the number of times they were interviewed was too small. Ideally, to gain a more in depth / broader understanding of the factors that affect a person’s national identity a much larger set of subjects would need to be interviewed, preferably numerous times. Future studies in this area could be combined with this study to analyze the factors in much more detail. Additionally, if time had permitted it would have been good to follow these students further into their lives to see how their thoughts and ideas on national identity change and develop over time. Only then would it be possible to gain a really deep and accurate insight into all of the factors that affect a person’s national identity.