Investing in the future: Korean early English education as neoliberal management of youth

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines how entrepreneurial visions of the future contribute to neoliberalism’s appropriation of language learning as a strategy for capital accumulation. Taking as an example South Korea’s heavy investment in children’s English language learning – commonly known as early English education (yeongeo jogi gyoyuk) – it discusses how affective conditions of anticipation (Adams, Murphy and Clarke. 2009. Anticipation: Technoscience, life, affect, temporality. Subjectivity 28(1). 246–265.) may serve as a basis for rationalizing the incorporation of language learning as an essential element of entrepreneurial visions of the self. Based on examples from the discourse of the Korean private English education market and ethnographic observations from early study abroad (jogi yuhak) families in Singapore, we show how the English language learning of young children in the Korean context was framed and justified as an investment in the future. We then discuss how parents’ hopes and fears about their children’s future played a major role in transforming English language learning into a matter of neoliberal anticipation. We conclude by considering how this affective orientation to the future inherent in early English education may serve as a juncture for critiquing the entrepreneurial vision of the self that underlies the logic of human capital development.