Supporting Early Study Abroad Students in Ontario: Case Study of a Collaborative Action Research Initiative, with Conditions Changing Underfoot

This article elucidates findings of an action research initiative that focused on the school engagement and social and cultural adaptation of a cohort of early study abroad students, aged 15–19, attending an urban secondary school in Ontario. The study was part of a federally sponsored partnership that supported the collaboration of postsecondary researchers with professionals working within a publicly funded organization. Despite challenges and disruptions to the schooling context, the team proactively pursued a strategy of developing students’ resilience and self-advocacy skills while promoting their adaptation and acculturation to Ontario schooling and society. An agenda that fostered opportunities for face-to-face activities inside and outside class helped build social connections among international students and between students and staff that proved key to their academic engagement, cultural integration, and sense of well-being.

The Biopolitics of Language Learning

This chapter critically examines modes of English language learning that capitalize on the linguistic malleability of youth, collectively known as early English education (yeongeo jogi gyoyuk), arguing that the embodied nature of language learning makes such investments an important site for the inculcation of neoliberal subjectivities. A prominent aspect of the Korean English fever was the emphasis placed on exposing youths to English at an increasingly earlier age. Focusing on the case of early study abroad (jogi yuhak), this chapter argues that these aged-based projects of English language learning are not simply outcomes of increasing competition that drives down the age for first exposure to English; instead, they are facilitated by a deep sense of anxiety that derives from viewing youth as a limited resource, and in this sense, they are a site of biopolitics, where bodies of youth come to be incorporated into the logic of neoliberalism.

Acculturation and Leisure Benefits in Korean Students Returning from the United States

Most researchers of acculturation have focused on immigrants' acculturative problems and situations in a Western context. In contrast, we conducted a qualitative investigation of the relationship between acculturation and leisure benefits in 7 Korean students returning to Korea after studying abroad in the United States. Among the 4 types of acculturation strategies, the participants, who had been living in the US for a minimum of 5 years, used integration during their time as exchange program students in Korea, and assimilation when living in the United States. We found that most participants experienced acculturative stress, which they reduced with leisure activities. Further studies should be conducted on the value of leisure activities for Korean students returning to Korea from other countries, after an early study abroad experience.