Lost in Translation: Obstacles to Converting Global Cultural Capital to Local Occupational Success

Abstract

International students studying at foreign universities believe this experience will translate to occupational opportunities in their home countries. Although the motives for global education have been considered, we know less about the conversion process upon return. Using 66 in-depth interviews (20 evaluators, 20 locally-educated Koreans, 26 foreign-educated Koreans), I examine how global cultural capital can be both deeply meaningful and an obstacle to organizational fit and reintegration. When Koreans leave Korea before attending a local university, the acquisition of global institutional, embodied, and objectified cultural capital may come at the expense of how they activate or portray embodied local cultural capital. Koreans with more balanced global and local cultural capital—those leaving after graduating from a Korean university—were able to navigate the work context with greater ease, choosing when and how to signal both their global knowledge and understanding of the rules of the Korean work world.