Empirical Research on Herding Effects: Case of Real Estate Markets

This research investigates the existence of herding effects in the real estate market. Case-Shiller Index is used to demonstrate the relationship between herding and the markets. Following the approach in Christie and Huang (1995), we investigate the presence of herd behavior among individuals. Our research presents evidence that herding does not affect individual returns from the housing market. Instead, our findings support the prediction for individual return dispersion offered by the rational asset pricing model

ENGLISH EDUCATION AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF ADOLESCENTS IN A KOREAN PUBLIC SCHOOL

This research examines the relationship between English and social reproduction through a group of Korean adolescents in a public school. I address how social reproduction occurs through English education by focusing on two social categories: Returnees from Early Study Abroad (ESA) and Underachievers in English. They embody differential access to English by social class. I draw upon both Bourdieu’s legitimate language (Bourdieu, 1977, 1991), and language ideology (Lippi-Green, 1997), and their application to sociolinguistic studies (Heller, 2007; Heller Martin-Jones, 2001). Based on a one and a half-year ethnography, I focus on students’ language learning practices and identity construction across four sites: English classrooms, the English Speech Festival, Afterschool Class, and a summer English camp. I analyzed the ways in which school reproduces the “English gap” by social class. First, a systematic curricular gap and academic streaming reinforced students’ differential achievement. Second, according to “native-like” ideology, Returnees enjoyed full-fledged membership in English-only events while Underachievers remained as bystanders. Third, school welfare programs specifically engineered to support Underachievers (i.e., Afterschool Class and psychiatric counselling) did not take their life patterns, peer networks and norms into account. Finally, teachers’ emphasis on grammatically correct English did not allow Underachievers a legitimate speaking position in a communication-oriented class. In accounting for some Underachievers’ low motivation, teachers assessed them as either Responsible or Irresponsible and referred the latter to psychiatric counselling. Despite their marginal status, Underachievers challenged Returnees in reference to the gendered peer culture, which portrayed Returnees’ native-like English as a feminine quality. Returnees were thus socialized to perform Korean-accented English to blend into their peer society. This dissertation challenges the assumption that input-oriented English education policy should address the widening English gap along social class. I argue that the Irresponsible Underachievers’ non-participation in English reflects their development of working-class consciousness, in which few think of getting middle-class jobs through education. Contrary to marginalization in classrooms, experiences in the low-skilled job market give Underachievers confidence to challenge school authority. In the long-term, however, the lack of English skills will prevent Underachievers from achieving middle-class employment in Korea, where English functions as a key gatekeeper.Ph.D

Representations of adolescent immigrants in Canadian print news media: A critical discourse analysis

Framed in a critical discourse analysis (CDA) perspective, this study examined narrative-based media reportage on immigrant students in a Canadian school context. CDA researchers studying the relationship between race, immigration, and the media have noted how covert racist ideology against visible minorities continues to circulate along with the discourse of celebrating diversity. Using this line of thought, I focused on rhetorical strategies in order to understand how immigrant students are constructed in the print news media after the wake of September 11. The analysis indicates that: (1) media producers mainly represent opinions of high-powered social elites through functionalization and racialization; (2) the journalists, as opposed to the ideology of media neutrality, legitimate immigrant youth's marginalization in school by presupposing meritocratic social structure and recycling racial stereotypes; and (3) strategic choice of modality and framing verbs in narrative-based reportage may lead the readers to consume news articles in favor of social elites.

Risk of the Cross-Sectional Returns in Foreign Exchange Markets

The cross-section of foreign exchange returns has substantial exposure to the risk captured by the marketwide moments. We investigate if the foreign exchange market risks are appropriately priced in exchange rates of individual countries. We use cross-sectional analysis to explore the correlation between the marketwide risks and risk premiums of foreign currencies. The results from analysis with the Fama and MacBeth regressions indicate that, while the market beta is negatively associated with the cross-sectional returns in foreign exchange markets, higher exposures to market-wide volatility, skewness, and kurtosis are positively related to individual countries’ exchange-rate risk premiums. These results are robust in the empirical setup

The discourse on bilingualism in postcolonial Korea : Focusing on the language revitalization movement

言語文化学研究. 2024, 19, P.1-1