• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.299-321
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to investigate how marriage migration females understand and adjust to the culture of family life in Korea. The study was the conducted by extensively interviewing one member from each of a total of 16 women's multicultural families at a daycare center area in Seoul between June 16, 2010 and July 28, 2010. The results can be summarized as follows: All interviewees were marriage migration females, in the range 20 to 50 years of age, and with middle educational backgrounds. They all had middle-level incomes. Through the content analysis of the informants' responses, three major factors were found to influence the understanding and adjustment of to the culture of family living: personal factors, familial support, and sociocultural support systems. Among the personal factors, the intimacy of the married couples was trouble major factor. An issue that tended to arise was that Korean husbands' traditional culture in terms of their way of thinking was often different from that of the wife's culture. However, husbands supported their wives' outside activities and friendships in order to help them adjust to the culture of family living. The husbands made an effort to understand their wives' original culture and national food, often visiting restaurants that served their wives' national cuisine. In terms of familial support, the most important factors affecting marriage migration females were orienting the education of children to the mother's native language, cooking their national foods, and visiting the mother's nation with the children. Marriage migration females had the following requires: The teacher in the daycare center needed to be interested in children from multicultural families and encourage self-pride in the marriage migration females' children. In terms of sociocultural support systems, marriage migration females are conscious of the indisposition and lack of consideration in Korean life. However, the Korean government and local provinces are concentrating attention on education for marriage migration females in terms of language, because learning the language can help these women to become accustomed to the rituals of Korean life. Marriage migration females make an effort to understand and adjust to Korean family living culture that involves the food culture for ceremonial occasions, folk plays, and places of historic interest. A matter of importance is Korean people's effort to understand and adjust to multicultural family with their distinctive cultures. Welfare policy related to multicultural families involves adopting supportive laws and actions.