Too Much of a Good Thing: Social Capital and School Stress in South Korea

• In Event: 1552 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 min): Table 6: Education in East Asia

Abstract

South Korea’s educational environment is intense, competitive, and a major source of stress for Korean students and families. For parents, the burden of providing their children with an edge in the ultra-competitive educational environment is a leading cause of anxiety and financial stress. For South Korean youth, school stress is a regular feature of childhood and adolescence. Social capital is powerful mechanism by which parents can invest in their children’s success and provide advantages in competitive social contexts, like education. We examine the effects of family and school social capital on school stress, in a non-Western environment, where academic pursuits are much more intense, and family and school dynamics differ from Western nations. Using data from the Korea Youth Panel Survey (KYPS), we find that in South Korea, particular components of family and school social capital can both reduce and exacerbate school stress in South Korean youth. This suggests that unlike in Western nations, where social capital generally is associated with positive youth outcomes, in a context like South Korea where there is so much pressure to succeed academically and so much competition between peers at school, there may be a threshold for the effectiveness of social capital in mitigating school stress before it becomes too much of a good thing.

Authors

• Allison W. Corbett, Brigham Young University

• Jonathan A. Jarvis, Brigham Young University-Provo

• Jared Thorpe, Brigham Young University

• Mikaela Dufur, Brigham Young University-Provo