Meritocratic reframing of affirmative action policy in a competitive higher education context: multicultural students’ perspectives in South Korea

This study examines the perceptions of university students from inter-ethnic marriage families (hereafter as multicultural students) on their experiences with affirmative action policy. Ten university multicultural students who entered leading universities through affirmative action amidst the highly competitive higher education entrance exams in South Korea were interviewed. In the context of South Korean society, where educational competition is intense and the social system is predominantly governed by the discourse of meritocracy, the participants tended to interpret their affirmative action experiences more from the perspective of social efficiency. Despite the underlying tension between the affirmative action policy embedded in social integration discourse and the meritocratic discourse, they paradoxically sought to justify their affirmative action experiences by reframing them through the lens of meritocracy. This study demonstrates how the socially integrative logic of affirmative action can be appropriated from a social efficiency perspective in a competitive society dominated by meritocracy.