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Paper short abstract:

This paper analyzes the relationship between neoliberal economic policies and the massive expansion of English language programs in South Korea. It will explain these connections ethnographically by describing and analyzing the educational regimen that has emerged since the 1997 IMF "crisis."

Paper long abstract:

East Asian economies have simultaneously inspired awe and anxiety among policy makers in the West. From the economic "miracle" of the Asian "tigers" to the so-called rise of China, many commentators have anguished over the "secret" of this power shift leading to an ahistorical concept of Confucianism that is the fountainhead of the educational "fever" and "mania" that has catapulted East Asia. This search for cultural explanation side steps questions of power and the specifics of class conflict in Asia. Rather than exhibiting the symptoms of an uncontrollable English-mania, most Korean students not only loathe studying English but have intense anxiety about speaking this foreign tongue. This paper ethnographically describes and analyzes the educational regimen that has emerged in South Korea over the past fifteen years. English education programs have simultaneously dissuaded Koreans from social criticism and encouraged ruthless competition in the classroom in the quest to attain ever diminishing social goods and well-paid jobs. Moreover, I will connect this class anxiety, and competition that propels English language education, to the economic policies that were intensified by the 1997 IMF settlement. South Korea's system of English education has both ideologically supported and served as a model of neoliberal policy as families have borne a large degree of the cost of English education, which has given rise to a vast private education industry that has undermined the authority and integrity of public schools.