This paper explores how ideas related to children’s learning are conceptualized and practiced by
examining Korean parental perspectives. Many Korean parents’ high expectations for their children in
education are based on a unique combination of Korean parenting and Korean social values. As a
result, this paper reports on discussions of what Korean parents' think about their children’s English
proficiency and preparation for global society. It also investigates their perspectives of young
children’s English learning in such Korean contexts as their parental struggles and expectations in
relation to different socio-economic statuses, regions, and children’s gender. This endeavor attempts
to fully understand how young children’s education-in this case, English learning-is situated within
the complex dialectic of Korean society in which the parents’ perspectives about social values and
familial expectations are intertwined.