Disinclusion

i

Disinclusion: A Qualitative Study of the
Acculturative Experience of English Instructors
in South Korea
Theodore J. Voelkel
Graduate School of International Studies
Yonsei University

ii

Disinclusion: A Qualitative Study of the
Acculturative Experience of English Instructors
in South Korea
A Master’s Thesis
Submitted to
the Graduate School of Yonsei University
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
Theodore J. Voelkel
December 2014

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my most sincere appreciation and gratitude to the members of
my thesis committee as well as the faculty and staff of the Yonsei University Graduate
School of International Studies. My thesis adviser, Dr. Hyuk-Rae Kim, has mentored me and
assisted in the development of this and other projects of mine with constructive criticism,
invaluable insight, and by sharing with me the vastness of his academic experience and
knowledge. I continue to be compelled toward achievement of academic and intellectual
pursuits via his expectations of and confidence in me. I would also like to thank Dr.
Hyunjoon Shin and Dr. Joseph Jeong-il Lee for their valuable assistance, astute commentary,
and shrewd recommendations in aid of the improvement and focus of this master’s thesis.
I would like to thank the generous people who participated in the research portion of
this project, selflessly giving of their time, experiences, and perspectives. I would also like to
express my thanks to my friends and fellow students at the GSIS. They continue to be a
source of creative inspiration, pushing me to strive for excellence in the realization of my
endeavors through friendly competition and the sharing of ideas.
Finally, I must give special thanks to my family, and especially to my gracious and
loving wife, Sunmi Lee, to whom I am forever indebted for her patience and wisdom.
Without her immeasurable and unending support successful completion of this project, as
well as the entirety of my graduate career to date, could never have been accomplished.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract ..................................................................................................................... vi
I. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1
1. Acculturation and Strategic Choices ......................................................... 4
2. Cases .......................................................................................................... 9
3. Research Framework ................................................................................. 16
II. Methodology ......................................................................................................... 25
III. Findings ............................................................................................................... 31
1. Discussion ................................................................................................. 33
IV. Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 55
V. References ............................................................................................................. 63
Appendices ................................................................................................................. 67
Appendix I ...................................................................................................... 67
Appendix II .................................................................................................... 67
Appendix III ................................................................................................... 68

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ABSTRACT
The recent increase in migration of ethnic minorities to the countries of East Asia and their
subsequent acculturation are topics of growing importance. In South Korea this is so
particularly in light of the persistence of Korean attitudes toward ethnic consanguineous
homogeneity and the relationship in Korea of ethnicity and identity. To date, research on
labor and marriage migrants from the Global South significantly outweighs that conducted on
generally more highly educated and better-paid migrant English teachers. Models of
acculturation developed for and applied to past examples of immigration tend to have ignored
the bi-directionality of such thus focusing solely upon the dominant host or accepting-side,
and sought to explain acculturation as generally following one of four strategies:
assimilation, separation, integration, or marginalization. It is the argument of this study that
such models are inapplicable to the case of migrant English teachers. Via qualitative
interviews, this study undertakes a joining-side approach to the investigation of migrant
English teacher acculturation in South Korea. Three dimensions are identified as having an
effect upon this process: time spent in South Korea, marriage to a Korean, and Korean
language acquisition. It is hypothesized that via these dimensions participants pursue an
inclusive acculturative strategy. However, it was found that while participants do not
characterize their acculturation as actively inclusive, neither do they report being actively
excluded. The term disinclusion has been coined to refer to this discrepancy, constitutive of
an acculturative condition to which English teachers in South Korea are subject and to which
they react with a variable response termed the disinclusion reaction. Participants were found
to persevere in spite of disinclusion, to respond variably vis-à-vis the study’s dimensions,
ultimately resulting in perpetuation of their being subject to disinclusion.
Keywords: acculturation, English teacher, professional migration, western expatriate

1

I. INTRODUCTION
To date, academic consensus concerning the definition of globalization has been lacking,
though it is at least agreed that migration constitutes one fundamental aspect thereof.
Further, while migration processes and their outcomes can be disparate, it is at least possible
to understand migration via simple definition. When people move from one place to another
either temporarily, or to make a new and permanent home, migration has taken place.1
In this
way migration can be understood as a process by which it is possible for groups of people to
cross geographical and/or ethnocultural delineations to come into contact with other, possibly
different, groups of people. As is often the case, groups involved in or affected by migration
tend to define their difference in terms of ethnicity, a concept serving to reinforce those
delineations.
Specifically, migration in East Asia has seen something of a dramatic shift in the past
two decades. The foreign population of Japan, for example, has doubled over the course of
the last 20 years, having reached 2.07 million in 2011,2
while shifting immigration policies in
Taiwan have encouraged growth of its foreign population to 590,296 as of June of 2014.3
Even China has become something of a migration destination, having a mainly American,
Japanese, and Korean population of 593,832 in 2010.4
According to the Chinese Ministry of
Labor that number had nearly tripled by 2014, and of the 1.6 million foreigners living and
working in China, migrant native-speaking English teachers (hereafter, instructors) made up

1
“Migration,” International Organization for Migration, http://www.iom.int/cms/en/sites/iom/home/about-
migration/key-migration-terms-1.html#Migration. (accessed November 21, 2014).
2
“Japan,” International Organization for Migration, last modified August 2014, https://www.iom.int/cms/japan.
(accessed November 21, 2014).
3
“2014.6 Foreign Residents by Nationality,” National Immigration Agency of Taiwan, last modified November
10, 2014, https://www.immigration.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=1273127&ctNode=29986&mp=2. (accessed
November 21, 2014).
4
“China,” International Organization for Migration, last modified August 2014,
https://www.iom.int/cms/en/sites/iom/home/where-we-work/asia-and-the-pacific/china.html. (accessed
November 21, 2014).

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82 percent.5
While events specific to Japan, such as the 2007 collapse of Japan’s largest
chain eikaiwa (English conversation school) Nova,6
have caused a shift in workplace, the
number of instructors in Japan remained approximately 22,200 in 2008.7
The number of
instructors in Taiwan quadrupled in size after 1992, rising to nearly 6,000 by 2010.8
Likewise, during the last 24 years the Republic of Korea (hereafter, Korea) has shifted
from being a country of emigration to one of immigration. Accordingly, the foreign
population, some 49,500 people in 1990, has increased thirtyfold to approximately 1.4
million9
or 2.5 percent of Korea’s total population in 2011. However, because during that
time the US military has continued to routinely station approximately 28,000 American
soldiers10
in Korea, the difference between the number of migrants living in Korea in 1990
and the size of the migrant population today represents an increase by a factor of 65.
Furthermore, according to the Korean Immigration Office as of 2010 there were 23,515
instructors in Korea,11
though that figure likely only counts those living in Korea on E-1
(professor) or E-2 (foreign language instructor) visas; the actual number, made up of foreign
residents living in Korea on several different visa types, is almost certainly larger.12
In this
way, Korea presents something of an ongoing example of globalization, or at least the
migration component thereof, with a dominant host population holding to the delineations

5
“China Foreign Teacher Salaries/Pay Almost Lowest In The World,” China Foreign Teachers Union, last
modified November 2, 2014, http://www.chinaforeignteachersunion.org/2014/01/china-foreign-teachers-
pay-almost.html. (accessed November 21, 2014).
6
“Stranded foreign teachers left penniless after Nova's fall,” Japan Today, last modified October 31, 2007,
http://www.webcitation.org/5SzdzWNWF. (accessed November 21, 2014).
7
“English teaching in Japan by the numbers,” Mutantfrog Travelogue, last modified February 23, 2009,
http://www.mutantfrog.com/2009/02/18/english-teaching-in-japan-by-the-numbers/. (accessed November 21,
2014).
8
“Bushiban Teacher Population Changes,” The View from Taiwan, last modified February 10, 2011,
http://michaelturton.blogspot.com/2010/12/bushiban-teacher-population-changes.html. (accessed November 21,
2014).
9
Jung-Eun Oh, Dong Kwan Kang, Julia Jiwon Shin, Sang-lim Lee, Seung Bok Lee, Kiseon Chung, “Migration
Profile of the Republic of Korea,” IOM MRTC Research Report Series, No. 2011-01 (January 2011): 1.
10
“United States Forces Korea,” United States Forces Korea, http://www.usfk.mil/usfk/. (accessed November
21, 2014).
11
“Statistics,” EnglishnKorea, http://www.englishnkorea.com/opportunity/statistics.html. (accessed November
21, 2014).
12
Only 13 of this study’s 30 participants had E-1 or E-2 visas. See the methodology section for a detailed
breakdown of the study’s participants’ visa statuses.

