(Dis)Advantages as Korean Americans: Korean Immigrants’ Goals and Strategies for the Children’s Education

• In Event: 50260 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 7: Parenting, Race, and Educational Inequality in Asian and Asian American Communities

Abstract

Despite a growing body of immigration literature on Korean transnationalism, a question of how Korean immigrant parents utilize transnational resources for their children’s education has not been clearly addressed. Using data from in-depth interviews with 40 Korean immigrant parents residing in New Jersey area, this study explores how Korean immigrant parents seek out information on educational programs for their children and organize relevant activities, and access the role of transnational ties to Korea in organizing extra curriculum activities to advance their children’s educational outcome. We also consider potential variations in the activities by socioeconomic status of the parents. Our results indicate that while virtually all of our study participants are actively involved in gathering Korean language education related information and other extra curriculum activities for their children through their family and friends in Korea, they take different strategies based on their available resources. We discuss our findings and implications, and suggest directions for future research.

Authors

• Byung Soo Lee, SUNY-Buffalo

• Hyeyoung Woo, Portland State University