Abstract
In 2023, South Korea launched the “300K Project,” an initiative aiming to attract 300,000 international students to Korean universities by 2027. While this project has boosted the number of students remarkably, the long-term impacts on students choosing to study in South Korea still remained. Without a strong emphasis on multicultural education, stakeholders risk undermining international students’ ability to effectively integrate, succeed academically, and develop essential competencies. This gap may not only hinder their educational experience but also impede their capacity to cultivate global citizenship skills and thrive in an increasingly interconnected world. By employing James A. Banks’ framework on multicultural education theory, this research aims to assess how knowledge about multicultural education has been integrated and disseminated in Korean higher institutions through the lenses of international students and explore how this can support them in Korean universities. Using a mixed-methods approach, the research incorporates surveys of 150 international students from different universities who have already had at least 6 months living and learning in South Korea. After that, the research employed in-depth interviews with a number of students to delve deeper into their lived experiences, noticing some challenges including language barriers, cultural adaptation struggles, and the inconsistent provision of multicultural support. This case study provides valuable insights for other developing nations, such as Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, as they navigate similar efforts to balance expanding international enrollment with the cultivation of inclusive, globally connected academic environments for students from all over the world.
Author Information
Chung Anh Nguyen, Vietnam Japan University, Vietnam
Seri Yoon, Waseda University, South Korea
Paper Information
Conference: SEACE2025
Stream: Higher education
This paper is part of the SEACE2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Nguyen C., & Yoon S. (2025) Multicultural Education in Korean Higher Education: A Case Study for Advancing Global Citizenship in Southeast Asia ISSN: 2435-5240 The Southeast Asian Conference on Education 2025: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 487-502) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2435-5240.2025.41
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2435-5240.2025.41
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