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humanity has conventionally used to define its differences in the face of a wave of
immigration.
Because preexisting notions of immigration do not correspond to modern modes of
professional migration, migration scholarship has been forced to undergo something of an
adjustment. However, because this shift was only one of many results inherent to the
repositioning of formerly immigrant-origin nations as ones of contemporary immigration
destination, scholarship specifically concerning professional migration from the Global North
to the Global South has been lacking. In particular, the literature suffers from a lack both in
terms of amount and variety concerning instructors in the developing or newly developed
nations of East Asia mentioned above. That this lack may be addressed, this study follows
the work of Lan (2011), who reported the results of a similar research project conducted in
Taiwan. First, this study seeks to determine whether or not and to what degree Lan’s
findings, as described in the findings section, can be generalized to the case of Korea.
Second, acculturation, a topic not included in Lan’s study, is specifically addressed in order
to understand how instructors are acculturating in Korea, and whether or not that
acculturation can be characterized as positive via assimilation, negative via separation,
according to some combination of the two via integration, or not at all via marginalization.
Specifically, this study seeks to demonstrate that understanding its instructor
participants according to previous notions of immigration, or even modern concepts of the
acculturative process, are problematic at best. Further, three dimensions are identified as
having a direct effect on their acculturation process: time spent in Korea, marriage to a
Korean, and Korean language acquisition. It was hypothesized that via these three
dimensions a given participant’s acculturative strategy will tend toward inclusion. However,
the term disinclusion has been coined to describe the condition to which participants of the

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study are subject, to which they respond acculturatively, and by which they are neither
actively included in nor actively excluded from Korean society.
Finally, with regard to further terminology used in this paper, instructor has been
employed to highlight the ways in which participants of this study can be seen as distinct
from those described by previously existing terminology. For example, the terms immigrant,
professional migrant, and to a lesser degree, sojourner, are preexistent in migration literature,
but none of these seem to adequately describe the participants upon which this study focused.
Justification of the differences inherent to these terms will be detailed below. Finally,
because use of the term expatriate would be problematic, as it suffers from a lack of a set and
agreed upon definition and usage,13
it will not be used in this paper.
Acculturation and Strategic Choices
Perhaps because of similar spelling the terms acculturation and assimilation are often
confused and/or incorrectly conflated; while intrinsically related, they neither describe similar
nor, in any way, identical processes. While assimilation is defined along with other
acculturative strategies below, acculturation constitutes an umbrella term defined as, “the
process of cultural change that occurs when individuals from different cultural backgrounds
come into prolonged, continuous, first-hand contact with each other,”14
or “the process of
bidirectional change that takes place when two ethnocultural groups come into contact with
one another.”15
These definitions, while devised for, and thus sufficient to describe, the past
experience of immigrants, are somewhat inadequate in description of the experience of other

13
While the International Organization for Migration identifies terms for five different types of migrant as
important to migration and thus defines each specifically (http://www.iom.int/cms/en/sites/iom/home/about-
migration/key-migration-terms-1.html), it does not identify, and thus does not define, the term expatriate.
14
R. Redfield, R. Linton, and M. J. Herskovits, “Memorandum for the Study of Acculturation,” American
Anthropologist, Vol. 38 (1936): 149.
15
Richard Y. Bourhis, Lena Celine Moise, Stephane Perreault, and Sacha Senecal “Towards an Interactive
Acculturation Model: A Social Psychological Approach,” International Journal of Psychology, Vol. 32, No. 6
(1997): 370.

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more contemporary migrant types. For example, the acculturation experience of instructors,
who reside and are employed outside of their home countries, but who may not identify as
immigrants, renders this definition obsolete. Simply put, immigrants immigrate, a process
defined thusly: “to come into a country of which one is not a native for permanent
residence,”16
whereas instructors can be characterized as living abroad, a concept rather
lacking in a widely accepted definition. Without suggesting that these terms are either
wholly discrete or fixed in nature, even a cursory juxtapositioning of the two is revelatory in
that the more rigid permanence inherent to the former, as opposed to the rather flexible,
adaptable nature of the latter, would tend to be highlighted.
Furthermore, levels of acculturation often tend not to be constant, varying widely both
among and within groups; this variation could potentially extend even to the separate spaces
within a single individual’s life such that an instructor may adopt new values in his or her
work life while retaining other values outside the workplace. However ideal a division of
work and non-work life might be, explaining divisions inherent to instructor life in this way
is somewhat incomplete. While division of the work-related and non-work-related life spaces
remains possible, the life of an instructor can also be accurately divided between spaces in
which dominant host culture and/or cultural influence are either present or absent. While
one’s work life might necessarily be more likely to include a measure of dominant host
culture because it would tend to take place in a more public than private space, the
opportunity for both a public and more “dominant-host-culture-free,” than not, experience of
instructor life is often readily available, especially if one resides within, or within commuting
distance of, more acculturated neighborhoods which tend to exist in larger cities. Likewise,
whether a given instructor would prefer a more, less, or non-dominant host culture experience
within the non-work-related space of his or her life would be up to the individual.

16
“Immigrate,” Merriam-Webster, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/immigrate. (accessed May 2,
2014).

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Nevertheless, via interviews with research participants it was possible to determine if and
how instructors in Korea are acculturating.
According to Berry (1997), acculturation of a migrant group tends to operate
according to one of four strategies. Assimilation describes the strategy by which individuals
disregard their original cultural identity in favor of embracing another. Separation describes
the opposite strategy, by which individuals maintain their original cultural identity and do not
embrace another. Integration describes the strategy whereby individuals both maintain their
original cultural identity and embrace another. Marginalization describes the opposite
strategy, by which individuals reject both their own cultural identity and another.17
First, of these four strategies, marginalization is characterized not as a strategy chosen
by migrants, but rather as the product of a combination of forced assimilation and
exclusion.18
However, application of such a characterization to instructors in Korea is
inappropriate because they are not subject to such treatment. Second, Berry’s model is
problematic because the bidirectionality inherent to acculturation justifies the possibility of
migrant populations and dominant host populations selecting differently from among the four
strategies; the joining-side is wholly capable of adopting a strategy at odds with that selected
by the accepting-side. Furthermore, acculturative bidirectionality dictates the possibility of
migrant populations having the just as much of an influence upon the dominant host
population as that latter population might have upon the former. Third, it is plausible that
subsets of a given population might select from among these strategies with little or no regard
for trends among the general population. From the joining-side perspective this means that a
smaller group within the larger migrant population might benefit from advantages inherent to
their subset in general, such as relatively less difficulty marrying into the dominant host

17
John W. Berry, “Immigration, Acculturation, and Adaptation,” Applied Psychology: An International Review,
Vol. 46, No. 1 (1997): 9.
18
Ibid., 10.

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population, the freedom to live for a longer amount of time in country, and/or possible ease
vis-à-vis language acquisition. These advantages might lead such a subset, like instructors, to
employ an acculturation strategy at odds with that employed by a numerically larger subset of
the migrant population as a whole. Fourth, if some level of life-space division can be
demonstrated, it may be possible that subsets of the migrant population employ differing
strategies within each. From the joining-side perspective it follows that the same instructor
subset may benefit from a degree of flexibility vis-à-vis strategy selection, employing
different strategies in their work life space than in their non-work-related life space. Fifth,
because Berry’s concept of acculturation has been couched in immigration terms, it would
seem that attempting to categorize instructors according to the four strategies is accordingly
inappropriate.
Bourhis, Moise, Perreault, and Senecal (1997) expand upon the four strategies model
with an Interactive Acculturative Model which specifically addresses bi-directionality:
“through intercultural contact, dominant host majority members do influence the
acculturation strategies of immigrant group members, who in turn may also affect the
orientations of the host majority.”19
One result is the bi-directional division of
marginalization between exclusionism and individualism, which are accepting-side and
joining-side in orientation, respectively. Specifically, individualism is undertaken by those
who, “feel marginalized simply because they prefer to identify themselves as individuals
rather than as members of either an immigrant group or the host majority.”20
Note Bourhis et
al. are not discussing individuals who pursue assimilation, separation, or integration so much
as individuals who are marginalized because they are perhaps individualistic. Such a view
would thus tend to ignore the possibility that any subset of migrants, down to the individual

19
Richard Y. Bourhis, Lena Celine Moise, Stephane Perreault, and Sacha Senecal, “Towards an Interactive
(1997): 375.
20
Ibid., 378.

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level, might pursue an acculturative strategy at odds with that of other subsets or individuals,
or that such an outcome is even possible. Furthermore, Bourhis et al. make no mention of a
division of life between one space in which host country culture exists or is actively sought
out, and another in which it does not is perhaps actively excluded. Finally, their discussion is
also couched in immigration terms, and thus qualities and/or elements specific to instructor
life would tend not to have been touched upon.
Cases
Schwartz, Unger, Zamboanga, and Szapocznik (2010) at least acknowledge the existence
among migrants of a class into which individuals such as the participants of this study might
appropriately fall. They define sojourners as those who, “relocate to a new country on a
time-limited basis and for a specific purpose, with full intentions to return to their countries
of origin after that period of time is over.”21
Sojourners are exemplified by the authors as
including, “international students, seasonal workers, and corporate executives who are sent
overseas for professional reasons,”22
but migrant language teachers, such as instructors, are
not mentioned. However, like Berry and Bourhis et al., this article is firmly couched in
immigration-based language, leaving the term sojourner included only in the quotes given
above, and thus given no other mention let alone any kind of discussion. Finally, this passing
mention of sojourners pigeonholes the term as one in opposition to immigrants insofar as the
former is distinct from the latter. In reality, as a sojourner, all that would be required of an
instructor wanting to leave that category is perhaps to admit that he/she is no longer bound by
a self-imposed time limit, a topic to which the paper will return in the next section. It is

21
Seth J. Schwartz, Jennifer B. Unger, Byron L. Zamboanga, and Jose Szapocznik, “Rethinking the Concept of
Acculturation: Implications for Theory and Research,” American Psychologist, Vol. 65, No. 4 (2010): 6.
22
Ibid.

