Overview

South Korean "early study abroad" students - namely those young people who exit South Korea for study prior to college - are literally changing the face of Korean diasporic communities across the U.S. and other English-speaking nations. Early study abroad is a rapidly escalating market in South Korea: a $550 million industry in the first quarter of 2004, doubling the 2002 figures. Remarkably, a recent South Korean survey revealed that if given the opportunity, 1 out of 4 parents would like to emigrate for their children's education. The conference will ask large questions about South Korea's particular globalization embrace, cosmopolitan desires, and education system; and about the changing face and social reality of Korean America with the arrival of these new immigrants. In doing so, the conference will take up both the macro-level context and consequences and the U.S. realities of this growing "immigrant" population.