어린이집 재원 다문화 가정 영아의 양육 현황과 어려움 및 지원요구

Present Status, Difficulties and Support Needs of Multi-cultural Families Raising Children under 3 Years Old Enrolled at Child Care and Education Centers

Objective: This study intended to analyze parenting characteristics, difficulties and support needs of multi-cultural families that had children under 3 years old, in order to develop their supporting resources. Methods: This study performed semi-structured interviews with 7 mothers from multi-cultural families that had their young children enrolled at child care and education centers in Gyeonggi Do. The interview data transcribed were analyzed using the successive contents analysis, and led to 4 themes and 12 sub-themes. Results: First, the mothers from multi-cultural families were married without understanding the Korean language and culture. Second, the multi-cultural mothers didn’t properly respond to their children s needs in interaction and language aspects. As a result, the multi-cultural support centers and child care and education centers gave help to them. Third, in the view of the difficulties facing mothers, parenting problems caused by the lack of information concerning child education, the biased burden of parenting, and the different parenting values of Korean families were all expressed by the mothers. Fourth, regarding support needs, providing individual professional support for children and child-raising support for mothers, customized language and employment support for mothers and parenting education for fathers and family education on multi-culturalism are needed. Conclusion/Implications: Suggestions for decreasing the difficulties facing multi-cultural families that had children under 3 years old were discussed.