• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.107-133
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• 2010

This research identified the normal structures of separated families, "wild-geese families"(husbands living in Korea apart from their wives and children who are studying abroad) as we called, in Korea. In particular, this study conducted in-depth interview, using qualitative research method, with 7 wild-geese fathers (fathers who are in order to understand their experiences of separated families. The research findings classified the wild-geese father's experiences into three phases which as "decision-making," "initial," and "maintenance." These phases can be described by five higher factors. First of all, in the phase of decision-making "internal or external needs of children studying abroad at early age" was found to be a crucial factor. Liberation and deficiency as results of separation" mainly described the initial phase. In the phase of maintenance, families experience "exhausted solitary lives," "filling up the families' empty space," and "double jeopardy-worry about both reunifying the family or separating the family, as the longer they are separated."

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.171-189
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• 2007

The purpose of this ethnography is to describe and analyze the process of becoming a wild geese mother. Thirteen mothers from New York, California, and Texas of U.S.A. were interviewed with an unstructured questionnaire. There are several different patterns of the process; 'the short term', 're-departure after returning to Korea', 'a step to initiate their family's immigration', 'sudden and unintentional'. In the first stage of the family living rearrangement, the main issues are about the wider free world, proper time for leaving and proper period for staying, where to live and my husband's independent living. The wild geese mothers perform the concrete tasks about the everyday living for the new mother-child family in the foreign country. They report their subjective interpretation for their new life.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.41-59
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• 2009

The purpose of this ethnography is to describe and analyze the wild-goose mother's everyday life, her family relationships, and her social networking. Thirteen mothers from New York, California, and Texas, U.S.A., were interviewed with an unstructured questionnaire. Their residency and everyday schedules are arranged around the children's educational conditions. They have experienced difficult relationships with Korean American immigrants, Korean students, other wild-goose mothers, and Americans. They have failed to develop their social capital effectively due to the language barrier and a cultural capital deficiency. As a kind of family strategy, this separation sometimes strengthens the spousal relationship, preventing divorce, but usually weakens the emotional ties and quality of communication between husband and wife. The acculturation gap between the mother and her children may cause the mother to become alienated and exacerbate the generational conflict.

• 한국사회복지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.10a
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• pp.482-482
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• 2007

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.11-23
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• 2012

This qualitative study attempts to analyze the separation experiences of wild geese families from a social exchange perspective. The participants of this study were 16 mothers who lived apart from their partners for the purpose of educating their offspring. To collect data, in-depth interviews were conducted with the mothers about the decision-making process and the separation experiences. The results showed that there was a unique educational factor in Korea that affected wild geese families' decision on family separation. Geese families had to face psychological inconvenience caused by negative eyes from society. In addition, the fathers suffered loneliness and had difficulties in doing household chores, and the mothers experienced an overload of child parenting. On the other hand, emotional relationship between the husband and wife was enhanced, and the friendly relationship between a mother and her children was built. The biggest reward from the wild geese families turned out to be the educational achievement of their children.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.24 no.1 s.79
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• pp.141-158
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes of lives and problems of 'Kirogi'(or Wild Goose) fathers, who were called fathers in the 'Kirogi' families, South Korean families separated by an ocean. They almost sent too much money that were $50-100\%$ of their family income to the families abroad, and got economic pressures so severely. More or less, they sold their own real estates, moved to much smaller sized house. and often expended the saving money. Also, they had difficulties of taking care of their children and felt lonely very much. By the hand, they might experience the adaptation process through 3 stages-troubles, acception(or wandering or enjoy), adjust (or violation). They had three types of problems, that is, family relationship problem(the isolation), psychological problem(loneliness and self-control), economic problem (financial pressure and drop of economic status). They found the strategies to overcome these problems for themselves. Firstly, they took lots of methods like email, internet chatting, phone, etc. to communicate with their family everyday and made many events to strengthen the ties among families. Secondly, they got rid of stresses mainly by joining with their colleagues at work. Finally, they decided to lower the standard of living of their family in foreign country or tried to find their wives' jobs to prevent the financial hardship.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.205-221
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• 2009

