1970~1980년대 재미 한인 사회 변화와 한국학교 교육 연구

Abstract

This study explores the changes in Korean society from 1970s to 1980s and Korean schools' education. Korean Americans who moved to the United States in the 1970s and 1980s changed the existing Korean society. In the 1960s, a large number of Koreans moved to the United States through the enactment of the Korean Immigration Act of 1962 and the American Immigration Act of 1965, and they changed the existing Korean society. And based on this increase in Koreans, Korean Catholicism and Korean Buddhism appear, along with the Korean church, which was the mainstream in the existing Korean religion, different from before. At that time, Korean Americans established a Korean school, an educational institution for Korean identity. In Korean schools, education was conducted through Korean language, Korean history, Korean culture education, and activities. In the 1980s, as the numbers of these schools increased, the society decides to gather them up and founded central agencies called the National Association for Korean Schools and the Korean School Association of America. With these agencies, the Korean society could provide more systemic education and better systems since the 1980s. The goals of Korean schools education are ‘forming Korean identity’ and ‘entering mainstream American society’. This can be examined through the educational ideology, and educational content of Korean schools at the time. Since the 1970s, Korean Americans have been aware of their children who have to live as ‘Korean’ and ‘American’ while moving to and settling in the United States. Therefore, unlike Koreans in the previous era, they did not only provide education that emphasized ethnic identity, but also wanted to provide education to help them enter the mainstream society of the United States. Furthermore, it aimed to establish the Korean identity as a national identity with the identity and universality of global citizens. As a result, the pursuit through Korean school education was to cultivate practical and functional Koreans with a dual identity that speaks Korean and English fluently, understands the cultures of both countries, and operates in the mainstream American society.