• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-21
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• 2015

Unlike daily hassles or minor stressors, immigration is an intense life event that may cause excessive stress. In particular, immigrant parents find themselves in a more stressful situation in that they experience stresses caused by immigration and stresses caused by parenting at the same time. The purpose of this study is to develop and validate an Immigrant Parental Stress Inventory (IPSI), that objectively and comprehensively assesses the stress experienced by immigrant parents within the Korean context. Based on the Immigrant Parental Stress Inventory developed within the American context, preliminary items were refined through a literature review and the discussions of experts and immigrant parents and were empirically validated with a sample of 203 immigrant parents residing in Korea. Through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, six main factors were identified (Factor1 Difficulties in communication, Factor2 Financial difficulties, Factor3 Difficulties in social adjustment, Factor4 Social discrimination, Factor5 Lack of social resources, Factor6 Difficulties in parenting). The IPSI was shown to be a psychometrically sound instrument that is capable of measuring immigrant parental stress within the Korean context. Social service professionals and researchers studying or working with immigrant families could use the IPSI to examine immigrant parental stress.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.330-341
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• 2015

Purpose: This study developed a self-report measure for easy assessing of the health literacy of Asian immigrant women in South Korea. Methods: After a literature review, focus group interviews, and content validity evaluation, 14 preliminary items were generated. These were translated into Chinese, Vietnamese, and English. Data were collected from 229 Asian immigrant women. Validity and reliability tests were conducted. Results: Factor analysis yielded final 10 items in three factors: primary functional and interactive health literacy, secondary functional and interactive health literacy, and critical health literacy, which explained 61.90% of the total variance of health literacy. In known-group comparisons, health literacy was significantly lower in recent immigrants, those with a low education level, and those with low Korean language proficiency. For convergent validity, health literacy was positively associated with health specific self-efficacy and maternal health knowledge. For criterion-related validity, health literacy was positively associated with the REALM-SF. The overall reliability coefficient (Cronbach's ${\alpha}$) of the instrument was .773. Conclusion: The Health Literacy Assessment Scale for Asian Immigrant Women (HLAS) represents a multidimensional construct which encompasses functional, interactive, and critical health literacy. This self-report HLAS can be a useful and convenient method for appraising the health literacy of Asian immigrant women.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.242-253
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• 2013

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop a scale to assess immigrant women's needs for pregnancy and postpartum adaptation and to test the reliability and validity of the scale. Methods: To construct scale items, critical issues and difficulties associated with pregnancy and postpartum adaptation of immigrant women were identified and categorized through a literature review. Fifty-two scale items were constructed, and data for validity and reliability testing was collected with a questionnaire survey from 367 immigrant women. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and reliability coefficients. Results: The final measurement scale to assess immigrant women's pregnancy and postpartum adaptation consisted of 48 items and 7 factors (adaptation to daily activity during pregnancy, cross-cultural understanding and personal respect, understanding of the process of pregnancy and delivery, baby rearing and family support, physical and emotional adaptation after childbirth, nutrition during pregnancy, and sexual life adaptation). The seven factors accounted for 64.26% of the variance, and Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ was .96. Conclusion: The scale developed by this study is a reliable and valid instrument and can be used to assess needs of pregnancy and postpartum adaptation and can be utilized in providing nursing interventions for immigrant women.

• Child Studies in Asia-Pacific Contexts
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.105-122
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• 2013

The relationship between an adolescent and his/her parents is one of the most important relationships that can have a significant effect on adolescents' well-being and functioning. While there has been an increase in research on Asian American families in recent years, still much less is known about adolescent-parent relationships in these families. Asian American adolescents face some of the challenges that mainstream European American adolescents face, but their experiences are complicated by the cultural and immigration-related factors that have unique contribution to their relationships with their parents. As such, there is urgent need for research that identifies and provides a comprehensive understanding of factors that contribute to the experiences of Asian American immigrant families. The current paper provides a systematic look at adolescent-parent relationships in Asian American immigrant families using the Bronfenbrenner's ecological model. More specifically, this paper provides a succinct review of the literature on developmental issues, immigration, and culture-related factors that affect Asian American adolescent-parent relationships, and guided by Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory, an ecological framework of Asian American adolescent-parent relationships is proposed.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.479-487
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• 2014

Purpose: This study was a grounded theory research aimed at generating a substantive theory that accounts for the explanatory social processes in which immigrant Korean single-mother families were engaged in the United States. Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 immigrant Korean single mothers who were living with children under 18 years of age at the time of the interviews. Data collection guided by theoretical sampling and concurrent constant comparative analysis of the transcribed data was conducted to identify the core social process. Results: The emerged core social process was "living for the children," which represented the driving process by which these women made transition to their new lives as single-mother families. The major task throughout the entire transition was re-creating their families. The women's transition involved practical and psychological transitions. The practical transition involved three stages: assuring family survival, struggling between the father role and the mother role, and stabilizing. The psychological transition involved becoming strong and settling in with a new supportive network. Conclusion: Study results added to the literature by elaborating the women's emphasis on maternal identity and the resilience-provoking nature of the women's transitions.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.429-456
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• 2008