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important to note that labor migrants in Korea are limited to a sojourn of 4 years and 10
months, while other migrants, such as miscellaneous professionals and instructors, are not.23
With specific regard for those falling into the sojourner category, Pullen-Sansfacon,
Brown, and Graham (2012) focus on the acculturation of professional migrants working as
social workers. However, the authors’ argument does not fit the case of instructors because it
is employed in reference to migrant social workers alone: “We theorize that the acculturation
of migrant social workers is best understood as an interactional process among one’s notions
of identity, including professional identity, which involves one’s experiences in various
social work roles and interventions and the sociocultural and professional environments
[italics added].”24
According to the authors, “professional identity is not only built during the
initial period of education, but also in connection with situations before and after [italics
added].”25
If it is to be understood that one’s acculturation involves a professional identity
formed, at least in part, prior to the onset of the acculturation process, the experience of
migrant social workers cannot be equated with those of instructors. While it is possible that a
certain number of those study to be or work as such before arrival in Korea, Korean
immigration law does not require prospective instructors to hold four-year college degrees in
English, education, or any particular subject.26
Thus it would seem incorrect to argue that
instructors would tend to identify professionally as such prior to their arrival in Korea. At
best, it might be argued that professional identity has a role to play in acculturation once that
identity has formed subsequent to a given instructor’s arrival in Korea. In this way, it would

23
Amnesty International, Bitter Harvest: Exploitation and Forced Labour of Migrant Agricultural Workers in
South Korea, October 20, 2014, available at:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA25/004/2014/en/5e1c9341-d0ec-43c3-b858-
68ad69bc6d52/asa250042014en.pdf. (accessed November 5, 2014).
24
Annie Pullen-Sansfacon, Marion Brown, and John R. Graham, “International Migration of Professional Social
Workers: Toward a Theoretical Framework for Understanding Professional Adaptation Processes,” Social
Development Issues, Vol. 34, No. 2 (2012): 10.
25
Ibid., 12.
26
“Visa Requirements,” Go East ESL Teacher Recruiting, last modified April 3, 2011,
http://www.goeastrecruiting.com/requirements. (accessed May 26, 2014).

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not seem appropriate to discuss instructors as professional migrants, and as such this paper
does not do so.
Khoo, Hugo, and McDonald (2008), in a study of migration to Australia, seek to
address the shortcomings Schwartz et al. do not discuss, vis-à-vis the potential for a
sojourner to decide not to be such. They attempt to address, “which skilled temporary
migrants [are] likely to become permanent residents and which ones [are] not, and the
reasons for their decision,” finding in their study that, “Skilled temporary migrants from
Europe, North America, and Japan were less likely to want to become permanent residents. If
they did, it was usually because they liked the Australian lifestyle.”27
A major weakness of
the article is that Khoo et al. would seem first to indicate their intention to discuss causation,
as the title implies that the authors intend to discover “why” temporary migrants to Australia
become permanent ones, but then detail little in the way of such. The only causative
statement made: “The paper's findings suggest that given the opportunity, many skilled
temporary migrants, particularly those coming from less developed countries, would want to
become permanent residents in the country of destination if they see a better future for
themselves and their children there than in their home country,” is characterized by the
authors as, “hardly surprising.”28
Also, Khoo et al. do not define the term skilled temporary
migrant, instead seeming to imply that it is an Australian visa category, but even this
characterization is not expressed directly.
Iredale (2000), in examination of migration in the Asia-Pacific region, uses the term
highly-skilled worker to describe individuals who are both typically college-educated and
possess, “extensive experience in a given field,”29
though she admits that this term is neither

27
Siew-Ean Khoo, Graeme Hugo, and Peter McDonald, “Which Skilled Temporary Migrants Become
Permanent Residents and Why?” International Migration Review, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Spring, 2008), 221.
28
Ibid., 222.
29
Robyn Iredale, “Migration Policies for the Highly Skilled in the Asia-Pacific Region,” International
Migration Review Vol. 34, No. 3 (Autumn, 2000), 883.

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well defined nor applied uniformly from country to country. Iredale divides migration of
these workers among those who settle permanently and those who do so temporarily, but for
the article tends focus on emigration either from Asia to the Global North or among Asian
states. Conversely, Iredale does briefly mention the fact that emigration flowing from Japan
and South Korea to the Global North is complimented by, “flows into these two countries
from within the region as well as from outside,”30
but this phenomenon is not discussed at
length. Furthermore, acculturation is not a topic included in the article, and neither does
Iredale, at any point in the article, discuss instructors as members of this migratory pattern.
Trent (2012) uses the term NET, an acronym for native-speaking English teacher, to
describe participants of a study he conducted in Hong Kong. The goal of this study was to
understand both how NETs position themselves discursively, and how they are so positioned
by others.31
Because the study focused on the workplace, these “others” were limited to
coworkers and bosses in the form of Chinese English teachers and school managers, and thus
the acculturative experience of NETs outside the workplace is not covered. However, Trent
does identify participant antagonism towards coworkers and bosses who, because they feel
NETs either bring different skills and abilities to the classroom or that their teaching is not
“real,” as it includes games and other “fun” activities, challenge NET self-identification as
teachers.32
Trent also notes the NET response to this challenge: “to establish a position for
themselves in their schools and to resist what they believed to be the positions made available
to them.”33
Finally, Trent suggests that further research should focus on the others with
whom NETs interact, though interaction outside the workplace is not mentioned, in order to

30
Ibid., 898.
31
John Trent, “The Discursive Positioning of Teachers: Native-Speaking English Teachers and Educational
Discourse in Hong Kong,” TESOL Quarterly Vol. 46, No. 1 (March 2012): 104.
32
Ibid., 114.
33
Ibid., 115.

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perhaps understand, “how collaboration between NETs and these different stakeholders can
be promoted in Hong Kong and other analogous educational settings around the world.”34
Lan (2011), while not directly discussing acculturation, nevertheless includes material
relevant to the purposes of this study for two reasons. First, unlike Pullen-Sansfacon et al.
(2012) and Iredale (2000), Lan focuses on participants working as English instructors in
Taiwan, and thus unlike Khoo et al. (2008), Lan focuses on Global North to South migration
alone. Second, Lan includes findings that would tend to show that her participants
specifically did not identify professionally as English instructors prior to their arrival. It was
found that of her participants, “many decided to work overseas on a whim … rather than after
a careful calculation about costs and gains.”35
Such qualities would hardly suggest that her
participants identified professionally as English instructors prior to their arrival in Taiwan,
but unfortunately the article does not contain material verifying such an argument. Rather, it
is left to this study to determine whether or not Lan’s participants’ counterparts in Korea,
instructors, identify professionally as English instrutors, and further if they did so prior to
leaving their home countries. If, like Lan’s participants, their decisions to relocate to Korea
can be described predominantly as “flippant” or done “on a whim,” then it can be argued that
their particular acculturative process does not necessary involve prior professional
identification as English instructors, thus necessitating a re-evaluation of acculturation with
focus given to other factors.
Scully (2001), via both qualitative interviews and quantitative questionnaires,
examines how the acculturation of English instructors working in rural Japan relates to their
acquisition of the Japanese language.36
She finds that the difficulty of interacting with

34
Ibid., 123.
35
Pei-Chia Lan, “White Privilege, Language Capital and Cultural Ghettoisation: Western High-Skilled Migrants
in Taiwan,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 37, No. 10 (2011): 1677.
36
Etsuko Scully, “Working as a Foreign English Teacher in Rural Japan: JET Instructors in Shimane
Prefecture,“ (paper, University of Shimane, 2001): 2.

