韓国と日本における外国人政策と言語教育

Abstract

Since 2005, the term “multiculturalism” has been widely used in Korea and Japan as a result of the surge in the number of foreigners visiting and settling in the two countries. Due to this influx of foreigners, the respective governments of Korea and Japan had to take necessary actions in response. Since there are various reasons as to why foreign nationals come into Korea and Japan such as training, employment and marriage, border guards must critically evaluate these reasons as well as assess each foreigner’s intended duration of stay and allow entry only to those nationals whose purposes are valid and necessary for their respective countries. Korea and Japan are both experiencing low fertility rates and aging populations. In order to resolve these two major issues, the two countries decided to implement a law that would welcome migrants and hire foreigners because doing this would help them maintain their economic stability, increase the number of marriages through intermarriages with foreigners, and increase employment rates. These two countries carefully control the number of foreigners that enter and cautiously monitor their activities. For neutrality purposes, the term “foreign policy” will be used in this article instead of “cultural policy.” When examining the respective foreign policies of Korea and Japan, one would realize that Korea’s policies are being executed by its central government while Japan’s policies are implemented by its private and local institutions. As such, Korea’s foreign policy is called “multiculturalism from above” whereas Japan’s policy is termed “multiculturalism from below”. Given only these pieces of information and without further knowledge about the matter, it is quite difficult to understand the realities and differences of the foreign policies of the two countries and it will be challenging to foresee the future directions that each country would take. Language education for foreign immigrants is one of the prominent features of these two countries’ foreign policy. In Japan, its central government started to open its residential areas and Japanese schools across the country to foreign immigrants. The Japanese government also provided support to foreigners. However, by 2006, the Japanese central government and its private sector began making countermeasures against its foreign residents.