This study targets Korean missionary children and evaluates the difficulties they experience in the mission field and their most necessarily required counseling needs. For this purpose, individual interviews were conducted; and on the basis of this, q...
This study targets Korean missionary children and evaluates the difficulties they experience in the mission field and their most necessarily required counseling needs. For this purpose, individual interviews were conducted; and on the basis of this, questionnaires were produced to carry out survey interviews suited for the research. The difficulties experienced by the children and their counseling needs were identified through the results of the survey. Based on the following category; current age, age when arriving to the mission field, and satisfactory level as a missionary child, the difference of counseling needs were analyzed. This study is divided into 2 studies (study 1 and 2), and the methodology used and the results are as follows.
In study 1, as a qualitative research for the counseling needs of missionary children, the researcher directly visited the Philippines to individually interview 12 Korean missionary children. The results were analyzed by utilizing inductive reasoning. Through content categorization method, the difficulties experienced by the children were divided into 14 areas: ‘sending the children to mission field in the absence of preceding explanation’, ‘initial adjustment difficulties’, ‘first sibling’s difficulty’, ‘learning a new language’, ‘interpersonal difficulties’, ‘racism’, ‘religious discrimination’, ‘poor living conditions’, ‘cultural re-adaptation’, ‘separation from parents’, ‘coercive parenting practices of parents’, ‘parents’ high expectations’, ‘parent’s ministry first over family attitude’, and ‘sibling relationship difficulties’. The information on counseling needs had 9 areas: ‘academics’, ‘career’, ‘companionship with new friends’, ‘socializing with non-Christians’, ‘establishing Korean identity’, ‘failing in school’, ‘readjustment to Korean culture’, ‘keeping up with current popular trends in Korea’, ‘adjustment to college’, and ‘family relationship’. The five advantages of missionary children are ‘religious maturity’, ‘various language ability’, ‘acceptance of cultural diversity’, ‘open learning environment’, and ‘special appropriation of life’. In addition, the children’s positive and negative images of Korea were looked at, personal stories were listened intuitively regardless of the requirement of the content, and every content from the interviewee was made sure to have necessity in the research.
With the results of Study 1 and 2, along with previous researches used as a basis, an evaluation was formed by creating a survey for the missionary children. The survey was sent through email in four schools located in 3 different countries. Among the surveys collected, 142 were ultimately utilized for evaluation. Following the data analysis of current age, the age when arriving to the mission field, and satisfaction level as a missionary child, an investigation was made with counseling needs placed as an emphasis.
Results showed that high school students appeared to experience more difficulties in the areas of ‘family relationships’, ‘personal preference’, ‘economic life’, ‘socially desirable characteristics’, and ‘family relationship’ more than middle school students. High school students also scored higher on ‘family relationship’ counseling needs than middle school students. Age was divided into preschool an elementary school after leaving to the mission field for evaluation, and when leaving during preschool, they experienced greater hardship in the area of ‘family relationship’. For counseling needs, ‘identity’ was requested the highest. Those with a low satisfaction level as a missionary child had difficulties in ‘family relationship’, and those with high satisfaction experienced hardship in ‘re-entry to Korea’. The results were the same for counseling needs as above.
In this research, there is significance in the researcher directly visiting the mission field to conduct interviews targeted at missionary children and producing a survey by fitting the purpose. In addition, both qualitative and qualitative research was carried out to complement the limitations of each research method. Finally, the research proposes a specific and systematic guideline for the purpose of educating and counseling missionary children, and suggests this guideline to parents, teachers, and counselors whom all establish relations with the children in the mission field.