• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.23-36
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• 2009

Relationships between immigrant mothers' Korean language ability and preschoolers' language development in multi-cultural families were studied with 91 mothers and their children. Language capacity of mothers and children was measured by receptive and expressive vocabulary test, sentence comprehension test and two kinds of reading tests. Results showed that mothers' level of comprehension was relatively low but their reading ability was higher than that of elementary school first-grade Korean students. Comprehension of children in multi-cultural families with non-immigrant counterparts showed a lower level of language ability. Mother's level of expressive vocabulary, receptive vocabulary and reading ability correlated with children's language development. These results indicate a relationship between children's delayed language development in multi-cultural families and mother's low proficiency in Korean language.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.149-160
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to examine factors influencing emotional and behavior characteristics among children in multicultural families. The factors include demographic and psychological characteristics of married immigrant women. Surveys were distributed to 200 married immigrant women and, 148 surveys were returned and analyzed. The findings are as follows: first, emotional and behavioral characteristics of children were significantly associated with the age of their mothers and household income. Second, acculturative stress in married immigrant women was significantly related to the overall behavior characteristics of their children. Third, children whose mothers experienced a higher level of acculturative stress and were of older age showed internalizing problems. The level of Korean language proficiency and marital satisfaction were also important factors influencing sub-categories of internalizing and externalizing problems aside from acculturative stress. Implications and suggestions to develop preventative programs for emotional and behavioral problems of children in multicultural families are discussed.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.255-268
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to deepen our understanding about mothers' parenting stress in multi-cultural families. The study was conducted through in-depth interviews of 6 mothers from Mongolia, Philippines, and Japan who were living in Seoul. The findings of this study were as follows. First, mothers of multi-cultural families had difficulties of giving birth and child rearing, especially in the earliest years of their children. They were not fully adapted to the ways of living in Korea with little social support from family members and neighbors. Second, they were worried about their children's development, particularly language development due to their lack of understanding and fluency in Korean. Third, they were concerned about the cultural and racial discrimination against their children. They expected their children to be treated and respected equally like ordinary Korean children. Fourth, they were anxious about the fact that their children might not acquire the basic academic skills before they enter the elementary schools. Furthermore, they were worried that their children might not get as much educational support as they want. Fifth, despite the burden of mother's role in Korea, they wished to get a job to support their children for better education. In conclusion, the marriage immigrant mothers experienced the stress due to the lack of social support, the discrimination against immigrants, the possibilities of their children's delays in development, the disparity in the level of support for educating their children and the high expectations about their children's education in Korean society. Therefore it is necessary for the policy makers to consider more practical support system for the multi-cultural families in order for the marriage immigrant mothers to build up self-confidence in child rearing and educating their children.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.63-77
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to develop the home economics-relevant program on Korean traditional culture for adolescents from multicultural families for them for experience it directly, set up ego-identity and improve social adaptability. Further, we checked the effectiveness and efficiency of the developed program. First we developed the program composed of a total of 12 sessions based on experiencing Korean culture. It consists of largely 5 madang(parts) centered on themes such as Eowool madang, Hangeul madang, Play madang, Cooking madang and hostory madang. We ran the developed program for 3 months targeting a total of 18 persons composed of the adolescents from multicultural families and their mothers residing in S city of eastern area of Jeonnam province. We measured the participants' ego-identity, social adaptibility and participation satisfaction to examine the effectiveness of the program. The results of pre-test, post-test and satisfaction which are evaluation instruments used in this program are as follows. First, it appeared that the self-identity of the adolescent of multicultural families inceased by 0.30 from average score of 3.03 before the participation in the program to 3.33 after the participation. Social adaptability increased by 0.30 from average 3.11 before the participation to 3.41 after the participation. Second, in the program participation satisfaction, it appeared that first the middle satisfaction marked average 3.30 which exceeded median value at 3.00, meaning a little high satisfaction, whereas the final satisfaction had an averagescore of 4.03, which means a big satisfaction concerning the program participation. The results indicated that the home economics-relevant program was effective in improving the ego-identity and social adaptability of adolescents from multicultural families and supporting a role of as a member of Korean family.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.95-102
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• 2021

This study aims to verify the effect of mother's career-related behavior on the intention of multicultural youths to school dropout intention and the mediating effect of academic adaptation. To this end, 1,121 middle school seniors were sampled in the 7th (2017) data of the Multicultural Youth Panel Survey, and the influence relationship of the model presented as a three-step method of analysis of the mediated effects of Baron & Kenny and the Sobel test were conducted. First, the analysis showed that mother's support, a subfactor of mother's career-related behavior, had a negative effect on dropout intention, and that mother's interference had a positive effect. Second, academi adaptation has been shown to have a negative effect on dropout intention. Third, mother's support, a subfactor of mother's career-related behavior, showed a positive influence on academi adaptation, and mother's interference showed a negative effect. Fourth, academi adaptation has been shown to be mediated in the relationship between career-related behavior and dropout intention. Based on the above results, practical implications were presented.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.614-626
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• 2018