13

Japanese people reported centers upon a number of factors peripheral to language acquisition,
including, “culture shock, low self-esteem, personal inhibitions and motivation, and attitudes
toward the host society.”37
Vis-à-vis language acquisition, the majority of her study
participants, “gradually came to feel more comfortable when conversing with native
[Japanese] speakers, and their self-assessments of their pronunciation, vocabulary, and
comprehension skills improved. With greater success, many became more motivated to
communicate and socialize with native [Japanese] speakers in their communities.”38
However positive these results are, there were also negatives, as 89 percent of
questionnaire respondents reported feeling as though they were “outsiders.” Also, slightly
more than two-thirds of them reported annoyance at hearing the term gaijin; a word meaning
“foreigner” in English, which is synonymous with the Korean word waegukin. Finally,
Scully reports that, “While the tendency for adult immigrants and long-term visitors is to
adapt culturally and socially to their host societies, only a minority of JET teachers appeared
to have done so successfully, while the rest preferred to hold onto their own cultural
identities.”39
This statement is problematic in that Scully fails both to provide a basis for the
first half and comparative explication for the second. Nevertheless, Scully does identify, “a
cultural gap,”40
dividing her study subjects (both qualitative participants and quantitative
respondents) from cultural and social adaptation to Japanese society. Unfortunately, the
specific character of this gap is not described.
Finally, while the literature does not include a great deal of articles addressing the
experiences, including acculturative ones, of instructors in Korea, one example of such was
located. Oliver (2009) stresses this point herself, writing, “the phenomenon of native English

37
Ibid., 27.
38
Ibid., 18.
39
Ibid., 20.
40
Ibid.

14

teachers in South Korea is ... scarcely researched.”41
Likewise, the literature review of this
paper specifically lacks mention of other research done in this field. With regard to
acculturation, like Trent (2012), Oliver focuses mainly on the work experience of her
participants. However, such allows for something of a window on their acculturation as
Oliver details positive and negative experiences reported by her 10 participants.
Specifically, Oliver finds that with only one exception they unanimously expressed
frustration with, “the focus on appearances, decision-making, Korea’s strict hierarchy system
and a general fear of the cultural divide.”42
Further, her participants elucidated their
frustrations, discussing a lack of communication between themselves and their Korean
coworkers exacerbated by a lack of informational work material translated into English.43
Further, they felt ignored in meetings, that meetings were simply canceled at the last minute,
thus making it difficult for her participants to air their grievances,44
and that a general idea of
poor instructor treatment at the hands of their Korean counterparts was in existence.
Regardless of this, Oliver found that all of her participants intended to continue teaching,
including 6 who indicated their intention to remain doing so in Korea.45
In explanation of the
converse position, Oliver quotes one of her participants as saying, “Korea is ... sort of insular.
They don’t think outside of the box a lot of the time and even though they’re kind of
fascinated by the rest of the world, being international, I don’t think that they are that
much.”46
In sum, Oliver’s paper broaches nearly all of the topics upon which this study will
focus: hierarchy, language, cultural division, and instructor perseverance in the face of all of
these.

41
Nicolette Oliver, “Motivations and Experiences of Expatriate Educators in South Korea,” (paper, Western
Governors University, 2009): 14.
42
Ibid., 30.
43
Ibid.
44
Ibid., 31.
45
Ibid., 34.
46
Ibid., 34, 35.

15

Research Framework
This study sought to examine whether and to what degree the acculturative experience of the
participants was perpetuated toward inclusion via three dimensions: time, marriage, and
language ability. First, it was hypothesized that acculturation was likely to be affected by the
sheer passage of time: an instructor spending a longer amount of time in Korea is more likely
to follow an inclusive acculturation strategy than not. Secondly, it was hypothesized that
acculturation was affected by marriage: an instructor marrying a Korean is far more likely to
follow an inclusive acculturation strategy than not. Thus this study sought out both married,
to Korean citizens and not, and unmarried participants. Third, it was hypothesized that
acculturation was likely to be affected by a given individual’s ability to learn and speak the
language of the country to which they migrate: an instructor who speaks the Korean language
with a greater degree of skill is more likely to be following an inclusive acculturation strategy
than another with a lesser degree of skill. The way in which language ability was measured
will be discussed in the methodology section below. Finally, it was also hypothesized that
these three dimensions were likely to have an effect upon one another, and as such the degree
to which they interact was also investigated.
Justification for the selection of these three dimensions would tend to be
demonstrated by an examination of the opposite situation: it is assumed that an acculturated
person could not become so quickly, without marrying a Korean, and without learning the
Korean language. It is also assumed that dimensions other than these could have been chosen
for study. However, marriage and language are central both to modern human life and the
acculturative experience of migrants, and they are readily measurable. Further, other factors
potentially influencing participant acculturation, such as personal experiences, would tend to
be too specific to a given individual and thus overly difficult to control for. For example,
one’s work is likely to affect his or her acculturation, but without exception every participant

16

of this study was working in some capacity, whether part- or full-time, as an instructor.
One’s nationality could also potentially be a factor in his or her acculturation, and as such this
study sought a wide range of different nationalities for study as will be discussed in the
methodology section. Finally, gender was also a factor likely to influence acculturation, and
as such both males and females were sought out for study.
While the study approached acculturation from the joining-side perspective, just as it
is possible to understand what constitutes a Korean individual by first knowing what s/he is
not, at least some discussion of the accepting-side population and their perspective is
warranted. In this way, it is likewise perhaps easiest to understand the strategy constitutive of
the disinclusion reaction by first understanding what it is not. Most importantly, it is not an
accepting-side strategy, putting it fundamentally at odds with the totality of acculturation
strategies discussed above, that is, with regard to their original application; that individually,
one or other strategy might be successfully applied to instructors is of course possible, though
not applicable. However, first a comparison of the strategies presented in previous
acculturation models to the disinclusion reaction would seem warranted.
The disinclusion reaction is not assimilation because Korean identity is arguably
founded upon the presumed consanguinity and/or homogeneity of the Korean people. Even
if it could be demonstrated genetically that the Korean race is not consanguineous and/or
homogeneous, such a demonstration would be rendered irrelevant in the face of the fact that
such is more or less taken for granted by the Korean people. Gi-wook Shin (2006) found that
93 percent of participants in a 1999 study agreed with the statement, “Our nation has a single
bloodline,” and 83 percent considered, “Koreans living abroad, whether they had emigrated
and attained citizenship elsewhere or were born outside Korea and were considered legal
citizens of a foreign country, still belong to the han race because of shared ancestry,” (italics

17

in the original).47
That such an ethnic bond extends across national boundaries yet excludes
non-Koreans residents of Korea was also made clear, as participants felt, “much stronger
attachment to Korean descendants in Japan (62 percent) and the United States (63 percent)
than they [did] to Japanese (18 percent) or Americans (17 percent) living in Korea.”48
Thus,
arguing that a shared concept of Korean consanguinity and/or homogeneity is illusory
becomes futile as clearly Koreans consider themselves to be a discrete group, distinctly
separate from the rest of humanity, many members of which feel can neither be left nor
joined.
It is important here to note that while individuals wishing to assimilate are kept from
doing so, they are only excluded in so far as they are not actively included, for Korea does
not lack non-Korean migrants. With specific regard for the study’s three dimensions: it is
possible for certain of those migrants, instructors included, to live legally for an
indeterminate amount of time in Korea. Likewise, it is possible for them to marry Korean
citizens, and their children are eligible for Korean citizenship despite being “half” ethnically
Korean. Finally, it would be ridiculous to suggest that Korean language proficiency stems
directly from Korean ethnicity, meaning that while ethnic Koreans are capable of speaking
the Korean language at a high level of fluency, other ethnicities are not. However much such
examples would seem to indicate inclusion, from the perspective of the joining-side, via
assimilation individuals must also fail to maintain their original cultural identity.49
Therefore, the disinclusion reaction cannot be assimilation because instructors both exclude
themselves to some degree by maintaining a measure of their original cultural identity while
simultaneously including themselves to some degree by undertaking activities inherent to the

47
Gi-Wook Shin, Ethnic Nationalism in Korea (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 2.
48
Ibid., 2-3.
49
John W. Berry, “Immigration, Acculturation, and Adaptation,” Applied Psychology: An International Review
Vol. 46, No. 1 (1997): 9.

