This study set out to examine the life of children in Vietnamese marriage immigrant families, understand the children views of Vietnamese marriage immigrant women and their perceptions and reality of parent roles, and figure out difficulties that moth...
This study set out to examine the life of children in Vietnamese marriage immigrant families, understand the children views of Vietnamese marriage immigrant women and their perceptions and reality of parent roles, and figure out difficulties that mothers experienced with child education, thus searching for practical support plans for child education in Vietnamese marriage immigrant families. For those purposes, the research questions of this study are as follows.
1. How do children live in Vietnamese marriage immigrant families?
2. How do Vietnamese marriage immigrant women perceive their children? What kind of person do they expect their children to be?
3. What are the perceptions and reality of parent roles among Vietnamese marriage immigrant women?
4. What difficulties do Vietnamese marriage immigrant women have with child education? What efforts do they make to solve them?
5. What social and cultural supports are needed for the right education of children in Vietnamese marriage immigrant families?
The subjects include ten Vietnamese marriage immigrant women from ten of 44 families that were selected to participate in "the program Supporting Korean-Vietnamese Multicultural family visiting Mother's parents' home" in 2013 and 2014, their 21 children, six husbands, and ten teachers of their children. The researcher collected data from them through in-depth interviews and participant observation. In-depth interviews with mothers, fathers, and teachers lasted from October 1, 2014 to September 15, 2015 with total 40 in-depth interviews with the mothers each of whom gave four interviews. Fathers and teachers gave one or two interviews. The researcher had total 20 sessions of participant observation with two sessions for each family, observing children and their families. Data collected through participant observation and in-depth interviews were analyzed and inferred inductively to reach conclusions.
The findings were as follows:
First, the stories of children in the ten families were very diverse as the lives widely varied among the families. The families had common experiences of "visiting Mother's parents' home" and "the program Supporting Korean-Vietnamese Multicultural family visiting Mother's parents' home" through which both children and parents had positive achievement and changes.
Second, Vietnamese marriage immigrant women considered their children as those who had talents, were autonomous, and independent and expected them to grow into individuals that would have confidence and identity, get along well with others, accept various cultures, and help other people.
Third, the parent roles perceived by the Vietnamese marriage immigrant women include taking care of health, protecting children safe, being counselors for them, playing with them, instructing them with life habits, providing personality education, supporting their study, teaching about Vietnam, and contributing to the living expenses. While their perceptions of parent roles were generally similar to the common categories, the scope and level of their performance in each role were different.
Fourth, the Vietnamese marriage immigrant women had difficulties with the education of their children due to lack of Korean command, absence of social support, social prejudices and discriminations, and cultural differences. As their Korean skills were deficient, they had to endure difficulties with life guidance for their children, language instruction, and learning guidance and faced limitations with communication with their children. They suffered both emotionally and physically from pregnancy and delivery to early childhood education due to lack of social supports. Their difficulties were also attributed to the social prejudices and discriminations. They also experienced difficulties with the education of their children due to cultural differences including the patriarchal atmosphere of Korean family and society and different opinions about child education among the family members.
Finally, the Vietnamese marriage immigrant women hoped that the South Korean society would improve its perceptions of marriage immigrant families for their children. They also wished that both family and society would recognize their rights to child education as mothers in their marriage immigrant families and that continuous Korean education would be provided for their children and them. They demanded that systematic Vietnamese education should be provided to their children to help them establish an identity and prepare to be global talents.
The Vietnamese marriage immigrant women had the right views of children and great expectations for their children, they were doing their very best to take care of and educate their children in their situations. Korean society should provide them with ongoing, systematic supports to deal with the exclusive views in the society, disregard for marriage immigrant women's rights to the education of children, atmosphere of suppressing and excluding the cultures of mothers' countries, and difficulties with child education due to linguistic limitations.
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