This study deals with problems of acquisition of multicultural materials published in many countries where immigrants living in Korea came from. Until these days, libraries that want to support immigrant community in S. Korea have had many difficulties in acquiring those materials because they used informal acquisition methods and mother countries of the immigrants in Korea have lower quantities and quality of book production and distribution system than developed countries. Through literature review and interviews, some recommendations are suggested : utilizing domestic vendors or book jobbers, contacting online bookstores, publishers and local bookstores in mother countries of the immigrants in Korea, attending international book fairs held in different Asian countries and taking buying trips for multicultural materials and connecting organizations and people related with multicultural materials. This study gives some benefits to libraries that are developing area studies, language and literature collection as well as libraries that are developing multicultural collection.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.7
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• pp.461-471
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• 2012

The purpose of this paper is to provide basic data for development of Korean teaching programs for immigrant women from multicultural families through the acoustic analysis of their prosodic phrasing and intonation pattern. The results showed that immigrant women showed some differences in most of the prosodic characteristics from a Korean women's group: Immigrant women realized the first word of a sentence in an intonational phrase while Korean women did in an accentual phrase. They also haven't yet correctly learned the tone type of the first of an accentual phrase which differs depending on the type of its first segment yet. As a result, they showed many diverse intonation patterns compared to Korean women. Furthermore, the immigrant women's groups showed some differences between them in a few prosodic characteristics. Philippine women, whose residence duration in Korea is relatively longer than that of Vietnamese women, were more similar to Korean women: Vietnamese women read a sentence with a larger number of intonational phrases than Philippine women did. And they realized sentence-final boundary tone of a yes-no question not only in 'H%' but also in 'HL%' while, like Korean women, Philippine women did only in 'H%'.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.235-245
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• 2014

Purpose: This study was done to develop and evaluate multilingual education materials to promote health and adaptation to pregnancy for immigrant women in Korea. Methods: This study had three procedures: First, contents of the education materials were developed according to pregnant women's needs, literature reviews, and group discussion. Details in contents were constructed based on Roy's adaptation model; Second, validity verification and translation of education materials were accomplished; Third, evaluation of the education materials was done through a survey of immigrant women. Results: The education materials were developed in six languages (Korean, English, Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, and Cambodian). The title is "Healthy mother, happy family: eight-step guide to a healthy pregnancy". It was composed of an eight-step guide to healthy pregnancy, self-examination check list, websites for childbirth education and information, and guidelines on education materials in a brochure. In the evaluation, the average response score for the questionnaire items was high (3.23 on a four-point Likert scale). The average score for Cambodian immigrants was the highest of all immigrant women. Conclusion: Multilingual education materials developed in this research will help community health nurses to manage pregnancies for immigrant women and will be useful for health education for these women.

• Asia-pacific Journal of Multimedia Services Convergent with Art, Humanities, and Sociology
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.695-704
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• 2018

This study attempted literary therapy approach to establish a healthy identity of Korean married immigrant women by using . The research suggests the difficulties of forming a healthy identity in the process of adaptation of Korean marriage imm6igrants to international marriage, and suggests a literary therapeutic alternative using the narrative structure of Ondal tales. In this study, we used the proven narrative, classical literature, to help the marriage migrant women to develop healthy self - narration, and furthermore, the possibility of reestablishing a healthy identity is centered on their human relations. The research suggests that self-narratives can provide a confidence that a happy life can be managed by providing a literary therapeutic alternative to establish a healthy identity. Through this study, it was positively pointed out that married immigrant women can utilize classical literature in their programs for establishing a healthy identity and that they can have an expected effect on their understanding of Korean culture and Korean language ability.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.56 no.5
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• pp.907-930
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• 2010

Most previous studies on A Gesture Life focused on illuminating the role and significance of Kkutaeh, the Korean comfort woman, whom Hata runs across at a military camp in the Burmese jungle. For instance, Carroll Hamilton argues that the return of Kkutaeh as a traumatic subject disrupts Hata's nationalist narrative, causing the protagonist's eventual failure at national enfranchisement. However, this paper focuses on Hata's relationship with Bedley Run, the sleepy suburban white town, in which the protagonist settles down right after immigration to the US. The racial/racist nature of Bedley Run has not received due critical attention, although a few studies on the novel saw Hata's gestures as a survival tactic deployed against the hostile environment of his new host society. This paper, resorting to Pierre Macherey's thesis on symptomatic reading, exposes what Hata, the narrator/protagonist, hides from his readers concerning his status in his muchbeloved town; and it also explores the subversive significance of Hata's ethnic memories. The aim of this study is, after all, to map both the subversive possibilities and the limitations of Hata's immigrant narrative as a bildungsroman.