Educational Experiences, Aspirations, and Career Pathways of Students with Refugee Backgrounds in South Korea

• In Event: Gender, Power, and Educational Equity across Global Contexts

Proposal

South Korea experienced a 67 percent increase in asylum seekers from 2022 to 2023 (UNHCR, 2024). Of 103,760 refugee status determination applications received since 1994, only 1,432 applicants have been recognized as refugees (NANCEN Refugee Rights Center, 2024), with many rejected applicants remaining in the country as “undocumented” (Kim et al., 2023). Children under the age of 18 comprise 36.5% of recognized refugees (49.7% when including humanitarian visa holders). Among children and youth aged 6-24, 10.5% had never attended school despite having the legal right to do so, highlighting the need to examine barriers to accessing education for refugee-background populations in South Korea (Kim et al., 2023). Despite the growing number of school-aged population with refugee backgrounds in South Korea, research on refugee education remains limited. While some studies have reviewed education-related legislations (Kim & Lee, 2023) and education programs (Park, 2022), empirical research has focused mainly on schooling experiences of children and youth from a social work perspective (Nho et al., 2018) and within specific refugee communities (e.g., resettled Burmese refugees) (Kim et al., 2020).
Although national policy formally guarantees access to basic education (K–12) regardless of legal status, much less attention has been devoted to these youth’s transition into post-secondary education and the labor market. In practice, students with refugee backgrounds face significant challenges, including language barriers, experiences of exclusion or discrimination, and restrictions in post-secondary options, such as limited majors in universities or occupational options/tracks. These challenges are particularly acute for those who “age out” (reach adulthood during high school) or those whose parents lack legal residency status. The proposed research seeks to understand how youth with refugee backgrounds navigate their educational and career pathways in South Korea, and how their experiences reflect both opportunities and systemic barriers.
Drawing on Seidman (2006)’s three-interview series (in-depth, semi-structured) with five youth participants (ages 12–25) from refugee backgrounds in South Korea, this study explores their educational trajectories, aspirations, and career pathways. The central research questions guiding this inquiry are: How do youth with refugee backgrounds and their families navigate post-secondary educational and career trajectories in South Korea? To what extent are their aspirations realized, limited, or unmet within the South Korean context? How do their experiences reflect broader opportunities and barriers? In examining these questions, we draw on concepts such as cruel optimism (Berlant, 2011) and broken trajectory effect (Bourdieu, 1984) in relation to educational integration (Strang & Ager, 2010; Dryden-Peterson et al., 2018) and aspiration of refugee-background populations.
The findings from this study highlights the complex interplay between education policy, institutional practice, and individual agency as youth and their families navigate academic and career pathways in South Korea. While formal education is promoted as the primary pathway toward security and belonging for these youths and their families in South Korea, structural barriers—including limited access to post-secondary options, refugee families’ financial capacity, and labor market discrimination—often prevent these aspirations from being realized. The very hope that education offers can leave youth confronting an “unknowable future” and choosing different pathways from their aspirations—pathways that promise legal possibilities (Dryden-Peterson, 2017).
By centering youth voices, the findings from this study calls on educators, practitioners and policymakers to move beyond symbolic commitments to refugee education and actively develop and implement inclusive and cross-ministerial policies and practices to expand post-secondary and career opportunities for refugee-background youth in South Korea. This study contributes to this year’s conference theme of “Re-imagining Education and Peace in a Divided World” by highlighting the paradoxical role of education (“the two faces”) in promoting or limiting peace and social cohesion among marginalized populations (Bush & Saltarelli, 2000).

Authors

• Jisun Jeong, American University - School of Education

• Jihae Cha, The George Washington University