18

study’s dimensions, among others. If anything, such would tend to suggest the integration
strategy.
The disinclusion reaction is not integration because, from the joining-side
perspective, migrants can only follow such a strategy if they are able to, “participate as an
integral part of the larger social network,”50
or dominant host population. Whether or not
migrants are considered as such depends entirely upon the dominant host society adapting,
“national institutions (e.g. education, health, labour) to better meet the needs of all groups
now living together in the plural society.”51
Ultimately, the implication is that integration is
contingent upon an investment in multiculturalism, which further rests upon four pre-
conditions: 1) value inherent to cultural diversity must be widely accepted, 2) racial prejudice
must exist at a relatively low level, 3) individual cultural groups must view each other
positively, and 4) all groups must share, “a sense of attachment to, or identification with, the
larger society.”52
Presently, the view of Korean society vis-à-vis resident non-Koreans would
not seem to fulfill any of these pre-conditions, and with non-Koreans making up as little as 2
percent of the total population, Korea cannot be understood as a “multicultural” society, in
spite of the official/governmental discourse. Rather there would seem to exist both a
willingness to allow non-Koreans to enter the country for the betterment of the Korean
people, hence the presence of instructors, and simultaneously unwillingness to allow the
migrants to integrate. However, this unwillingness is not severe enough to be described in
accepting-side terms as legally enforced segregation, or in joining-side terms as separation.
The disinclusion reaction is not separation because, from the accepting-side
perspective, separation is one possible result of legally limiting migrant acculturative

50
Ibid.
51
Ibid., 11.
52
Ibid.

19

strategy choice, such as in the case of segregation.53
However, at present Korea exercises no
such exclusionary policy. Second, from the joining-side perspective, separation, as the
opposite of assimilation, entails both a complete rejection of the dominant host population by
the migrant one, but precludes the possibility of migrants simply departing.54
Therefore, an
argument in favor of instructors undertaking separation is untenable because their migration
requires them to work, and as such instructors must engage with society in so far as they must
have a job. Separation might be possible if Korea included at least one English-language-
dominant ethnic enclave wherein residents could function independently of Korean society
(much in the same way that it has been possible for Koreans to emigrate to the United States
to work and live despite a widespread lack of English fluency),55
but at present it does not.
Simply stated, those instructors who choose to reject Korea in its totality are much more
likely to leave the country and not return, than to somehow create a lifestyle wholly separate
from the Korean dominant host population. This is a practice common enough to be known
in instructor circles and parlance as, “doing a midnight run,” or, “pulling a runner.”56
The disinclusion reaction is also not marginalization, because it can be reasonably
assumed that despite the advantages of being educated and relatively well-paid, marginalized
instructors would be more unable to function in Korea than those hypothetically exercising
even the less extreme separation strategy. As was discussed above, they would be far more
likely to return to their home countries, as many do. Neither does the disinclusion reaction
correspond to exclusion or individualism as described by Bourhis et al. (1997), both of which,

53
Ibid., 10.
54
Because previous models of acculturation have sought to follow the accepting-side perspective and focused
on immigrants in the traditional sense, a discussion of the implications of and conditions surrounding migrant
professionals both rejecting the dominant host population (via separation, marginalization, or any other means)
and departing the host state have more or less not been attempted. Such a strategy, while perhaps not typical of
immigrants, but common among migrant professional English instructors in Korea, nonetheless exemplifies a
clear difference between the two.
55
Rose M. Kim, “Violence and Trauma as Constitutive Elements in Korean American Racial Identity
Formation: the 1992 L.A. Riots/Insurrection/Saigu,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 35, No. 11 (2012): 10.
56
Google searches of “midnight run Korea” and “pulling a runner Korea” yielded the author hundreds of
articles and blog posts dedicated to the subject.

20

in any case, are discussed as accepting-side strategies only. Via exclusion, “members of the
host community are not only intolerant of the maintenance of the immigrant culture but also
refuse to allow immigrants to adopt features of the host culture.”57
Exclusion arguably does
not describe the situation of instructors in Korea for the character of its application alone;
being an exclusively joining-side perspective, it would follow that strategy selection among
and/or within migrant groups is rendered meaningless. It could be argued that such renders
exclusion meaningless, from the joining-side perspective, that is. Furthermore, Koreans are
neither intolerant of the culture instructors bring with them, enjoying for example non-
Korean food, music, clothes, etc., nor are they interested in keeping non-Koreans from
participating in experiences of traditional Korean culture, as museums and cultural tourist
attractions abound in Korea. However, at the same time, Koreans seem to be just tolerant
enough not to be described as intolerant, including non-Koreans just enough to describe them
as not excluded vis-à-vis society in general. This concept will be more fully explored below,
because it is specifically at this point that the characterization of disinclusion and the
disinclusion reaction move from what they are not to what they can be understood as
constituting.
Individualism, described by Bourhis et al. (1997) in strictly accepting-side terms is
the view by which members of the dominant host population understand themselves as well
as migrants as individuals instead of understanding them as members of a larger group.58
That this view would be impossible for an instructor to adopt seems ludicrous, but Bourhis et
al. do not offer such an opinion. Instead, they characterize (dominant host population)
individualists as tending, “to downgrade the importance of maintaining the immigrant culture

57
Richard Y. Bourhis, Lena Celine Moise, Stephane Perreault, and Sacha Senecal, “Towards an Interactive
(1997): 381.
58
Ibid.

21

or adopting the host culture as a criteria of successful acculturation,”59
but arguing that such
lies within the exclusive domain of members of the dominant host community is equally as
ludicrous. Individualism, in the absence of legal limitations such as segregation, would seem
to afford any individual the freedom to be an individualist. Instructors in Korea are every bit
as free to choose individualism as a strategy as any other person. In any case, this research
project is not concerned with the nitty-gritty choices of lone individuals unless those choices
tend to correspond with one another, and thus constitute patterns at the group level. Thus the
question becomes one of choice and identification; if instructors freely choose to identify
with each other as members of a group they automatically are not choosing individualism.
Finally, in terms of variability, the disinclusion reaction can be conceptualized as the
gray space toward the center of an axis, with acculturative extremes, inclusively of
assimilation or integration and exclusively of separation or marginalization, at each corner.
However, while surrounded by these four extremes, the disinclusion reaction gray space is
bound such that the four extremes cannot be attained; instructors in Korea are consistently
subject to disinclusion and thus remain neither included nor excluded, but permanently
disincluded to some degree. In this way, assimilation, joining with the Korean dominant host
population, remains a goal as unobtainable as the achievement of the opposite, separation,
because unless a given instructor simply choses to leave Korea some amount of interaction
with Korean society is necessary. Likewise, integration, a melding of dominant host culture
with one’s own, and marginalization, the rejection of both cultures, remain unachievable
alternative extremes of inclusivity and exclusivity, respectively. Ultimately, the disinclusion
reaction functions as a variable alternative to both, furnishing instructors with the ability to
accrue some combination of inclusion and exclusion, and thus with an inescapable alternative
acculturative strategy which may only be rejected via departure from Korea.

59
Ibid.

22

The result of this disinclusion reaction variability is the disinclusive allowance of
instructors to stay in Korea while simultaneously not joining the Korean dominant host
population. Further, instructors can treat Korean culture in a highly selective manner: to
experience as much or as little as they like, but never to experience either extremes of none or
nothing but. With regard to this study’s findings, variability is manifest via instructor
reporting of dimensional variation: the difference between what will be discussed as a
proactive disinclusion reaction tending toward a higher degree of inclusion, and a passive
disinclusion reaction tending toward a higher degree of exclusion. With one exception,
reporting of the relationships between each of the study’s dimensions did not correspond;60
instead instructors reported either experiencing the study’s dimensions more fully, conversely
to a much lesser degree, or somewhere between the two. Thus a proactive disinclusion
reaction would be manifest, for example, in a given participant reporting being married to a
Korean citizen, having acquired the Korean language, and having spent an amount of time in
Korea above the average of that of all the participants. Conversely, a passive disinclusion
reaction would be manifest in an oppositional example, such as an unmarried participant
reporting a lack of Korean language acquisition and having lived in Korea a shorter amount
of time than the average amount of all the participants. Finally, many of the study’s
participants reported a variable disinclusion reaction either tending toward proactive or
passive, but somewhat lesser definitively than these examples. The findings section will
demonstrate this variability via an examination of different participants’ variable reporting
vis-à-vis the study’s dimensions.

60
Participant reporting on the study’s dimensions revealed a pattern inherent to the relationship between time
and marriage. If the 30 participants are divided in two groups according to the amount of time they had lived in
Korea, 13 of the 15 participants living longest in Korea were married, while only 2 were married of the
remaining 15.

23

II. METHODOLOGY
Seeking to undertake a joining-side approach tended to necessitate an anthropological, and
thus primarily qualitative, study combining extensive background research with semi-
structured interviews. Participants were considered eligible for inclusion if they were
currently employed as any sort of instructor in Korea. Thus, full-time and part-time
instructors alike, as well as those working at universities, through government programs at
public schools61
or working at private cram schools (hereafter, hagwon), instructing students
of any age, be they children, adolescents, or adults, or any combination thereof, were eligible
to participate in the study. Also, because the Korean government only issues English
teaching visas to citizens of Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the
United Kingdom, or the United States,62
only individuals originally from one of these seven
English-speaking countries were eligible for the study. However, because Korean law
functions regardless of the ethnicity of the visa applicant, and because of the nature of the
dimensions to be studied, an attempt was made to control for ethnicity by only interviewing
participants who self-identified as “white” or Caucasian. Finally, participants were only
given an interview if they had lived in Korea for a minimum of five years; this is because the
study focused specifically on the effect of time spent living in Korea on acculturative
strategy, and as such a minimum length of stay had to be chosen. A foreign resident of Korea
seeking to apply for an F2 (resident) visa, that is, seeking to reside permanently in Korea but
not necessarily via marriage to a Korean citizen, can only apply for such a visa after having
lived in Korea for a minimum of 4 years and 10 months. Thus the study’s minimum
residence length was set by rounding this legal minimum to the nearest full year value: 5
years. For the sake of completeness, it is important to note that the minimum was

61
The national English Program in Korea (EPIK) and regional Gyeonggi English Program in Korea (GEPIK)
are two examples.
62
“Getting an E2 Teaching Visa,” Korea 4 Expats.com, last modified March 16, 2012,
http://www.korea4expats.com/article-E2-English-teaching-visa-Korea.html. (accessed December 21, 2014).

