Social Adjustment of Korean Youth in Study Abroad in the United States

Study Background & Purpose

Beginning in the early 2000s, many children in S. Korea left for English-speaking countries for the sole purpose of education without accompanying their parents. The highly competitive education system has been blamed for driving the increasing number of children out of the country.  It is estimated that children who left for studying abroad in any given year accounted for over 13% of the total students in elementary through high schools (Korean Educational Development Institute, 2010). Different from typical student exchange programs, these children tend to stay for long time until they finish college education. There are concerns that these children are separated from their parents at young age and grow up into adulthood without parental supervision. Although some anecdote cases have indicated that these children go through many struggles, we currently lack empirical studies.

This is a study of exploratory survey on Korean children who were attending middle/high schools in the United States. This study has two main goals: (1) to provide some basic understanding of Korean youth who came for the purpose of studying abroad, including their demographics and social adjustment; and (2) to compare social adjustment among two groups of Korean youth—those with a foreign-student visa (who entered the United States without accompanying parents), and those who came with parents for  immigration. We have hypothesized that the former group (i.e., study-abroad group) would have a higher level of social adjustment than the latter group (i.e., immigrant group).   

Methods:

The study has used a non-probability sample for the survey. The survey sample was obtained through a camp program for Korean youth at ages between 13 and 19, offered by KOSTA in Maryland. Survey questionnaires were distributed and administered through camp counselors, who were assigned to small groups. While 180 Korean youth were enrolled with this camp program, 140 completed the survey. The questionnaire included child and parent demographics, living arrangement, visa status, friends and school work, and social adjustment measurement using a Likert scale. Our social adjustment scale was tested for validity and reliability, indicating a significant content validity and a reliability coefficient at 0.76.  Finally, the stepwise OLS regression analysis was conducted.

Findings & Conclusion:

This study showed some interesting findings. Social adjustment of Korean youth is positively associated at the statistical significance with three factors: (1) the number of years spent in the United States; (2) the number of extracurricular activities; and (3) having more English-speaking friends than Korean-speaking friends. On the other hand, drug use is negatively associated with social adjustment (< 1%). Surprisingly, neither living with a parent nor immigration status is found to be significant. These findings imply that Korean youth who came alone for studying abroad might not be much different as to social adjustment from those who came with parents for immigration. However, this study has limitations due to a small, non-probability sample. More research is needed in the future, using better sampling.