Whose culture is Korean? Toward an anti-essentialist curriculum for heritage culture

Abstract

ABSTRACT While having served to help immigrant children develop a sense of ethnic identity and belonging, heritage schools have also been documented to reproduce an essentialised understanding of heritage culture by teaching heritage culture as fixed, stable, and homogenous. To help students move beyond an essentialised conception of heritage culture, the authors collaboratively developed a curriculum engaging students with an alternative understanding of heritage culture and implemented it in a Korean heritage school in New York City. By documenting how the teacher encouraged children to explore the fluid, hybrid, and heterogeneous nature of heritage culture, this study not only provides practical implications for teaching heritage culture but also shows a possibility of making heritage schools a transformative space in which the boundaries of heritage culture and identity are constantly revisited.