24

specifically not rounded down to 4 years, as those legally ineligible to apply for residence
might consequently have been included in the study, and this was considered to be contrary
to its purposes.
A total of 30 interviews were conducted between September 24 and October 12, 2014,
22 in person and 8 via the video communication program Skype. 20 participants were
contacted via the social media website Facebook with a standard post63
announcing the study
in six Facebook groups, the membership of which is predominantly constituted by instructors
living in Korea. Contacting participants via a single SNS introduces a limitation, and as such
further participants were sought out via other methods: 6 participants were previously known
by the author, 2 were referred by a participant (one known by the author), and 2 were referred
by a non-participant acquaintance of the author via a reposting of the original Facebook study
announcement. All participants were presented with a standard informed consent document,
which was signed prior to the interview beginning.64
All participants were offered the
opportunity to protect their anonymity via the use of an alias, though most declined.
Participants were also reminded that if at any point they felt uncomfortable answering any
question put to them, they should decline to comment (this happened only once as will be
detailed below). The shortest interview lasted 11 minutes, 46 seconds (this was also the very
first interview), and the longest lasted 55 minutes, 23 seconds. All interviews were recorded,
and notes were taken during each, though they have not been fully transcribed. Each
participant was asked a series of questions65
aimed at revealing the details of their
acculturative experience in Korea, but because of the variable nature of each experience
follow-up questions tended to vary to some degree. Because not all of the questions were
applicable to each individual participant some questions were omitted from particular

63
A copy of the post is included in appendix 1.
64
A copy of the informed consent document is included in appendix 2.
65
A copy of the question list is included in appendix 3.

25

interviews (i.e. unmarried participants were not asked about their marriages, etc.).
Participants met in person were compensated with a (non-alcoholic) drink of their choice, and
interviews were mainly held at cafes in Seoul.
The first portion of each interview included demographic questions; the results are as
follows. 22 participants were male and 8 were female. The eldest participant was 46 (male)
and the youngest were 28 (1 female, 1 male); the average age was 36.53, the median was
35.5, and the mode was 42 (4 males). 15 of the participants were United States citizens (5
female, 10 male), 11 were from Canada (3 female, 8 male), 2 were from the United Kingdom
(both male), 1 was from Australia (male), and 1 was from New Zealand (female). Ethnically
speaking all of the participants self-identified as “white” or Caucasian, except for one (the
study’s lone Australian participant) who declined to state his ethnic background. Participants
had a wide range of different visa statuses: 11 (4 female, 7 male) with E2 (foreign language
instructor), 8 (1 female, 7 male) with F5 (permanent resident), 5 (2 female, 3 male) with F6
(marriage to Korean citizen), 2 (both male) with E1 (professor), 2 (both male) with F2
(resident), 1 (female) with D2 (student), and 1 (female) with D10 (job seeking).
19 participants lived in Seoul: 7 in the central Seoul neighborhoods of Itaewon,
Haebangchon, and/or Samgakji, 4 in the western Seoul neighborhoods of Sinchon, Hongdae,
and/or Sangsu, 2 in or around the Hyehwa area of northern central Seoul, and the remaining 6
were scattered around the greater Seoul area. That so many of the participants were
concentrated in and around Seoul presents a limitation, and as such participants living in
other areas of Korea were sought out for interview. The remaining 11 participants did not
live in Seoul: 7 in Goyang/Paju, 1 in Gunpo, 1 in Incheon, 1 in Jejudo, and 1 in Gunsan. All
30 participants were engaged in English teaching as their primary occupation at the time of
their interview except for one who taught private lessons to supplement his/her main source
of income. Finally, all of the participants held at least a four-year college degree, though

26

several had completed graduate degrees including 1 who held a doctorate degree; further, two
were enrolled in graduate school at the time of their interviews.
With specific regard for the first dimension, time spent in Korea, the longest amount
reported was 18 years, 11 months (1 male). Conversely, 3 participants (2 female, 1 male) had
lived in Korea for 5 years. The average length of time was 9.294 years, the median was 8
years, 4 months, 2 weeks, and there were two modes: 8 years (3 males) and 12 years (3
male). Regarding the second dimension, marriage to a Korean, 13 of the participants (3
female, 10 male) were married to a Korean, 15 (5 female, 10 male) were unmarried
(including 1 with a spouse who had died), and 2 were married to each other (both non-
Korean). Finally, Korean language acquisition was the least simple to measure, as neither the
author nor any of the participants would be Korean, either ethnically or in terms of
citizenship. As such the author was not in a position to directly evaluate each participant’s
Korean ability, and an independent evaluator was ruled out due to expense and time
limitations. Standardized testing was ruled out as a measure for the sake of time, expense,
and the unlikelihood that participants would participate if they had to sit for a Korean exam.
Thus it was decided to ask each participant for an honest assessment of his/her own Korean
language skill. Each participant was asked to evaluate his or her own language ability, once
at the beginning of the interview and again at the end; these questions were worded
differently.
At the beginning of each interview participants were asked, “How well would you say
you speak Korean?” though the exact phrasing of this question varied to some degree.
Answers ranged from negative: “My Korean ability is honestly pathetic,” and, “Terribly,
한국말 몰라요,” (literally: “I do not know the Korean language.”), to positive: “Upper
intermediate,” and, “I guess I’d say fluently.” However, most of the participants (17)
described their Korean ability in clearly negative terms, the most common answer being,

27

“poor,” or, “poorly,” (5 participants). At the end of each interview participants were asked,
“Could you have done this interview in Korean?” 22 participants answered with some form
of, “No,” or, “Not at all,” 1 said, “30 percent,” 1 said, “50 percent,” 1 said, “60 percent,” 3
said, “Yes,” and in two of the interviews the question was omitted. The most common
answer was, “No,” (16 participants). Finally, with the exception of the two participants who
were not asked the second question, comparing the two answers given by each participant
revealed only a slight degree of variation. For example, only 2 participants answered the first
question with, “intermediate,” and of these 1 answered the second with, “absolutely not,” and
the other answered with, “60 percent.” Also, 1 participant answered the first question by
stating achievement of TOPIK level 4,66
but answered the second with, “No, probably not.”
Conversely, 1 participant answered the first question with, “low intermediate,” but answered
the second with, “50 percent, with grammar mistakes.” In this way, 26 participants (2 were
split and 2 can be discounted due to lack of answer) answered the two questions with what
can be considered nearly identical answers. Of these, 22 can be categorized as having not
acquired Korean language ability, 3 can be categorized conversely as having done so, and the
remaining 1 can be understood as being at an intermediate level.

66
Test of Proficiency in Korean, “a written test designed to measure the ability of non-native speakers for
expression and comprehension in the Korean language.” According to the TOPIK website
(http://www.topikguide.com/topik-overview), level 4 is the higher of two intermediate levels and the highest
possible level is 6.

28

III. FINDINGS
The study identified and sought to measure three dimensions: time spent in Korea, marriage
to a Korean, and Korean language acquisition. It was hypothesized that via these dimensions
participants would be following an inclusive acculturation strategy. Only 3 participants (1
female, 2 male) reported Korean language acquisition, none of those were married, but all 3
reported having had at least 1 romantic relationship with a Korean. Specifically, 1 (male) had
maintained a nearly 17-year long relationship with a Korean, though they had neither
cohabitated nor did the participant report plans or intention to wed. Regarding the dimension
of time, this participant had lived in Korea the longest of any in the study (18 years, 11
months), however, another of the participants reporting Korean language acquisition (female)
had lived in Korea for 5 years, the minimum amount of time required to participate in the
study. The remaining participant reporting Korean language acquisition (male) had lived in
Korea for 8 years, 2 months, but was not married. Conversely, the study’s lone participant
reporting an intermediate level of Korean language acquisition (male) was married, but had
lived in Korea for 8 years.
There are three ways in which the study dimensions can be paired for comparison:
language vs. marriage, marriage vs. time, and time vs. language. First, as none of the
participants reporting Korean language acquisition were married, aside from one reporting an
intermediate level of ability (male), correlation between language acquisition and marriage is
not in evidence. Second, among married participants, excluding the 2 (non-Korean)
participants married to each other, the longest time spent in Korea was 18 years, 4 months,
and the shortest was 7 years, 2 months. The average was 11.84 years, the median was 10
years, 4 months, and the two modes were 9 years (2 participants) and 12 years. Including the
2 (non-Korean) participants married to each other, the longest and shortest amounts of time
were unchanged, the average was 11.79 years, the median was 11 years, 7 months, and the