This study was conducted to review the literature and examine the factors related to problem behaviors among students of multicultural families in Korea. A systematic review of the literature was conducted using domestic documents retrieved through July 4, 2018 based on online searches of domestic databases (the Research Information Sharing Service, Korean Studies Information Service System and the National Diet Library). A total of 2,084 studies were searched, and 21 studies were used for analysis. The factors related to problem behaviors were related to individual factors (gender, school record, self-esteem, etc.), family factors (family type, parent support, mothers' enculturation stress, etc.) and environmental factors (friend support, teacher support, social support). The variables measured the problem behaviors among students of multicultural families were school life adjustment (10), psychological, social adjustment or maladjustment (4), and emotional problem behavior (3). Overall, the results indicate that social and policy efforts are needed to improve individual, family, and environmental factors based on more specific and consistent theoretical definitions related to problem behaviors among students of multicultural families in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.35-50
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• 2010

Joint attention, language development, and the relationship between these two variables were compared in infants from multi-cultural and Korean families. Joint attention was observed in both the Early Social Communication Scale (ESCS) and in infant-mother free play. Language development was evaluated by means of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory-Korean. There were no group differences in initiating and responding to joint attention in ESCS. However, in infant-mother free play, joint attention episodes were less and shorter in duration with infants from multi-cultural families than in Korean infants. The size of both the expressive and receptive vocabulary was also smaller in infants from multi-cultural families than in Korean infants. In terms of Korean infants, mean duration of joint attention episodes in free play showed a significant positive correlation with the size of the expressive vocabulary and initiating joint attention in ESCS also showed a significant positive correlation with the size of receptive vocabulary. However, none of the measures of joint attention indicated a significant relationship with the size of either expressive or receptive vocabulary in infants from multi-cultural families.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.17-28
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• 2012

This study aimed to figure out a correlation between perception of multicultural family life culture and multicultural efficacy of middle school students. The participants of this study were 303 middle school students in Daejeon. The results of this study were as follows. First, there was little difference in perception of multicultural family life culture between the genders. In contrast, there was a significant difference in awareness of 'respect for relationship with others', a subcomponent of attitude toward multiculture, depending on grade and family income. Second, the one whose father is well-educated was more likely to show a positive and open minded attitude towards multiculture. Education level of the mother had no influence on perception of multicultural family life culture. Third, there proved to be a positive correlation between the perception of multicultural family life culture and multicultural efficacy of middle school students. In conclusion, ways to improve the perception of multicultural family life culture are needed in order to enhance adolescents' multicultural efficacy.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.103-117
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• 2015

Family environment plays a significant role in adolescent development. Multicultural adolescents in Korea are brought up in a distinctive family environment, where they get to experience two different cultures within their families. Thus, it is important to examine how internal characteristics of the family environment in multicultural families and interactions between family members influence adolescents. The aim of the current study was to examine structural relationships among Southeast Asian mothers' and Korean fathers' bilingual socialization, adolescents' attitude toward mothers' native culture, and mother-adolescent relationship satisfaction. Specifically, the following two questions were addressed in this study: 1) Does bilingual socialization of each parent affect adolescents' attitude toward mothers' native culture? 2) Does children's attitude toward mothers' native culture affect mother-adolescent relationship satisfaction? To answer these questions, the survey data from the '2012 Nationwide Survey of Multicultural Families' was analysed, using SEM. The sample consisted of 318 multicultural adolescents (aged 9-17) living with Korean fathers and immigrant mothers from Southeast Asia. The main findings were as follows. First, Korean fathers' bilingual socialization had a positive effect on immigrant mothers' bilingual socialization. The path from Korean fathers' bilingual socialization to adolescents' attitude toward mothers' native culture was significantly mediated by immigrant mothers' bilingual socialization. Second, adolescents' attitude toward mothers' native culture had a positive effect on mother-adolescent relationship satisfaction. Results suggest that Korean fathers' bilingual socialization is an important factor for bilingual socialization of multicultural adolescents. It is also worth noting that each parent's bilingual socialization helps multicultural adolescents to form a positive identity as a member of multicultural families.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.5-16
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of parenting stress on children's problematic behavior in multicultural families. The subjects were 143 mothers who are caring for their 3-6 year old children in multicultural families. Data was collected using a parenting stress index and a child behavior check list. The data were statistically analyzed using a t-test, a one-way ANOVA(Scheff'e test), a correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis. The study showed that there were no significant differences in parenting stress according to the socio-demographic variables. However, there were some significant differences in children's problematic behavior according to the mother's education. Correlation analysis indicated that the mother's parenting stress and children's problematic behavior in multicultural families had significant positive correlations in all sub-variables. It was also found that the mother's education, the mother's stress caused by a difficult child, the mother's stress caused by dysfuntional interactions between parents and children and educational distress, were all significant predictors of the preschool children's problematic behavior in multicultural families.