Middle-Class Korean Americans and the Racialized Pursuit of Educational Advantage

• In Event: 81.032 - MTCC Roundtable Session 37
  In Roundtable Session: 81.032-3 - Interrogating Suburban Schools: Race, Class, and Opportunity in the Suburbs

Abstract

A growing body of research has begun to examine how race and class intersect to shape educational opportunities for middle class Asian Americans (Lew, 2006; Louie, 2004). This paper contributes to this literature by examining the confluence of class, race, and place that influences educational opportunity and experiences for my middle class Korean American participants. I investigate how Korean American parents and youth in the Chicago suburbs made sense of their schools and the role of community-based spaces. I discuss Korean American parents’ reasons for moving to the predominantly White (but increasingly diversifying) Chicago suburbs and their framing of their schools as “good.” Finally, I analyze the relationship between how my participants viewed their schools and their community-based spaces.

This paper is grounded in intersectionality theory, which argues that processes of subordination and privilege must be analyzed along multiple axes of identity, including race, gender, and class (Crenshaw, 1989, 1991). An intersectional lens allows me to examine how race and class work together to shape middle class Korean American parents’ educational strategies. Additionally, I employ the concept of cultural capital (Bourdieu 1985; Lareau, 2003) to make sense of the educational advantages my participants gathered on behalf of their children. The paper draws from a 14-month long ethnography that examined two Korean American community-based spaces. I conducted observations and semi-structured interviews, and collected documents (e.g., flyers, handouts). Data sources include fieldnotes, interview transcripts, participant questionnaires, census data, and site documents.

For my participants, moving to the suburbs was an exercise of choice in which they actively researched the “best” neighborhoods they could afford, reflecting their class privilege and cultural capital. Participants characterized their schools as “good schools,” citing high test scores and qualified teachers. Nevertheless, they also described multiple forms of racial marginalization in schools. Parents turned to Hangeul Korean Language School and Ascend Tutoring Center (ATC) to both bridge the home-school divide and further their children’s educational resources. Hangeul provided valuable cultural education and kept economic opportunity in South Korea as a viable option for their children. ATC offered individualized attention and counseling, which parents hoped would increase children’s academic performance and also helped them understand an education system that, as immigrants, they were unfamiliar with. The sprawling nature of the suburbs, across which Korean Americans were scattered, also meant that community-based education spaces were important venues for creating a sense of community and belonging for their children.

This paper contributes to our understanding of how race and class intersect to shape access to educational resources and opportunities for people of color. While my participants sought out the suburbs in their pursuit of educational advantage, they were also forced to navigate suburbia as people of color once they arrived. The experiences of my participants reveal the complex interplay of privilege, marginalization, and resistance that researchers, policymakers, and educators must attend to if they are committed to a just education system. As growing numbers of immigrants settle in the suburbs (Lacy, 2016), we must more closely consider the suburban context of schooling.

Author

• Eujin Park, University of Illinois at Chicago