29

mode was 12 years (3 participants). Conversely, among the 15 unmarried participants the
longest time spent in Korea (by a margin of 10 years, 5 months) was 18 years, 11 months (the
longest any participant had lived in Korea), and the shortest was 5 years (3 participants). The
average length of time was 7.461 years, the median was 6 years, 6 months, and the mode was
5 years (3 participants). This demonstrates a correlation between length of time spent in
Korea and marriage: the longer one stays in Korea the more likely one is to be married.
Third, concerning time vs. language, as was discussed above, language acquisition was
reported both by the participant having spent the longest amount of time in Korea, as well as
one of those having spent the shortest amount. Thus, correlation between time and language
is not in evidence.
Finally, the interview material was examined such that patterns of correspondency
could be gleaned from it, several of which were identified. In the most general terms,
elements of these can be characterized as either indicative of acculturative inclusion or not, as
well as existing independently of one another or being intrinsically tied. For example, the
participants unanimously enjoyed Korean food, while nearly the exact opposite was true of
popular Korean music, or K-pop, which nearly every participant reported disliking. While
both of these preferences lie within the realm of culture, aside from their geographic origin
they are virtually unrelated. Further, all of the participants reported feeling at home in Korea,
or that Korea was their home, but when asked how long after their arrival it had taken them to
begin to feel at home, no pattern was in evidence. However, when asked what the particular
circumstances of that transition were, nearly every participant reported the transition being
gradual, rather than abrupt. Finally, correspondency exists between the interview material
and findings presented by Lan (2011), though differences were also in evidence; it is those
differences which speak directly to disinclusion, a discussion of which is included below.

30

Discussion
Because the study of professional migration in general, and instructors specifically,
constitutes a recent development in migration studies, research done on such in the larger
literature was examined. Lan (2011) undertook a study of English instructors in Taiwan,
describing first a, “flexible cultural capital conversion,”67
by which, “English-speaking
Westerners can convert their native-language proficiency … into symbolic prestige and
economic and social capital.” This, however, “has to be attached to white skin,” ultimately
functioning, “as a double-edged sword that places white foreigners in lucrative, privileged,
yet segregated, ghettoised job niches.”68
Second, Lan found that because her participants
lacked, “mobility access to the internal labor markets of multinational institutions,”69
and
because, “they suffer from further marginalization in the labour market in their home
countries after teaching English overseas for years,”70
they became stuck in privileged, yet
ghettoized, dead-end English teaching jobs; Lan argued that fact contributed to their stays in
Taiwan being prolonged. Third, Lan found that, contrary to arguments highlighting the
economic incentive to migrate, her participants had decided, “to work overseas on a whim …
rather than after a careful calculation about costs and gains.”71
First, nearly every participant of this study reported not feeling as though he/she was
stuck in Korea in general, or his/her job specifically. A small number reported their opinion
that a lack of Korean language ability limited the variety of job choices available to them, but
these still did not report feeling as though they were stuck in either Korea or their jobs.
Several of the participants had made the decision to work as English instructors or professors
consciously as a career choice, having obtained teaching degrees and/or certificates either

67
Pei-Chia Lan, “White Privilege, Language Capital and Cultural Ghettoisation: Western High-Skilled Migrants
in Taiwan,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 37, No. 10 (2011): 1672.
68
Ibid., 1670.
69
Ibid., 1690.
70
Ibid., 1677.
71
Ibid.

31

prior to arrival in Korea, or in their home country after an initial period spent in Korea, after
which they had returned. Sarah C. said: “I choose what I want to do,” and referring to her
husband and 3 children, “We could leave any time.” Carol G said, “I feel a little trapped [in
Korea], but I know it’s just me trapping myself.” When asked to elaborate on why she felt
trapped, Carol G. indicated that Korean language acquisition and the associated benefits
afforded her were in part to blame for this feeling. Megan M., who negatively characterized
her Korean ability as, “fluent in taxi,” reported that despite Korea being, “very comfortable,”
she was planning to return to Guatemala, where she had previously lived and still had family.
Her career goal was to work in an international school, and despite her description of Korea
as safe, and life therein as easy, she was working to obtain a teaching degree in America, and
had firm plans to leave Korea within the next year.
These results contrast the fact that, like Lan’s participants, many of this study’s
participants reported moving to Korea on a whim, or that their decision to do so was a
flippant one. When asked about the quality of their decision to move to Korea, 13
participants (5 females, 8 males) indicated that it had been, “unplanned,” or, “spur of the
moment,” while 14 (4 females, 10 males) stated the opposite; the remaining 3 gave either
self-conflicting answers, such as, “It was planned … I did no research,” or an intermediate
response, such as, “[I did] a little of both.” Ashley M., who is married to a Korean man with
whom she has a child, said, “It was the most whimest [sic.] decision that I’ve ever made in
my life.” Conversely, John J. spent at least 18 months planning and preparing his move to
Korea, and reported having weighed moving to Korea against moving to either China or
Japan, in terms both of cost of living and the fact that he had already made Korean friends.
Despite reporting opposite approaches, both of these participants currently work as associate
English professors at universities in Seoul, and both consider English teaching to be their
career.

32

Because this study specifically sought out English instructors, Lan’s finding, vis-à-vis
“flexible cultural capital conversion,” was in evidence. However, participants did not
indicate that the time they had spent outside their home countries was prolonged due to an
inability to secure higher paying employment, alternate professional employment, or to leave
Korea and either return home or move to a third country. While many participants mentioned
being dismayed at the idea of finding a new job outside of Korea, like Dave H. who noted,
“The idea of starting over is a bit frightening,” most of the study’s participants, Dave H.
included, reported having a plan to leave Korea. Thus, as Lan noted, the prospect of
returning to one’s home country is a factor in the prolonged length of international sojourn
among this study’s participants. Further, most participants reported that leaving Korea would
entail leaving the English teaching industry, and thus would necessitate a shift in career path.
However, the study’s participants also reported a degree of flexibility with regard to
perspective on their futures, or that they were doing what they wanted to be doing in terms of
their lives and/or careers. For example, participants working as freelance English instructors
reported having started their own businesses both within the English teaching industry and in
other either related or unrelated fields. In this way, participants indicated they do not feel
stuck in their jobs, unless by choice, and likewise not stuck in Korea, unless also by choice.
It is precisely this variability vis-à-vis life choices that lies at the heart of the disinclusion
reaction. The study participants reported an ability to choose to stay in or leave Korea, thus
demonstrating the same degree of control over the dimension of time as they have vis-à-vis
choosing to marry a Korean citizen and/or to study the Korean language, or not. Hence the
dimensional variability discussed above.
As a way of further illustrating this variability, to the question, “Would you ever
consider giving up your nationality,” only 2 participants answered in the affirmative. Most
identified practicality or functionality as the reason why they would prefer to retain their

33

original citizenship: it made traveling easier, it made more sense, and/or it kept their options
more widely open. Most of the participants also indicated that they would be open to the
possibility of obtaining dual citizenship, were such an option available, though only a few
had actually looked into doing so. In short, the study’s participants reported that, with regard
to the making of important life choices, retaining a greater measure of flexibility, or creating
such via decision, was important to them. As such, very few were willing to make the
decision to relinquish their nationality in favor of that of Korea, while just as few were
opposed to the idea of obtaining the wider variety of choices potentially afforded a person
with dual citizenship.
If the acculturative experience of instructors is marked by a variability of choice, why
did the study’s participants not report choosing to assimilate with Korean society, or report
choosing not to do so? While an examination of the opposite perspective of the acculturative
equation might provide an answer, this study sought specifically to examine the joining-side
perspective by interviewing members thereof for reasons enumerated above. As such,
speculation vis-à-vis the accepting-side perspective would be inappropriate as participant
opinions concerning the accepting-side would be speculative or anecdotal at best. However,
in many of the interviews, participants detailed their personal interaction with Korean people
and reaction to societal, accepting-side treatment in Korea, characterizing disinclusion as a
socio-culturally, rather than legalistically, based phenomenon.
Participants were asked if they considered befriending Korean people to be easy; 17
(3 female, 14 male) said yes, 8 (4 female, 4 male) said no, 4 (1 female, 3 male) said that such
was dependent upon situational variables such as age and/or personality, and 1 (female) said
that she had no interest in making Korean friends and as such had never tried. Participants
were also asked, regardless of their answer to the first question, whether they felt it was
easier to befriend Korean males or females. Answers covered nearly the full range of

34

possibilities: 3 male participants answering yes to the first question reported it was easier to
befriend men, 2 reported women were easier to befriend, 6 reported no such difference vis-à-
vis gender, and 3 failed to clearly answer the question. Of the 4 male participants answering
no to the first question, 1 reported befriend females was easier and 3 failed to clearly answer
the question. Of the 3 male participants answering neither yes nor no to the first question, 1
reported it being easier for him to befriend men, 1 reported it was equally as easy to befriend
men as women, and 1 reported it was equally hard to befriend either. Of the 3 females
answering yes to the first question, 1 reported ease with regard to befriending men, 1 reported
the same opinion vis-à-vis women, and 1 reported her opinion that it depended upon the
individual. Of the 4 females answering no to the first question, 1 reported that it was easier
to befriend men, 1 reported the same opinion of befriending women, 1 reported difficulty
befriending either, and 1 completely failed to answer the question. The 1 female who
answered neither yes nor no to the first question, likewise did not answer the second. There
was only one combined selection not made by any participant: among men answering no to
the first question, none said men were easier to befriend than women.
Thus with regard to participant opinions concerning befriending Korean people, no
pattern was in evidence, though it must be noted that the study failed to control for other
variables, such as those perhaps related to participant personality. Sarah C., who said that in
general it is easy for her to befriend Koreans, also mentioned that she is, “just a friendly
person.” However, she also mentioned that it is easier for her to befriend Korean women
because, “adult men are not used to having female friends outside of a class or study setting,
while the females are able to have female friends.” Note that it would seem she is not
limiting her comment to a discussion of Korean men, but is instead discussing men in
general, while her characterization of “the females” would tend to indicate that she is

35

specifically discussing Korean females. In this way, very little can be made of such a
statement, and no such statement was made by any other participant.
Concerning befriending Korean people, Carol G. said it is, “as easy as it is to befriend
anyone,” and also reported that in her opinion age was the most important factor to consider
regarding the process of befriending another person. Gender was also an issue as she
reported having an easier time befriending both women younger than her and men older than
her. Paul M., who reported that in his opinion befriending Korean people was, “as easy as
[he finds] it is befriending Westerners,” also reported that due to personal reasons he has very
few friends these days, and thus does not actively seek out new ones regardless of ethnicity or
gender. Finally, Tori B. reported a lack of desire to make Korean friends and that as such she
had none, saying, “I see teaching [sic.] speaking with Koreans more as work than anything
else.” She also reported that being the only non-Korean at her work means she prefers being
friends with people who speak English fluently: “I don’t want my social life to be work.”
Several other participants also cited marriage and having children as major obstacles to
making new friends, because they simply did not have the same amount of free time they had
enjoyed in their single lives. Thus, as was stated above, no pattern was in evidence with
regard to this question.
Next, each participant’s characterization of his or her personal experience of Korean
society was investigated, in order to determine whether or not any felt included, excluded, or
some combination thereof, by Korean people. Such characterizations often materialized
directly in answer to the question, “Do you feel Korean people treat you as an equal?” and
indirectly in explication of answers to other questions. Answers to this first question were
generally negative, but many participants reported being afforded both better and worse
treatment because of their ethnicity; Daniel L. described this paradox: “It’s racism, but it’s
not racism.” Many participants reported their ethnicity directly benefitting them in terms of

36

the relative ease of finding English teaching work in Korea. Speaking to the inclusion vs.
exclusion dichotomy, Corban M. said, “I don't feel like it's active exclusion … I’ve almost
never had anyone outright exclude me, but it’s more of a passive… (trailed off).” At this
point Corban M. was asked, “Is it kind of a, ‘why would you want to join our group?’ type
thing?” He readily agreed to accuracy of this characterization. Hence, the pattern that
emerged was of a feeling of general positivity, of at least superficial acceptance, and yet
simultaneously of a distinct disconnect between the participants and Korean society; this
disconnect can be understood as disinclusion.
A majority of the study’s participants noted an inability to fully engage with Korean
people, or that they were treated in such a way that they felt was different from how Korean
people treated each other. Many participants noted that this treatment was not necessarily
always negative; Luke C. said, “I’ll never shake the feeling that I’m sort of on the outside
looking in and while it’s sad to think that I’ll never truly belong, it comes with some
privileges that I don’t mind.” Many participants identified these privileges as a mildly
preferential mode of treatment by Koreans, such as being able to get away with actions they
would not attempt in their home countries and/or that Koreans would not tolerate from each
other. They also reported generally not feeling as though they were expected to follow the
same rules in the same way Koreans expected one another to. However, positive treatment
was matched with a measure of negative treatment; Rob H. said, “Sometimes I get better
treatment … I get a little extra attention, but I’d actually say that’s less often than I get worse
treatment, or I get a little bit of a slight.” He continued by describing how he felt such
treatment differed geographically, an insight shared by Sarah C. who, speaking about her
family, said, “If we’re in upper-middle class areas, we are accepted. We are welcomed. We
are treated as equals to Koreans by customer service people.” Such a characterization can be
connected to the dimension of time: as time has passed certain geographic areas of Korea in

37

general and Seoul specifically, such as Itaewon and Gangnam, have begun to become more
internationalized or Westernized. However, only 1 participant directly mentioned time as a
factor in terms of an improvement in the way she has generally been treated by Korean
people. Jo T. said, “I hope that one day we’ll be able to say, ‘I’m a New Zealand-Korean,’
but I don’t really see that happening for another few generations … I don’t think Koreans are
open to it yet.” In this way, time cannot be considered as mitigating disinclusion, thus
demonstrating why disinclusion is in evidence among the full range of this study’s
participants, regardless if they have been in Korea for 5 years or nearly 2 decades.
With regard to the study’s second dimension of marriage, Daniel L. said, “You can be
married to a Korean, you could have a half Korean baby, but you’ll always be the foreigner.”
While Daniel L. had been married in Korea in the past, his wife had not been Korean and
they had not had children. Conversely, Liam L., who does have a Korean wife, with whom
he has a daughter, mirrored this statement, saying, “Whilst I live here, whilst my wife is
Korean, my daughter is half Korean … I’m not Korean. I don’t speak the language.” In this
way, he indicates that marriage is not an effective method by which to overcome
disinclusion, or that for him disinclusion exists despite his marriage to a Korean. He also
broaches the topic of this study’s third dimension: Korean language acquisition. The
connection between these two dimensions was further discussed by William A., who has a
Korean wife with whom he has a son: “Even in my own home there are full on conversations
[in Korean] that go on and I really have to force myself into them if I want to know what’s
going on.” Finally, Greg B., who also has a wife Korean with whom he has a son, spoke
about being excluded on a societal level because of a lack of Korean language ability: “I’m
excluded because I don’t speak Korean. If I spoke Korean I think I would be much more
included.” However, later in the interview he contradicted this statement, saying, “Even if I

38

speak fluent Korean without any accent, there is this exclusionary principle in Korea, that I’m
still not Korean.”
Laura B., who is not married and has no children, said, “I don’t feel like I’m a second
class citizen, but I do feel mostly invisible.” She was then asked, “Would you say you feel
included in Korean society or marginalized in some way?” to which she answered, “I just feel
like I’m not really here. When I speak Korean then it gets better, but otherwise I’m just kind
of an object that’s there.” This would seem to indicate that acquisition of Korean language
ability is not a means by which to mitigate disinclusion, for with these comments Laura B.
has also broached both the subject of hierarchy, which will be specifically discussed below,
and the way in which she is neither actively included nor excluded, and thus disincluded.
She indicates her physical presence in Korea, but like an object she does not feel as though
she is afforded equality on par with Korean people who are both here, like her, but more
human than an object, unlike her.
Dave H. demonstrated the way in which mitigating disinclusion via the disinclusion
reaction constitutes something of an option instructors make. He placed the blame for his
own lack of Korean language acquisition, squarely upon himself, saying,
I’ve put almost no effort into learning their language … if they don’t want to put
in the effort to speak to me in English, that’s completely understandable, because
I’ve put in … very little effort to speak to them in their language. I generally feel
that they don’t treat me as equal, they treat me as different. I’m different. Even
my closest friends... There are guys I’ve known here for 11 years. I am not a
Korean. I am not like them. I am different. And I accept that.

39

Further, Dave H. was asked why he felt that his closest Korean friends did not treat him as an
equal; while initially falling back upon language, his answer demonstrates precisely how
disinclusion transcends his lack of language acquisition, moving toward squarely involving
the accepting-side, or Korean society:
Because, I’m not Korean. I’m not Korean. I don’t speak the language, I wasn’t
raised here, and especially because my friends are older and some of them are
actually quite traditional. They tend to believe that there is a Korean … identity
revolving around issues like ‘jeong’ and ‘han’ and things that foreigners can’t
understand. I don't think it’s true that we can’t understand it [sic.], I think we can,
but it’s not worth arguing with them over it [sic.]. I’m different and I accept that.
Because it is not the purpose of this paper to define what it means to be Korean, focusing on
the accepting-side and their conceptualization and opinion of intangible cultural terminology
would seem to be at odds with the study’s approach and objective. However, it can be noted
that Dave H. felt his Korean friends define their difference from him, in some part, according
to ideas they perhaps feel are elusive enough in definition to preclude his understanding of
them. Jo T. elaborated on this concept, tying it to a more tangible genetic concept: “It’s like
you have to be Korean blood to be Korean … I have lots of friends who speak fluent Korean
and they’re still not accepted as being Korean, because they’re not Korean.” Finally, she also
broached her specific treatment in terms of her gender, saying, “Some people treat me like a
prostitute, some people treat me like a princess … certain people will treat me as lower and
certain people will treat me as higher.” In this way, she, too, discusses the relationship of
disinclusion to hierarchy.

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