Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to explore the campus life of Ghanaian graduate students while studying in South Korea by employing the perspective of critical multiculturalism. South Korea begun to provide programs for students from abroad to study in South Korea since the early 2000's, which has resulted in a rapid increase in the number of international students in South Korea. Similarly, the number of students from Africa at the same time should not be underestimated. According to the statistics, Ghanaian students ranks first among other African students studying in South Korea, and this number continues to increase. However, due to the cultural differences between international students and local Korean students, the cases of denial, exclusion or neglect of local culture are also increasing. The participants in this study were two Ghanaian graduate students studying at the engineering school of a national university in South Korea. It is believed that understanding the campus life of those Ghanaian graduate student's will help to comprehend the difficulties and challenges that they face due to cultural differences while studying in South Korea. To obtain first-hand knowledge about the life and experience of these two Ghanaian graduate students, the researcher went to their campus and interviewed them through the use of narrative inquiry research on their experiences as they live and study on a Korean campus. The study began by collecting interview material and chronologically arranging the experiences of the two participants on a Korean campus and identifying a recurring and predominant cases of denial, exclusion or neglect. In order to tackle these challenges faced by similar minor groups, topics such as "recognition of differences", "cultural assimilation, marginalization and domination", "unconscious exploitation under capitalism" and so on were discussed in details from the perspective of critical multiculturalism.

Keywords:

Multiculturalism, critical multiculturalism, cultural experience, Ghanaian student.