Purpose This paper aims to attend to the issues that remain veiled and excluded in the name of multiculture. Design/methodology/approach This paper problematizes South Korean multicultural education policies through Bourdieu’s concept of capital as a theoretical frame. Findings First, the paper discusses that material wealth is unequally distributed to most of the multicultural families, resulting in their lack of economic capital. Second, it notes that students from multicultural families are deprived of cultural capital, as they are racialized in Korean society. As a strategy used to distinguish and exclude a so-called different minority from the unnamed majority, race enables the possession of cultural capital. Third, insufficient social capital identified with resources emerging from social networks positions students from multicultural families as a perpetual minority. As the accumulation of various forms of capital secures power and privilege (Bourdieu, 1986), multicultural education in its current state would continuously reproduce the existing power dynamics where students from multicultural families are subordinate. Research limitations/implications Given this, policies for multicultural education in South Korea should cover a wide range of issues, including race, class and network and be redesigned to resolve realistic problems that have been hidden under the name of celebration of culture. Originality/value The Korean multicultural education policy has not been analyzed through Bourdieu’s concept of capital. Using a different theoretical viewpoint would be valuable to figure out the problems underlying the policy.

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This article examines the relevance of postcolonialism in early childhood education, with special reference to the kindergarten education system of South Korea. Most of the research on Korean kindergarten education has conceptualized it as preparing children for their later schooling and helping them learn the moral and social values most desired by society. In order to problematize such a monolithic conceptualization of kindergarten education, this article intends to reconceptualize it by analysing Korean kindergarten education in the context of its postcolonial condition. Using a postcolonial framework and Foucault's concepts of power and discourse, this article provides significant insights into reclaiming kindergarten education as a historical, cultural, and discursive product. With a specific focus on different conceptions of "readiness" as an example, how kindergarten education in Korea has become hybrid through postcolonial experiences is further elaborated.

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