Effects of Parental Acculturation on Children's Socioemotional Development among Mongolian Families in South Korea

Abstract

Numbers of foreign immigrant people continues to increase every year in South Korea. Immigration involves a displacement with significant effects on family life, most importantly due to cultural shifts inherent in resettlement. Investigating the acculturation strategy of immigrant parents and their parenting practice is of paramount important and allows us to obtain significant information on effective intervention method in child rearing practice. It is also necessary to verify the mediating effect of parenting practice such as parental control in order to examine the relationship between parental acculturation and childrens socioemotional development in a more detail manner. The main objective of the present study is to investigate the effects of parental acculturation on childrens socioemotional development among Mongolian families in South Korea. Berry (1980) Bi-dimensional acculturation model which is was applied to answer research questions present in the study as follows: 1. How does parental acculturation affect childrens socioemotional development? 2. How does parental accultulration affect parenting practice? 3. To what extent the effects of parental acculturation on childrens socioemotional development can be explained by parenting practice? Survey was conducted using a self-reported questionnaire method. A total of 142 cases were included in the hierarchical multiple regression analysis. Mongolian parents having children aged between 4 and 18 years old completed questionnaires which assess acculturation attitude and children behavior problems as well as parenting practice. This questionnaire answers provide information regarding the parents themselves, their children, and their community. The major findings of the present study can be summarized as follows: First, parents who adopted separation acculturation strategy tend to have children exhibiting more external behavior problem compared to those adopting other acculturation strategies. Children exhibiting both more internal and external problems are associated with parents adopting marginalization acculturation strategy. Second, parents adopted assimilation acculturation strategy show more parental control to their off-springs especially those who assimilated more to the Korean culture. Strong or tighter parental control has positive correlation with internal behavior of children which emphasizes the importance of maintaining the original heritage culture of immigrant parents. Third, parental control does not mediate the relationship between parental acculturation and childrens sociomemotional development. Parental acculturation strategy does directly affect children behavioral problem but also influences parenting practice. Furthermore, longitudinal study on immigrant children and their parents are necessary.