Korean born, Korean‐American high school students' entry into understanding race and racism through social interactions and conversations

Abstract

This paper explores how a group of Korean born, Korean‐American high school students came to understand race and racism in the US through social interactions and conversations, with particular attention paid to the locality of time, space and people engaged. Therefore, we explore not only how race and racism are socially constructed in the lives of the participants, but also how social interactions and daily conversations play a critical role for the students to develop and locate their voices in relation to understanding how race and racism effect their lives. It is worth emphasizing that the participants' understanding on the concepts of race and racism were refined in dialogic and emergent fashion in the course of dialogue. In other words, it was not like a new learning or sudden enlightenment. Rather, it was rediscovery of their own experiences, which they had but were not able to explicate or find appropriate languages with which to identify their experiences until they were provided an opportunity to discuss their thoughts around the concepts of race and racism.