Due to movement of people according to internationalization, borders are recognized to be insignificant but, on the other hand, recognition of history or a nation is intensified. Recent surge of foreign students in Korea and consequent cultural strugg...
Due to movement of people according to internationalization, borders are recognized to be insignificant but, on the other hand, recognition of history or a nation is intensified. Recent surge of foreign students in Korea and consequent cultural struggles may be one of the phenomena. Measures of Korean government against falling birthrate or economic difficulties and the struggle for existence of colleges have rapidly promoted inducement of foreign students under the name of internationalization. These policies have presented new, cross-border encounters or friendships for students, but it should be considered that they promoted intensification of national consciousness and exclusivism on some foreign students. Due to surge of foreign students, unspecified people should live together within the dormitory of Chonnam University. Because increase in the number of foreign students is constant, it is not possible to refuse the inflow of new cultures. Coexistence is the only way to survive. Therefore, when the problems on foreign students are considered, it is needed to examine areas other than simple conception of nationalism on which differences are focused or a frame of cultural differences.
In order to identify the identify conflicts within the space of dormitory where Korean and foreign students live together, the author in this study established research problems as follows. First, what are the types of adaptation or conflict of foreign students in Korea? Second, how is the identity establishment developed by the identity formed from such adaptation or conflict?
The results of this study are as follows. Process of adaptation of foreign students in dormitories may be different according to diverse variables including languages, nations, and religions, but the students reestablished new identities in the dormitory through attempting to adapt Korean society as the mainstream culture. These identities can be classified into personal and collective identities.
The personal identity of foreign students can be an attempt to adapt the mainstream culture of Korean students. Besides adaptation to mainstream culture, foreign students also attempt to discover another group in which they are acknowledged. In particular, for foreign students who are in contact period with new culture in their early study abroad, collectivization is a way of avoiding anxiety from the stress by unfamiliar Korean culture or communication and loneliness from living in a foreign country. The foreign students showed behaviors to discover their own people or those who use the same language, and the students who fail to discover such people around them organized a peer group by forming a new collective consciousness based on common properties such as religion or being a foreigner, rather than nation or language. By doing this, they created mental stability and confirmed their positions. Their identities as foreign students are varied from where they are, when it is, or how the situation is, and they temporarily connect themselves with those identities through positioning.
The surge of foreign students into the dormitory in 2007 created a moment when Korean students felt crisis in identity. Their exclusive recognition on foreign students made the minor foreign students who already lived in the dormitory intensify differentiation or exclusivism on the major foreign students who were new in the dormitory. Because of the crisis, three groups including Koreans, the minor foreigners, and the major foreigners were formed within the dormitory, and in the process, nationality and language ability served as significant factors. The conflicts of collective identities shown between the two foreign student groups may be the identity strategy of foreign students in order to survive within the dormitory.