English for What and for Whom?: Parental Dilemmas and Struggles with Their Children’s English Learning in Korea

Abstract

This paper explores how ideas related to children’s learning are conceptualized and practiced by examining Korean parental perspectives. Many Korean parents’ high expectations for their children in education are based on a unique combination of Korean parenting and Korean social values. As a result, this paper reports on discussions of what Korean parents' think about their children’s English proficiency and preparation for global society. It also investigates their perspectives of young children’s English learning in such Korean contexts as their parental struggles and expectations in relation to different socio-economic statuses, regions, and children’s gender. This endeavor attempts to fully understand how young children’s education-in this case, English learning-is situated within the complex dialectic of Korean society in which the parents’ perspectives about social values and familial expectations are intertwined.