Imagined identity, bilingual education, and upward mobility among ethnic Koreans in China

The Korean minority in China are mostly descendants of political refugees during the Japanese colonialism in peninsular Korea. It is one of China’s 55 ethnic minorities struggling between assimilation and separation, as coined by Berry in his categories of acculturation. Korean students’ narratives indicate that Putonghua is a key capital that affects individual’s desired membership in the mainstream society, whereas a certain degree of preservation in the Korean language complicates the process of acculturation. The findings thus call for the integrative acculturation, which is illustrative of a selective process and puts forward explicit assumptions about an additive bilingual/trilingual education for ethnic Koreans to gain upward mobility in China.