KJCKorea
Journal Central

In recent years, public discourse on fairness has expanded in Korean society. However, existing discussions have mainly focused on generational, class, and gender inequalities, while little empirical attention has been paid to how perceptions of discrimination against immigrants shape perceptions of social fairness. Given that Korea has long developed its fairness norms within a monocultural context, it is crucial to examine how discrimination against a newly emerging social group—immigrants—affects fairness perceptions during the transition to a multicultural society. Perceived discrimination serves as a social signal that challenges the legitimacy of social norms and the rationality of institutional operations. When people believe that certain groups are treated unequally, they tend to view society’s procedural fairness as weakened. Drawing on procedural justice theory, this study empirically analyzes how perceptions of discrimination against immigrants influence perceptions of social and institutional fairness. The results indicate that general perceptions of discrimination negatively affect both dimensions of fairness. Perceived discrimination in social treatment and media representation also reduced both social and institutional fairness, while perceived discrimination in schools and workplaces significantly decreased institutional fairness. This study extends the discussion of procedural justice from the organizational to the societal level and provides empirical insights into how the meaning of fairness is being reconstructed in a multicultural context.

This study examines the factors influencing the cultural and artistic participation of married immigrant women. It also analyzes the moderating effect of cultural identity on the relationship between community involvement and cultural and artistic participation, and explores its policy implications. The research method involved conducting a survey of married immigrant women living in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do who had experience using multicultural family support centers. The final 315 respondents were analyzed using SPSS 26 to analyze general characteristics, descriptive statistics, correlation, multiple regression analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis. The analysis results show that community participation factors (cultural adaptation, social support, multicultural program satisfaction, and life satisfaction) have a significant impact on cultural and artistic participation, and that cultural identity has a statistically significant moderating effect on the relationship between community participation factors and cultural and artistic participation. Based on these analysis results, policy measures are proposed to enhance the cultural and artistic participation of married immigrant women, including expanding mutual exchanges among married immigrant women in local communities, developing and operating culturally specialized language education programs, arts-based programs, and family-centered integrated programs.

This study investigates South Koreans’ perceptions of immigrants by identifying subgroups of attitudes and examining how political-economic and socio-cultural factors shape them. Using the Korean dataset from the 7th wave of the World Values Survey, Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was conducted on evaluations of immigrants’ social impact, followed by multinomial logistic regression to identify the determinants of subgroup membership. The analysis yielded four subgroups: (1) a Passive Type, characterized by weak overall perceptions and neutrality; (2) a Low-Risk Type, recognizing positive contributions while perceiving few risks; (3) an Economic–Safety Sensitive Type, acknowledging the economic benefits of labor force supplementation while also perceiving risks such as crime and social conflict; and (4) an Extremely Sensitive Type, amplifying both positive and negative impacts across economic, social, and cultural domains. The results indicate that insecurity regarding social status and concerns about safety are central factors reinforcing ambivalent perceptions. Sensitivity to immigrant impacts was also higher among non-metropolitan residents, individuals with higher subjective class status, and those with progressive political orientations. These findings demonstrate that perceptions of immigrants are not structured within a unidimensional framework of acceptance versus rejection, but rather emerge from the intersection of political-economic and socio-cultural evaluations. The study highlights the need for future social integration policies to be designed on a more differentiated foundation that reflects the heterogeneity of public perceptions.