Parental Involvement in English Education: Discursive Positionings of Korean Mothers

Parental Involvement in English Education: Discursive Positionings of Korean Mothers

This study adopts a micro-perspective toward examining the parental involvement of Korean mothers in their children’s English Education. The data are interview extracts involving two mothers from different socioeconomic backgrounds. By analyzing the discursive positions, affective stances, and linguistic devices that the mothers endogenously construct throughout the interview, this study demonstrates the usefulness of applying positioning theory to the situated investigation of parental involvement. The findings indicate that both mothers narrate from the position of responsible mothers but are limited in their ability to directly teach their children themselves. In coping with their limitations, the two mothers drastically differ in that one resorts to the private sector while the other is restricted to advising her child to simply memorize spelling. These findings shed light on the possible applications of positioning theory as a data-driven, methodological framework for examining Korean mothers and their varying dimensions of parental involvement across different socioeconomic classes from the participants' own perspective.