My concern was to explore how the Korean 'wild geese families' functioned to maintain 'familyhood' in spite of spatial separation by using a qualitative approach. I used personal narratives from eleven 'geese mothers' living in the United States. Family paths across time were analyzed to understand their complicated nature. Respondents adopted some coping strategies to obtain the flexibility and the stability for relocating their transnational lives. These were 1) communications, 2) relocation of household work, and 3) reinterpretation of 'sacrifice.' It seemed that their family paths become either the continuous type (prolong their stay) or the discontinuous type (not prolong their stay). These were shaped by complex individual, familial, and social forces which affected differently according to the steps of family life cycles. Therefore, this study showed that the Korean 'wild geese family' did not move toward the uni-direction with the same experiences and nature. More importantly, it is noteworthy to acknowledge that the prevalence of 'wild geese family' reveals the dynamic interactive nature of the family, i.e., actively responding to the changes and challenges from the diverse circumstances. It is inferred that the social and cultural factors such as the class mobility, the education system, and the values may influence the family life style.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.620-630
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• 2010

Purpose: This study was conducted to compare the level of depression, self-esteem and mother-adolescent (M-A) communication perceived by both mothers and adolescents between the early adolescent (E-A) group and the late adolescent (L-A) group; and to examine the actor effect and the partner effect of self-esteem and M-A communication on depression in mothers and adolescents. Methods: Participants were 107 Kirogi families who resided in the Midwest region of the U. S. Data were collected from September, 2008 to March, 2009 using the scales of Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D), Self-esteem and Parent-Adolescent Communication Inventory. Results: Mothers in E-A group reported higher scores on depression than mothers in L-A group. Adolescents in L-A group reported higher scores on depression and lower scores on self-esteem than adolescents in E-A group. In the E-A group, mothers' selfesteem had big actor effect on mothers' depression and partner effect on adolescents' depression. In the L-A group, selfesteem of mothers and adolescents had actor effect on their depression respectively without partner effect. M-A communication of mothers influences mothers' depression negatively and adolescents' depression positively. In both group, M-A communication influences their depression with mediating effect of self-esteem. Conclusion: To promote Kirogi families' mental health, programs for mothers and adolescents should be developed differently according to adolescents' development stage.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.1979-1983
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• 2009

DMZ권은 지난 반세기 동안 출입이 통제된 덕분에 다양한 생물종의 서식공간이자 생명벨트로 형성되어 있다. 서부 DMZ권에는 한강 하구와 임진강 유역의 성동 습지와, 장단 습지, 문산 습지, 임진각 습지 및 초평도 습지가 있으며, 이곳에는 멸종위기종 1급인 황새, 노랑부리저어새, 저어새 등 8종과 2급인 큰고니, 개리 등 21종, 황조롱이, 매, 흑두루미 등 천연기념물 22종이 서식하고 있다. 본 연구에서는 서부 DMZ권을 중심으로 현지 조사를 통해 하천환경과 습지 현황을 조사하였다. 임진각 습지는 임진강의 건천화 때문인지, 아님 썰물 때문인지 유량은 그리 많지 않았다. 덕분에 갯벌이 많이 드러나고 재두루미와 개리 등이 눈에 뜨였다. 장단반도는 절반은 농경지, 절반은 갈대 군락지이다. 군락지에는 갈대뿐만 아니라 달뿌리풀, 갯버들도 서식하고 있었다. 농경지에는 재두루미 가족이 섭식하고 있고 임진강에는 기러기 약 2천 이상이 발견되었으며, 고라니도 다수가 조사되었다. 최근에는 136마리가 조사되었다. 초평도의 습지에서는 물새가 탐조되었다. 습지는 생태계의 훌륭한 서식처의 역할을 하며, 수질 개선과 기후 조절 기능도 갖고 있으며, 생태 관광에도 기여를 하고 있음이 밝혀졌다.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.215-228
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• 2011

In the history, 'father' has been described as a being who not only take care of the family but also represents the family socially and supports them. Like the Western patriarchal tradition prevalent in the 19th century, fathers in Korean society also bear patriarchal paternity based on Korean traditional Confucian culture. In such a unique family culture of Korea, Korean fathers hold the patriarchal male centered idea and regard it as the roles of man and father to be responsible for the family's living and safety and to be more rational than emotional and more blunt than gentle. Social ideology for this image of father is expressed in media, and an example is the patriarchal image of father in TV dramas and movies. In order to analyze the image of Korean fathers described in films, this study selected two films and examined the semiological meanings of fathers' roles expressed in the films using Metz's syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis method. The films chosen for case study are 'Fly Daddy', 'The Show Must Go On', and 'Speed Scandal'. These films are good examples demonstrating that Korean patriarchal paternity and its background traditional ideology are projected on media.