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Lifestyles, Informal Controls, and Youth Victimization Risk in South Korea and the United States

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Abstract

Support has been offered for the relevance of daily activities and pro-social networks for shaping victimization odds among adolescents, but cross-cultural analyses of these effects have yet to be examined. The study presented here examined victimization among middle- and high school students from SK (n = 3343) and the US (n = 4990). Personal victimizations (bullying, physical assaults, and threats) were examined. Youth activities included participation in sports, school clubs, non-school clubs, and employment in part-time jobs. A youth’s perceptions of friends and of teachers’ attachments to students were also examined, possibly influencing guardianship and vulnerability to victimization. Findings revealed inverse effects of school athletics and positive effects of non-school club participation and part-time jobs on victimization risks in both countries. Perceptions of stronger attachments to friends and between teachers and students were also associated with lower victimization risks in the US. Common themes in findings across the two countries are identified but with important caveats regarding our inability to make direct comparisons in model estimates between the samples. Nonetheless, these themes should help guide hypotheses in future research capable of making direct comparisons.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments and recommendations. The Korea Youth Panel Survey data were compiled by the National Youth Policy Institute (NYPI) in Seoul, Korea (http://www.nypi.re.kr/panel/eng/index.asp). The School Crime Supplement (2007) data from the National Crime Victimization Survey were compiled by the US Department of Justice with assistance from the US Census Bureau (ICPSR 23041: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/NACJD/studies/23041).

Author Contributions

S.C. assisted with the data analyses and wrote the paper. J.W. analyzed the data and collaborated in the writing and editing of the final manuscript.

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  1. Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Southern Illinois University, Faner Hall, Mail Code 4504, Carbondale, IL, 62901, USA

    Sujung Cho

  2. School of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    John Wooldredge

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Correspondence to Sujung Cho.

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Ethical Compliance

The Korean Youth Panel Survey (KYPS) and the National Crime and Victimization Survey (NCVS) are publicly available datasets that do not allow for identification of the participants.

Informed Consent

The KYPS and the NCVS are publicly available datasets originally compiled by government agencies that met all standards for the informed consent of all participants.

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Cho, S., Wooldredge, J. Lifestyles, Informal Controls, and Youth Victimization Risk in South Korea and the United States. J Child Fam Stud 27, 1358–1371 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0973-4

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