Although research on parental involvement is increasing, little is known about the beliefs, goals, and practices of minority parents of adolescent children. This study investigates four key aspects of parental academic socialization, targeting Korean immigrant parents of adolescents: 1) meaning of parents’ educational goals and expectations for their children, 2) parents’ practices in facilitating children’s academic achievement, 3) ways of transferring parental beliefs to children, and 4) cultural influences on parenting. Using an ethnographic inquiry for the study, I will interview 5 Korean immigrant couples. The data will consist of interviews, demographic questions, home observations, and field notes. The implications of the outcomes are discussion. This report also includes an evaluation plan which details the components of the dual language program, an example program that the outcomes of the proposed study can be used to design or to modify. / text

Using Delgado-Gaitan and Trueba’s (1991) empowerment/disempowerment definition as a framework, this dissertation investigated how Korean immigrant mothers perceived and practiced parental involvement in their children’s schooling, and how an empowerment/disempowerment process occurred during their involvement. To inquire into the research questions, this study used the qualitative case study method, and five Korean immigrant mothers were the cases. The interview method was used to gather data, and an unstructured interview protocol, as well as a semi-structured interview protocol, was used for the interviews. Each mother was interviewed three times. From this study, I found these things: For the concept of schooling, all the Korean mothers in this study agreed that schooling is all activities relevant to acquiring abilities related to having a better school life, and that the concept of parental involvement includes all the activities to support their children’s schooling, regardless of activity types. In a comparison of their beliefs and their practices for involvement, they show accord in terms of the comprehensive nature of parental involvement. However, there were also discrepancies between their perceptions and practices of involvement. To get an understanding of the discrepancy issue, their involvement experiences were explored, based on an empowerment/disempowerment framework. The Korean immigrant mothers showed distinctive features in empowerment and disempowerment while they were involved in their children’s schooling. First, they felt contradictory feelings—guilt and pride-- toward their identity, and this influenced their empowerment and disempowerment. The second feature was the struggles that the Korean immigrant mothers reported: cultural differences, exclusion, and a lack of English skill for involvement. Last, the most salient feature to influence their empowerment/disempowerment was the standard they were using to evaluate their involvement. These findings were discussed in terms of the features of empowerment/ disempowerment and the factors that influenced their empowerment and disempowerment. The Korean mothers’ standard of evaluation was discussed in depth, since it was determined to be the most basic issue to impact their empowerment/ disempowerment experiences. Based on the findings, this dissertation concluded with presenting implications for teachers, educational administrators, and Korean immigrant mothers themselves, and with suggestions for future research. / text

Few studies have examined the relationships among personal factors, acculturative stress, coping resources, and depression of Korean immigrant elders residing in areas without any Korean ethnic enclave. Based on the stress and coping model and the sociocultural model of stress, coping, and adaptation, this cross-sectional study examined the relationships among acculturative stress, coping, and depression in 111 non-institutionalized Korean immigrant elders aged 60 and older residing in areas without any Korean ethnic enclaves in three neighboring states of Southwestern Ohio, North Central Region of Kentucky, and Southern Indiana. A majority of convenience and snowball sample participated in self-administered mailed surveys, and a remaining few used phone surveys and personal interviews. Multiple regression analyses indicate that social support is the strongest predictor of depression, followed by somatization and acculturative stress. Principal component analysis indicates that the participants appraised limited English proficiency as the most stressful aspect of acculturative stress. Path analyses further reveal that acculturative stress had the largest total effect on depression and partially mediated the effect of the level of acculturation on depression. The results also show that social support had the large direct effect on depression and partially mediated the effect of acculturative stress on depression. Unexpectedly, religiosity was not a predictor of depression and did not have any effect on depression. Interestingly, somatization had the positive direct effect on depression. This study suggests that the level of acculturation, socioeconomic status and social support may influence acculturative stress and depression negatively; however, acculturative stress is the most significant risk factor for depression among the participants, decreasing coping efficacy of social support and increasing somatic symptoms. Implications for future research and practice are examined on social support from family and friends and on acculturative stress. It seems that culturally relevant programs and services are important vehicles through which to enhance personal resources and social support and reduce lingual and cultural barriers among Korean immigrant elders residing in areas without any Korean ethnic enclave.

