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Academic Achievement of Korean Adolescents from Multicultural Families: National Survey Results

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Abstract

Background

Multicultural families and foreign residents are rapidly increasing in Korea. Thus, the proportion of children and adolescents from minority racial/ethnic groups are also increasing, and there are concerns about adolescents who fail to adapt to school and show low academic achievement and poor health status.

Objective

This study aimed to investigate influencing factors related to academic achievement among Korean multicultural adolescents.

Methods

Cross-sectional data from 2234 Korean multicultural adolescent participants from the 2010–2014 Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey were analyzed using multiple regression.

Results

Perceived economic status and breakfast frequency affected academic achievement, regardless of gender. Family affluence, satisfaction with sleep time, and lifetime smoking were additional factors in males. For females, depression and frequency of physical school activities were additional factors.

Conclusion

The present study suggests that diverse individual factors should be considered, including economic status, health status, and health-related behaviors, to improve multicultural adolescents’ academic achievement.

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Funding

This research was supported by the Chung-Ang University nursing doctoral alumni association in 2017.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Department of Nursing, Kyung-In Women’s University, Incheon, Republic of Korea

    Eunkyung Lee

  2. Faculty of Department of Nursing, Chung-Ang University, 84 Heukseok-Ro, Dongjack-Gu, Seoul, 156-756, Republic of Korea

    Ji-Su Kim & Soojin Kwon

  3. Researcher of Nursing Science Research Institute, Chung-Ang University, 84 Heukseok-Ro, Dongjack-Gu, Seoul, 156-756, Republic of Korea

    Soojin Kwon

Authors
  1. Eunkyung Lee
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  2. Ji-Su Kim
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  3. Soojin Kwon
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ji-Su Kim.

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Conflict of interest

The authors of this paper declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical Standard

The KYRBWS is a government-approved statistical investigation (Approval No. 11758) and has been implemented by the Korea Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and Welfare and KCDC every year since 2005. The KYRBWS was approved by the KCDC Institutional Review Board (IRB No. 2014-06EX-P-02-P-A). We requested permission from the KCDC to use the KYRBWS survey results for research purposes.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study by the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).

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Lee, E., Kim, JS. & Kwon, S. Academic Achievement of Korean Adolescents from Multicultural Families: National Survey Results. Child Youth Care Forum 47, 499–515 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-018-9439-0

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