Language Ideologies in Educational Migration

This paper discusses the connection between language ideologies and educational migration. South Korea is experiencing a boom in short-term migration among pre-university students, a phenomenon known as jogi yuhak . This trend is driven in part by ideologies that link valorized forms of English with specific geographical locations; but at the same time, transnational experiences of educational migration also shape and contest those dominant ideologies, opening up spaces for their rearticulation. This paper illustrates this process through a study of jogi yuhak families in Singapore, exploring how the cultural and linguistic diversity of Singaporean society interacts with language ideologies that drive jogi yuhak . Through an analysis of the families’ accounts of their linguistic investments, it demonstrates how the material constraints surrounding the lives of the families and their lived experiences contribute to a negotiation of imagined geographies that connect language, place, and social space.