「다문화가족지원법」 제정 당시 다문화가족의 개념에 관한 논의와 그 한계

In this article, the author explores the discussion about the concept of multicultural families during the process of enacting the Multicultural Families Support Act. The concept plays an important role of deciding the target for support by the Act. During the discussion at the National Assembly, the term multicultural families was seen to be more inclusive or accepting than the term immigrant families. In the process of defining the the scope of the the term, however, it was narrowed down to a concept that requires inclusion of a Korean member in the family and migrants’ staying legal in Korea. As a result, the Multicultural Families Support Act supports a family of a Korean national rather than to reflect diverse cultural backgrounds of members of the society, and problems arise from the perspectives of discrimination against and human rights of families of migrants that are excluded from the term multicultural families. On the other hand, as the term mainly focuses on marriage migrants it is now often used in a discriminatory way unlike the legislature’s intention. It is worthwhile to reconsider the current way of narrowly categorizing certain group of people to support, or to expand the scope of multicultural families or the target of the support by the Multicultural Families Support Act.