Ethnolinguistically minoritized women as bilingual coaches in South Korea

Ethnolinguistically minoritized women, mostly Southeast Asians married to Korean spouse, are subject to marginalization and subordination in South Korea. The local, subaltern knowledge garnered from their country of origin and the host country is frequently dismissed. One government-led initiative, the Bilingual Coaching Program in South Korea, however, has made it their mission to capitalize on ethnolinguistically minoritized women’s subaltern knowledge. Given that they are marginalized to the degree that they feel pressured not to use their own heritage language with their children, bilingual coaches play a pivotal role by not only promoting bilingualism for ethnolinguistically minoritized populations while uplifting other migrant women’s ways of knowing and being in the South Korean context. We draw on border thinking to explore real challenges six bilingual coaches encounter and how they straddle multiple sociocultural realms, localize bilingual education for ethnolinguistically diverse families and combat prevalent Korean-only ideologies. Findings reveal that the coaches not only empowered themselves, but also minoritized women, who have long yearned to find solidarity in countering marginalization and subordination in South Korea. The findings call for bilingual education centering local and subaltern knowledges, particularly, in under-researched contexts.