Poster #38 - Parental Academic Socialization and Youth Adjustments: A Comparison of Ethnic Korean Youth in Three Countries

• In Event: Poster Session 11

Abstract

Education is a key avenue to upward mobility and is considered particularly instrumental for ethnic minority children’s success (Ng et al., 2017; Sue & Okazaki, 1990). Prior research on the positive adjustments of ethnic minority youth, such as Asian Americans, has primarily attributed their success to parental academic socialization (Hill & Tyson, 2009; Pomerantz et al., 2007), an assumed product of Asian culture. However, the influence of Asian culture may have been overgeneralized, and high parental academic socialization may also be attributed to the minority status. Thus, this study examined ethnic Korean youth living in three different countries—the U.S., China, South Korea (Korea hereafter)—who share the same heritage culture but have different social positions either as the ethnic majority (i.e., in Korea) or minority (i.e., in the U.S. and China) to explore the similarities versus differences in the levels and implications of parental academic socialization practices on youth academic, psychological, and behavioral adjustments.
As educational advancement may be used as a strategy by ethnic minorities to adapt to the host society (Xie & Goyette, 2003), we expected that Korean youth in the U.S. and China might perceive greater parental academic socialization than do those in Korea as ethnic majority. Furthermore, as parental involvement (Cheung & Pomerantz, 2011) and parental autonomy support (Wang et al., 2007) enhance academic and emotional functioning both in the U.S. and China, whereas parental psychological control dampens emotional adjustment (Wang et al., 2007), we expected that parental emphasis on education, parental involvement, and autonomy support would be associated with youth’s positive adjustments, whereas parental achievement-oriented psychological control would put youth at risk for negative adjustments, similarly across all groups.
Participants were 408 Korean American youth (Mage = 14.76; 47.3% female), 263 Korean Chinese youth (Mage = 15.24; 58.9% female), and 523 Korean youth (Mage = 14.98; 50.1% female). Youth reported their perceptions of parental emphasis on education, parental involvement, maternal achievement-oriented psychological control, and maternal autonomy support (see Table 1). Youth also reported their academic performance (i.e., school grades in language arts and mathematics), school engagement (Choi, 2014), depressive symptoms (Angold et al., 1995; Greenberg & Kusche, 1990; Harris & Udry, 1994-2008) and antisocial behaviors (Gelhorn et al., 2007, 2009; Harris & Udry, 1994-2008).
Mean comparisons using ANOVA revealed that Korean youth as ethnic minority in the U.S. or China perceived more parental academic socialization than did those as ethnic majority in Korea (see Table 1). Multiple-group path analyses examining whether and how youth’s perceptions of parental academic socialization practices were associated with youth adjustments revealed similar patterns and magnitudes of associations across groups (see Table 2). In all three groups, parental emphasis on education, parental involvement, and maternal autonomy support were associated with youth’s higher school engagement. Conversely, maternal achievement-oriented psychological control was associated with more depressive symptoms and antisocial behaviors.
Our findings highlight the role of academic socialization as an adaptive strategy for ethnic minorities to succeed in the host societies and the universal role of parental academic socialization in youth’s adjustments.

Authors

• Meng-Run Zhang, New York University Shanghai

• Yishan Shen, Texas State University
  Presenting Author

• Yoonsun Choi, University of Chicago

• Kihyun Kim, Sungkyunkwan University