School and Bicultural Factors as Mediators between Immigrant Mothers’ Acculturative Stress and Adolescents’ Depression in Korea

Abstract

In Korea, marriages between Korean men and foreign women have surged since the late 1990s, resulting in public interest in the psychosocial adjustment of their children. This study examined the mediating effects of immigrant mothers’ school involvement, adolescents’ school adjustment, and bicultural acceptance on the relationship between the mothers’ acculturative stress and adolescents’ depression, as well as whether the structural relationships differed by the sex of adolescents. Data were collected from 1238 dyads of first-grade students (605 boys, 633 girls; age = 12.97 ± 0.35 years) in Korean middle schools and their immigrant mothers (age = 43.52 ± 5.13 years) who participated in the Multicultural Adolescents Panel Study. The structural equation modeling analysis revealed that mothers’ acculturative stress was indirectly and positively related to adolescents’ depression through (1) the serial mediations of mothers’ school involvement and adolescents’ school adjustment and (2) the individual mediation of adolescents’ school adjustment. Furthermore, the multigroup analysis indicated that the relationships between adolescents’ school adjustment and depression and between adolescents’ bicultural acceptance and depression significantly differed between male and female adolescents. The study provides directions for schools and communities to increase immigrant mothers’ school involvement and to facilitate their children’s school adjustment and bicultural acceptance.

Maternal Involvement in Education, Bicultural Acceptance, and School Adjustment: An Autoregressive Cross-Lagged Modeling Study among Adolescents from Multicultural Families

“…Some research findings have indicated that parental involvement in education declines in terms of amount or effectiveness during middle school because adolescents may perceive such parental involvement in schools as interference with their autonomy [25]. In contrast, parental involvement in education was found to be positively associated with student achievement, school adjustment, and social relationships in middle school in previous studies [24,26,27].…”

“…The relationship is not necessarily simply unidirectional. Several studies [27,48,49] have verified the effect of school life on bicultural acceptance by indicating that higher school adjustment predicts higher bicultural acceptance among adolescents from multicultural families.…”

“…Previous research findings [28,31] have indicated that higher levels of private tutoring and home-based educational support in multicultural families are consistently associated with higher levels of participation in learning activities and academic achievement among adolescents. Furthermore, prior studies [26,27] have reported that the higher the level of school-based involvement and home-school communication among foreign mothers from multicultural families, the higher the academic achievement and school adjustment of their adolescent children.…”

“…Parents are crucial agents of ethnic socialization among minority youths, influencing their children's attitudes toward the heritage culture and other ethnic groups [41]. Therefore, when migrant parents actively participate in school activities and provide support for their children's school adjustment, the children are more likely to show favorable attitudes toward the dominant culture [27,42]. Furthermore, higher levels of support from parents in multicultural families were associated with their children's positive attitudes toward their parents' attributes and cultural backgrounds [27,43].…”

“…This study aims to explore the associations between maternal involvement in education, school adjustment, and bicultural acceptance in the first year of middle school among adolescents from multicultural families and the reciprocal relationships between school adjustment and bicultural acceptance during the middle school period. Although previous studies [26][27][28]31] have identified the effect of maternal involvement in education on their children's school adjustment and bicultural acceptance in multicultural families, none has simultaneously investigated the bidirectional effect between school adjustment and bicultural acceptance in the same study.…”