Objective: The study examines how Korean American and immigrant youth interpret the Black-White binary in U.S. history and social studies curricula. Method: Task-based interviews were conducted with 23 Korean-heritage students from two Midwestern cities. The study used Asian Critical Theory (AsianCrit) and sociocultural theory as frameworks for…

Members of Korean American communities have displayed an increasing interest in volunteering opportunities with individuals with severe disabilities that promote social interaction and community engagement among them. However, little is known about community volunteer experiences and how Korean American volunteers can be better supported. In this…

This paper examines the significance of parental involvement in early childhood education, with a specific focus on the cultural practices and values of Korean American parents and children in schools in the United States (US). It discusses the critical issue of the learning gap among different ethnic and racial groups and how, through the…

This study investigates how a Korean immigrant child in the United States negotiates a sense of herself through the participation in a multicultural book club and critical dialogues in an out-of-school setting. Using the lens of "third space," it explores how the 7-year-old girl reveals and negotiates conflicting thoughts and ideas about…

Sense of belonging on campus has been identified as one of the most important factors that affect college students' persistence, retention, and graduation. The purpose of this quantitative research was to explore the within-group heterogeneity of sense of belonging among Asian American undergraduate students on campus. Specifically, I explored how…

This dissertation documents a collection of sociolinguistic and sociophonetic studies of the speech of bilingual Korean Americans in California. Korean Americans are an ethnic minority in the United States whose speech patterns in Korean and English remain understudied. The goal of the studies is to begin sketching out the acoustic traits that…

Building upon paradigms of language and languaging practices as "local" phenomena (Canagarajah, 2013; Pennycook, 2010, Pietikäinen & Kelly-Holmes, 2013), this paper narrates a teacher's experience in an undergraduate seminar in applied language studies as an exploration in transdisciplinarity-as-localization. Taught by the author in…

This article presents a case study of a Korean American student organization described as "struggling" by student leaders and administrators. Student leaders blamed themselves; however, I shift from an evaluative and utilitarian approach to ethnic student organizations to an analysis of ethnic student organizations (ESOs) as sites for…

In the present study, I analyze ethnographic data from a year-long study of two Advanced Placement (AP) Biology classes that enrolled students with diverse racial, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds. Specifically, I consider participation, positioning, and learning of newcomer Korean students in the focal classes. Building on the notion of figured…

The bullying experiences of Korean-American adolescents (N = 295) were explored in relation to discrimination and mental health outcomes. Bullying experiences were assessed by the "Bully Survey" (Swearer, 2005), discrimination by the "Perceived Ethnic and Racial Discrimination Scale" (Way, 1997) and depression by the "Center for Epidemiological…

In contemporary South Korean society, there is a strong emphasis on cultural homogeneity and, simultaneously, the development of English proficiency as a human resource. Since language is inextricably linked to identity, bilingual learners from English speaking countries may feel pressure to conform to Korean cultural and linguistic norms, leading…

When Dr. Chia Youyee Vang arrived at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee five years ago, numerous Hmong students along with community residents called for more courses specifically examining their life experiences. Now, her university offers a certificate in Hmong diaspora studies. It's part of a growing tide within Asian American studies--more…

Koreans have been successful in nesting their educational achievement into places like China and the United States, where they have earned the title of "model minority". This research is a comparison of the manner in which the model minority stereotype is handled by Korean Chinese and Korean Americans. The gathered data leads us to argue…

Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), the authors investigate whether four groups of Asian Americans (Chinese, Korean, Filipino, and South East Asian) show comparable scores on variables that past studies have found to be related to academic achievement and whether these variables similarly predict academic…

The purpose of this study is to investigate Korean immigrant mothers' perspectives on their involvement in American schools. In-depth interviews were conducted with six mothers. The findings indicated that the Korean mothers confronted difficulties while contacting teachers and participating in school activities. These difficulties included…