Host Language's Association with Delinquency and School Maladjustment Among Immigrant Background Youths in South Korea: The Moderating Role of Heritage Language Ability, Self-Esteem, and Parental Support

Background and Purpose: Due to the growing number of immigrant background youths, their adaptation in society draws public attention in South Korea. The higher delinquency rate and maladaptive school experience among the adolescents with immigrant background than those without have been rising concerns. These maladaptive outcomes in adolescence result in huge social costs; thus intervention is imperative. Factors related to delinquency and school maladjustment should be verified based on a solid theoretical framework. General strain theory is a cross-culturally proven theory that identifies factors which are related to adolescents’ maladaptive experiences. It is also necessary to explore protective factors to enhance the implications of intervention, including multi-systematic—both internal and external—and multi-cultural factors in individuals.

Methods: This study used data from the Multicultural Adolescents Panel Study (2015; n=1,279), collected by the National Youth Policy Institute in South Korea. First, binary logistic regression analysis was conducted to investigate the association between strain from host language and delinquency, and to examine the moderation effect of protective factors. Second, multiple regression analysis was conducted to investigate the association between strain from host language and school maladjustment, and to examine the moderation effect of protective factors. The dependent (delinquency, school maladjustment), independent (Korean language stress, Korean language ability), moderating (heritage language ability, self-esteem, parental support), and control (gender, age, household income, size of residential area, bullying victimization) variables were carefully selected based on the theory.

Results: First, although Korean language stress and Korean language ability did not have main effects on delinquency, Korean language stress was shown to predict delinquency by interacting with heritage language ability. For relatively high levels of heritage language ability, the higher the level of heritage language ability, the greater the impact of Korean language stress on delinquency. However, when heritage language ability was extremely low, Korean language stress was associated with lower delinquency. Among the moderating variables considered in this study, only heritage language ability and parental support had main effects on delinquency and were identified as factors that reduced the probability of delinquency. Second, Korean language stress and Korean language ability showed main effects on school maladjustment, with Korean language stress and Korean language ability having a positive and negative relationship, respectively. Higher heritage language ability, self-esteem, and parental support were associated with reduced school maladjustment. However, none of the interaction effects were statistically significant.

Conclusions and Implications: Based on general strain theory, this study investigated the relationship between strain from host language and delinquency and school maladjustment, and further examined multi-systemic protective factors, among immigrant background youths in South Korea. This study attempted to ultimately lay the foundation for effective intervention toward delinquency and school maladjustment among immigrant background youths in South Korea. This study suggested that strain from host language, heritage language ability, self-esteem, parental support could be the point of intervention in alleviating youth delinquency and school maladjustment. Particularly, greater public attention should be given towards enhancing heritage language ability of immigrant background youths in South Korea.