Relationship Discrimination, Depression, and Parental Support Among Adolescents from Multicultural Families

Background: In a field survey by the Korea Multicultural Adolescents Association, it was found that half of adolescents from multicultural families were experiencing discrimination and depression. Accordingly, many studies have found that adolescents from multicultural families living in Korea experience discrimination due to their multicultural background and that this experience affects depression. At the same time, the support received from parents affects the discrimination experiences and depression of multicultural adolescents. Previous research conducted so far has identified the relationship between experiences of discrimination and depression, and the relationship between parental support and depression. However, there is a lack of research that has identified the moderating effect of parental support in the relationship between experiences of discrimination and depression experienced by adolescents from multicultural families. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the moderating relationship between discrimination experiences, depression, and parental support among adolescents from multicultural families.

Method: This study used data from a multicultural adolescent panel survey conducted in 2019. Survey questions were used to investigate discrimination experiences, depression, and parental support among adolescents from multicultural families. To determine experiences of discrimination, the discrimination experience scale developed by Way was used to investigate the presence or absence of discrimination experiences and the degree of damage. To identify depression, the depression scale developed by Beck was modified to determine the level of sad mood, sense of failure, decreased satisfaction, and guilt. Parental support used in this study was defined as emotional support obtained from parents and was investigated using the parental support scale developed by Lee Sang-hwa. In this study, 1,178 adolescents from multicultural families participated in the survey.

Results: The coefficient of multiple determination (R-squared) of the model is 0.40. This means that experiences of discrimination and parental support account for 40.24% of the variance in depression. The regression coefficients of discrimination experience (Coefficient=.1613, p-value=.0057) and parental support (Coefficient=-.2292, p-value=.0277) are both negative. This indicates that as discrimination experiences and parental support increase, depression decreases. The value of the constant is 32.4686, which represents the level of depression when all explanatory variables are 0. The level of depression of adolescents from multicultural families is influenced by experiences of discrimination and parental support. In particular, as parental support decreases, depression levels tend to increase.

Conclusions/Implications : Practical solutions for this require strengthening mental health services for adolescents from multicultural families, improving discrimination prevention and support programs in schools, developing parent education programs, and strengthening social support for adolescents from multicultural families. It is important to provide support within schools to help students increase their understanding of cultural diversity by strengthening multicultural education programs in schools, and counseling services for adolescents from multicultural families must be strengthened to detect depressive symptoms early and provide appropriate treatment. do. From the government and local governments' perspective, social support programs for adolescents from multicultural families should be expanded to provide opportunities for children to become socially integrated, so that adolescents from multicultural families can adapt socially and grow into healthy members of society.