The aim of this thesis was to describe the expectations that 1.5 generation immigrants perceive their parents expectations for them and their future. The researcher interviewed the experiences of twelve young adolescents who immigrated to New Zealand between the ages of 6 and 12. The researcher used a semi-structured interview to allow participants to freely discuss their experiences while staying true to the aims of the research. The study was conducted in Christchurch, New Zealand. The interviews were recorded on audio, transcribed and analysed. Each transcript was coded and themes were extracted from each interview. Similar themes were grouped into categories which were then discussed as part of the results. The most common expectations reported by participants were in the areas of education and high academic achievement. The effects of these expectations varied as participants grew older and the length of time residing in New Zealand increased. The results are discussed and also compared to studies of 1.5 generation immigrants in the United States. Finally, the implications of this study are discussed, and the relevance of the results to the well-being of the 1.5 generation in New Zealand are suggested.

This project challenges the practice of preaching shamanistic prosperity-focused messages to Korean immigrant churches in the United States in order to construct a more liberative theological foundation for sermons and eventually offer an alternative form of immigrant preaching: “a psalmic-theological homiletic.” A shamanistic-prosperity gospel reinforces a mostly success-oriented way of life, owing to its heavy emphasis on God’s promises about individuals’ material rewards. Such a prosperity gospel syncretizes shamanistic beliefs with the American Dream in that it implicitly advises believers to “make it” in the capitalist economy and uphold the prevailing values created by the dominant group. Accordingly, the project not only examines the prosperity gospel and its problematic syncretism with the American Dream ideology, this project also offers a more appropriate immigrant theology for preaching by reclaiming the priorities of God’s future in our lives and confirming God’s active identification with Korean immigrant congregations in the depth of their predicament as immigrants. After offering a practical-theological construction, this project provides “a psalmic-theological homiletic,” critically adopting features from psalmic theology and its theological-rhetorical movement. My proposed homiletic relies on Claus Westermann who argued that the Psalms are honest public speeches about a realistic faith that can be practiced in the midst of suffering. Along with a critical reading of Westermann’s theoretical approach to the Psalms, my homiletic engages in dialogue with Eunjoo Mary Kim’s sermon. As a result, a psalmic-theological homiletic has a four-fold rhetorical movement inspired by and intended for Korean immigrant contexts: (a) lament, (b) retelling the biblical story, (c) confessional doxology, and (d) vow of obedience. This project gives its attention to the theological significance of these four rhetorical steps from the perspective of marginalized people. Its theological-rhetorical strategy intends to transform the immigrant congregation’s habitus of living in faith and to enhance their hope-filled life through communal anticipation of God’s coming future. The project concludes with homiletical-dialogical analyses of two Korean immigrant sermons. Examining their homiletical strengths and weaknesses, the analysis provides guidance for future Korean immigrant preaching to prompt a more faithful and transformative way of life for hearers.

As the number of Korean immigrants in the United States have been decreasing, the Korean immigrant churches have also been diminishing. Even prominent Korean churches, like Promise Church in New York City, known for its tradition and scale, has not escaped this crisis. After much contemplation and prayer for the future of the church, Promise Church decided that, although it would require a significant amount of time, it would depart from its traditional Korean-focused immigrant church model in order to become a multicultural church. This decision was not solely based on sociological or demographical reasons but ultimately rooted in theological considerations. In order for Promise Church to transition from its existing Korean-centric homogeneous church model to a multicultural church, this thesis proposes the Eshel Bridge Project, which is currently being implemented within Promise Church. Promise Church plays a pivotal role in the 4/14 Window Movement, with its primary focus and ministry centered around this movement. While engaging in the 4/14 Window Movement, Promise Church has various institutions for children's ministry. These institutions serve children from diverse racial, cultural, and national backgrounds who may not know Jesus. If these children from diverse backgrounds become part of Promise Church's Sunday School, which is primarily Korean, Promise Sunday School will naturally transform into a multicultural Sunday School. As these children grow into adults, Promise Church will organically develop into a multicultural church. The term “islands” is used to refer to the institutions within Promise Church dedicated to children, and “continent” is used to describe the Sunday School. The ministry project that connects the children from these diverse islands to the continent is the Eshel Bridge Project. This thesis outlines and proposes a concrete plan for the execution of this project, referred to as the Eshel Bridge Startup Canvas.

This dissertation is a sociological exploration of Korean Protestant immigrant churches in the United States and the influence of Confucian traditions on them. Neo-Confucianism was accepted as the state ideology in Korea in the late fourteenth century, and its influences are still strong in Koreans' expressions of thought and worldviews, and Korean immigrants in the United States are no exception. Confucian elements are observed not only in Korean Protestant churches in Korea but also Korean immigrant churches in the United States. Thus, it can be said that Korean immigrant churches have the characteristics of a transnational religious institution. Transnationally, Confucian characteristics affect Korean churches. Further, Confucian traditions are integral to a collective consciousness for Korean immigrants, and thus their relationships and manners, based on Confucian traditions and teachings, enable them to maintain and reinforce their social solidarity. Moreover, such Confucian teachings and cultural mores are inculcated in most Koreans' habitus. As social agents, church members use symbolic capital, such as age and Confucian manners, to gain higher status in the church. In particular, age can be considered generational capital that determines and legitimizes church members' positions. Indeed, Korean Protestant churches across the Pacific can be called Confucian Protestant churches, namely, Protestant churches imbued with Confucian traditions. Korean immigrant churches are transnational and socially cohesive religious institutions that are shaped profoundly by Confucian traditions inculcated in their adherents' habitus across seas and generations. / Religion

