This study investigates how young Korean Canadians construct and re-construct their cultural identity through cross-cultural experiences as they interact with and negotiate cultural differences. My interest in this study was triggered by conversations with some young Korean Canadians. Prior to these conversations, I assumed that they would be more Canadian than Korean in terms of culture. It was a surprise to learn that they were becoming more interested in Korean culture as they grew up and gained a sense of their identity as Korean Canadian. I was especially surprised when I considered their having grown up in Canadian contexts where they speak English fluently and are exposed to Canadian culture most of the time. In this study, I conducted a narrative inquiry which enabled me to uncover unrecognized and unspoken experiences associated with the cross-cultural experiences of young Korean Canadians and understand identity construction as a temporally and relationally multilayered process. The analysis presented in this study was drawn from twenty-six openended interviews with young Korean Canadians living in Vancouver, British Columbia. My findings showed that the young Korean Canadians were not indefinitely torn between cultures nor did they remain victims of unending identity crisis, although during the initial stage of adaptation, they went through uncertainties, tensions, and anxieties about not being wholly one identity or the other. While crossing cultural boundaries and re-configuring different cultures from inside-out and outside-in perspectives, they became more able to assess which elements of each culture they wanted to embrace in their own identity construction. As they transformed their approach from "fitting in one place" to "mixing and matching different cultural elements," they were awakened to the possibilities of having a multicultural identity. Identifying multiple cultural elements, they re-constructed their own emergent form of identity beyond the limited boundary of Korean culture or Canadian culture. This study invites educators to revision cultural identity of immigrants, fabricated by crosscultural living, as productive tensions and generative possibilities rather than problems to be adjusted and resolved. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

The purpose of the study was to determine the use made of certain sources of information and education by Korean immigrants in the city of Vancouver. The analytical survey method which applies a structured interview schedule was used, and a sample consisting of eighty-two adult Koreans was interviewed. Male and female adult Koreans were compared, and factors such as socio-economic characteristics and social interaction patterns were analyzed in relation to participation and non-participation in adult education to determine whether or not any significant differences existed between participants and non-participants. The Korean residents had a median of two to three years of length of residence, a median age of 30, and an average of 16 years of school completed. The Koreans were newer residents, in the younger age category, and highly educated. The respondents had a median annual family income of $7,500. There were only two significant differences between the male and female respondents and these were age and English fluency. The males tended to be older and more fluent in English than the females. One-quarter of the respondents had attended schools or university in Canada, and the majority of those adults were graduate students. One-tenth of the sample had completed vocational training courses in Vancouver. Koreans' participation in adult education was mainly concentrated in English language classes. Some forty-six per cent of the respondents had taken adult education courses. Most of those respondents had completed a one-month course of basic adult English language training. There were no significant differences between the adult education participants and non-participants with respect to eight socio-economic status including age, sex, marital status, number of children at home, length of residence in Vancouver, employment, income, and education. There was only one statistically significant difference between the adult education participants and non-participants, and that characteristic was English fluency at the time of arrival in Canada. Approximately seventy-one per cent of the sample subscribed to newspapers, 59.8 per cent read magazines in English, 91.5 per cent regularly watched television, and 78.1 per cent reported regular monitoring of radio broadcasts. Of the social interaction characteristics studied, social participation did not differentiate between the adult education participants and non-participants. A lower degree of fluency in English was significantly related to higher participation in adult education. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate