Maternal Involvement in Education, Bicultural Acceptance, and School Adjustment: An Autoregressive Cross-Lagged Modeling Study among Adolescents from Multicultural Families.

This study examined the associations between maternal involvement in education and bicultural acceptance and school adjustment during the first year of middle school among adolescents from Korean multicultural families as well as the reciprocal relationships between bicultural acceptance and school adjustment during the three years of middle school. The present study used three-wave longitudinal data of 1185 dyads of adolescents (50.8% girls; mean age = 12.96 ± 0.35 years at the first wave) and their immigrant mothers (mean age = 43.54 ± 5.19 years at the first wave), who participated in the Multicultural Adolescents Panel Study. An autoregressive cross-lagged modeling analysis revealed that maternal involvement in education was significantly and positively associated with adolescents' bicultural acceptance and school adjustment in the first year of middle school. Individual levels of bicultural acceptance and school adjustment among adolescents remained moderately stable over the three years. Whereas the positive effects of school adjustment on bicultural acceptance were significant over time, the effects of bicultural acceptance on school adjustment were not. Finally, this study highlights the roles of intervention programs (e.g., parent and multicultural education) in facilitating maternal involvement in education and school adjustment as well as in increasing bicultural acceptance among minority youths.

School and Bicultural Factors as Mediators between Immigrant Mothers' Acculturative Stress and Adolescents' Depression in Korea.

In Korea, marriages between Korean men and foreign women have surged since the late 1990s, resulting in public interest in the psychosocial adjustment of their children. This study examined the mediating effects of immigrant mothers' school involvement, adolescents' school adjustment, and bicultural acceptance on the relationship between the mothers' acculturative stress and adolescents' depression, as well as whether the structural relationships differed by the sex of adolescents. Data were collected from 1238 dyads of first-grade students (605 boys, 633 girls; age = 12.97 ± 0.35 years) in Korean middle schools and their immigrant mothers (age = 43.52 ± 5.13 years) who participated in the Multicultural Adolescents Panel Study. The structural equation modeling analysis revealed that mothers' acculturative stress was indirectly and positively related to adolescents' depression through (1) the serial mediations of mothers' school involvement and adolescents' school adjustment and (2) the individual mediation of adolescents' school adjustment. Furthermore, the multigroup analysis indicated that the relationships between adolescents' school adjustment and depression and between adolescents' bicultural acceptance and depression significantly differed between male and female adolescents. The study provides directions for schools and communities to increase immigrant mothers' school involvement and to facilitate their children's school adjustment and bicultural acceptance.