The purpose of this study was to obtain cross-cultural insights into the family dynamics of Korean-Canadians during their transitions as immigrants, by asking six Korean-Canadian mothers about the family conflicts they had with their children, that were of an intercultural nature. The methodology consisted of a qualitative research design, informed by a post-positivist epistemological viewpoint. In semi-structured interviews, six Korean-Canadian mothers spoke at length about what triggered their Intercultural-Intergenerational conflict with their adolescent children, about how they responded to such conflicts, and about how they saw these conflicts in terms of their children’s cultural adaptation/identity. Audiotapes of the interviews were transcribed, then coded and categorized according to principles of thematic analysis and grounded theory. To ensure authenticity, reflexivity was built into all stages of the research. From the categories analyzed, there emerged six general triggers of conflict, (such as the adolescents’ style of communicating with their mothers, or the mothers’ attitudes to their children’s “culture shedding”); five general ways in which the mothers tended to respond to conflict (from emotional outbursts to attempts at adjusting); and three measures of what, for the mothers, constituted satisfactory adaptation, by the children, to the host culture (success in school, retention of Korean identity, and the ability to cope with any racism that they might encounter). The study concludes with some suggestions for a more sophisticated social work praxis, and for service provision that reaches beyond a purely economic understanding of immigrants’ problems, as the findings speak to a high degree of complexity in a shifting immigrant demographic.

The purpose of this study was to obtain cross-cultural insights into the family dynamics of Korean-Canadians during their transitions as immigrants, by asking six Korean-Canadian mothers about the family conflicts they had with their children, that were of an intercultural nature. The methodology consisted of a qualitative research design, informed by a post-positivist epistemological viewpoint. In semi-structured interviews, six Korean-Canadian mothers spoke at length about what triggered their Intercultural-Intergenerational conflict with their adolescent children, about how they responded to such conflicts, and about how they saw these conflicts in terms of their children’s cultural adaptation/identity. Audiotapes of the interviews were transcribed, then coded and categorized according to principles of thematic analysis and grounded theory. To ensure authenticity, reflexivity was built into all stages of the research. From the categories analyzed, there emerged six general triggers of conflict, (such as the adolescents’ style of communicating with their mothers, or the mothers’ attitudes to their children’s “culture shedding”); five general ways in which the mothers tended to respond to conflict (from emotional outbursts to attempts at adjusting); and three measures of what, for the mothers, constituted satisfactory adaptation, by the children, to the host culture (success in school, retention of Korean identity, and the ability to cope with any racism that they might encounter). The study concludes with some suggestions for a more sophisticated social work praxis, and for service provision that reaches beyond a purely economic understanding of immigrants’ problems, as the findings speak to a high degree of complexity in a shifting immigrant demographic.

The purpose of this study was to obtain cross-cultural insights into the family dynamics of Korean-Canadians during their transitions as immigrants, by asking six Korean-Canadian mothers about the family conflicts they had with their children, that were of an intercultural nature. The methodology consisted of a qualitative research design, informed by a post-positivist epistemological viewpoint. In semi-structured interviews, six Korean-Canadian mothers spoke at length about what triggered their Intercultural-Intergenerational conflict with their adolescent children, about how they responded to such conflicts, and about how they saw these conflicts in terms of their children’s cultural adaptation/identity. Audiotapes of the interviews were transcribed, then coded and categorized according to principles of thematic analysis and grounded theory. To ensure authenticity, reflexivity was built into all stages of the research. From the categories analyzed, there emerged six general triggers of conflict, (such as the adolescents’ style of communicating with their mothers, or the mothers’ attitudes to their children’s “culture shedding”); five general ways in which the mothers tended to respond to conflict (from emotional outbursts to attempts at adjusting); and three measures of what, for the mothers, constituted satisfactory adaptation, by the children, to the host culture (success in school, retention of Korean identity, and the ability to cope with any racism that they might encounter). The study concludes with some suggestions for a more sophisticated social work praxis, and for service provision that reaches beyond a purely economic understanding of immigrants’ problems, as the findings speak to a high degree of complexity in a shifting immigrant demographic. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate