국내 다문화교육지원기관의 제도화 및 재맥락화

Abstract

본 연구에서는 우리나라의 다문화교육지원기관이 지난 20여 년간(1991∼2010년)에 걸쳐 변화된 과정을 주요 사례로 삼아 우리나라 다문화교육지원기관의 조직과 운영방식 및 내용이 어떻게 확산되고 동형화 또는 다양화되어 가는지를 확인하고자 하였다. 나아가 세계사회의 문화가 우리나라 다문화교육지원기관에 어떠한 방식과 내용으로 반영되고 재맥락화 되었는지를 탐색적으로 연구해보고자 하였다. 본 연구의 분석결과를 종합적으로 고려해 보면, 다문화교육지원기관은 개별국가의 구체적인 사회·경제적 필요를 효과적으로 충족시키기 위한 기능적 도구라기보다는 세계의 문화적 가치와 규칙을 상당한 정도로 반영하는?제도적?구성물일 가능성을 시사한다. 본 연구는 세계통합에 따른 문화적 담론의 영향력이 국내 다문화 교육지원기관의 주요 변화요인으로 작용함과 동시에 그 본래의 의미가 재맥락화 되어 왔을 가능성을 경험적 자료에 근거하여 보여준다는 점에서 의미를 지닌다. 이러한 연구 결과는 앞으로 다문화교육에 관한 논의에 보다 거시적인 세계사회적인 시각을 도입할 필요가 있음을 시사한다. As an exploratory investigation, this study attends to the institutionalization and (re)contextualization of multicultural education centers in Korea over the past two decades (1991-2010). A set of empirical data for this study was gathered from various official sources, primarily the websites of multicultural education centers. The research questions are as follows: 1. What has been the driving force behind the institutionalization of multicultural centers in Korea? 2. How has the function of multicultural centers been contextualized in Korea? With regard to the research question 1, the data analyzed in this study shed light on the possibility that the institutionalization of multicultural centers in Korea has been responsive to a collection of “universal discourses” on multiculturalism that have been elaborated and disseminated on a global scale. The data indicate that the official mission statements of those centers frequently emphasize notions such as global human rights, global community, and cultural diversity, all of which represent some of the central elements of global epistemic models of multiculturalism. One way to interpret this finding may be that the perceived needs for multicultural education centers in Korea have largely been socially constructed based on global discourses on multiculturalism, fairly independent of substantive societal needs for them. As for the research question 2, a series of analyses of the data points to the possibility that the content of the programs in multicultural education centers in Korea is “loosely coupled” with the official missions. An illustrative example of such a loose coupling is that many of those centers have been focusing their educational programs on Korean cultural elements, while their official mission statements ostensively emphasize universal cultural norms and values. In addition, the data show a strong correlation between the number of multicultural education centers and the size of cultural minority groups (e.g., foreign workers, marriage immigrants, and North Korean defectors) across different parts of Korea. These findings may lead one to suspect that the function of those centers has been recontextualized in a way to assimilate cultural minority groups into the dominant Korean culture. Overall, the findings from this study suggest that the rise and diffusion of multicultural education centers in Korea may not simply be a functional response to concrete societal needs within the country, but a reflection of global epistemic models that help us reinterpret and render new meaning to diversity in society. This study hopes to provoke further inquiry into the relationship between multicultural education and global-local processes from a world-society perspective.