Korean Youth in an American School: Early Study Abroad as a Family Investment Strategy

• In Event: Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Multicultural Education and a Culturally Responsive Curriculum

Abstract

The paper comes from a larger three-year long ethnography of the cross-national conflict caused by the escalating numbers of the Korean population in a Midwestern Christian high school. Conflict emerged; English–Only and guardianship policies were implemented. Drawing upon the work of Foucault and Bourdieu, Here I emphasize the different perceptions of Koreans’ living arrangement. The school considered living without parents an unsatisfactory living situation that violated their religious principles and led to parental neglect and lack of discipline. By contrast, for the Koreans, ESA participation was a family investment and a transnational strategy via English competence and credentialing from American universities. Koreans accepted family separation as a sacrifice they needed to make in the process of accumulating human capital.

Author

• Hye-Young Park, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign