Immigrant mothers, multicultural children, and multicultural families of South Korea

The current study explored key issues surrounding immigrant mothers and multicultural families of South Korea. While the number of multicultural families has been growing in Korea, there has been little research exploring the challenges they face. In addition to the most basic difficulties such as language barriers and cultural differences, multicultural families of Korea experience a unique set of challenges stemming from the need to rear multicultural children in ethnically homogenous Korean society. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted to explore the challenges that immigrant mothers have as they adjust to their lives in Korea and raise children. The data were analyzed using the method of Grounded Theory. The results indicate that the immigrant mothers are greatly concerned about the challenges they expect their children will face, in addition to the difficulties experienced by the mothers themselves. Most participants found acculturating to the Korean culture, especially in terms of their relationships to their husband's family, particularly difficult. Nonetheless, the immigrant mothers wanted their multicultural children to understand and value the cultural roots of the mothers' home culture. While not one participant said that her transition to Korea was easy, most said that their adjustment improved the longer they stayed in Korea. Hopefully, these results provide a deeper understanding of multicultural families in Korea.