탈북중년여성의 고등교육 학습이 자녀의 성장과정에 주는 의미에 관한 현상학적 연구

This research explored the meaning of higher education of middle-aged North Korean female defectors on their children’s growth process in order to observe their weight of life in-depth and to understand the inner world among adolescent defectors. The research intends to discover how the mothers’ learning experience influenced on themselves as being mother as well as on their teenage children by restructuring their life and filling a life space which were a stepping stone for their growth process. Phenomenological methodology, one of the qualitative research method, is applied due to the characteristic of the study. Four middle-aged North Korean female defectors taking or have taken courses at the higher education institutes and four of their children were interviewed for the study. Six categories were identified from the interview. The categories were <unpredictable parting with hope>, <never-ending and fearful itinerary>, <new start>, <reflection from the learning>, <expectation of unification and its appropriateness>, and <family, the meaning and the nature>. The meaning of middle-aged North Korean female defectors’ higher education experience to their children’s growth process were as follows. First, their higher education influenced to their children as ‘cultural capital claims’ and ‘social capital’. Second, the children adjusted their new life circumstances by recasting their personal and social environment continually. Third, what they accomplish was ‘home’ and ‘hearth and home.’