Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology

Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology Navigating the Cultural Transition Alone: Psychosocial Adjustment of Korean Early Study Abroad Students Hyun Joo Kim and Sumie Okazaki Online First Publication, October 7, 2013. doi: 10.1037/a0034243

CITATION Kim, H. J., & Okazaki, S. (2013, October 7). Navigating the Cultural Transition Alone: Psychosocial Adjustment of Korean Early Study Abroad Students. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0034243

Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 2013, Vol. 19, No. 4, 000

© 2013 American Psychological Association 1099-9809/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0034243

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Navigating the Cultural Transition Alone: Psychosocial Adjustment of Korean Early Study Abroad Students Hyun Joo Kim

Sumie Okazaki

Korea Counseling Graduate University

New York University

Precollege study abroad in English-speaking countries is an increasingly popular educational strategy among Asian families. We used grounded theory method to construct a model of cultural adjustment process for unaccompanied minors based the retrospective narratives of 10 (8 male) South Korean adolescents who came to the United States, unaccompanied by parents, to attend middle schools or high schools. We found that unaccompanied minors’ cultural adjustment progressed from their predeparture ambivalence to initial sense of vulnerability to an eventual sense of reengagement. Unaccompanied minor students’ pervasive sense of vulnerability upon arrival was heightened not only by their lack of English fluency but also their reluctance to seek the support of parents in Korea and of local Korean peers. This study has implications for educators and counselors in secondary schools who work with international students who are unaccompanied minors. Keywords: South Korean, early study abroad, chogi yuhak, unaccompanied minors

opmental needs than older adolescents and emerging adults (Laursen & Collins, 2009). The present study, using grounded theory method (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), sought to understand the adjustment process among Korean adolescents who come without their parents to study in the United States. Grounded theory method is a systematic, inductive, iterative, and comparative method for analyzing qualitative data with the aim of generating a theory that is “grounded” in data.

Within the past decade, South Korean families have sent an increasing number of children and adolescents abroad to Englishspeaking nations (Kang & Abelmann, 2011). Although study abroad experiences before college may involve short-term attendance at summer language institutes or other academic programs abroad, the phenomenon of South Korean early study abroad (ESA; chogi yuhak) typically involves year-long attendance in primary or secondary schools for one or more years. Whereas the adjustment process of international students from Asia in early adulthood (as undergraduate or graduate students) has been welldocumented in counseling and psychology literature (Andrade, 2006; Yeh & Inose, 2003), little is known about the unique challenges for those who engage in a prolonged study abroad experience at a far younger age. ESA in middle school or high school years may differ from study abroad in colleges and universities in at least two domains. First, universities and colleges typically offer services and programs tailored to the needs of international students, whereas most middle schools and high schools are frequently underequipped to meet the needs of international students who, like immigrant students, have limited English proficiency (Ruiz-de-Velasco, Fix, & Clewell, 2000). Second, relationships with parents undergo significant changes over the adolescent years, thus younger adolescents have different devel-

Educational Migration The South Korean government’s emphasis on English language as a necessary resource for the nation’s survival in a globalized market has translated into a veritable “English fever” among families (J.-K. Park, 2009). In particular, oral English proficiency has become an especially desired capital for entry into prestigious high schools, universities, and better jobs in South Korea (J. S.-Y. Park, 2009). Because of the high cost of private afterschool English academies and English-only kindergartens and the belief that English fluency is best achieved overseas, combined with dissatisfaction with the Korean public education system, many middleclass Korean families opted to send their children overseas (J.-K. Park, 2009). Whereas many young children in elementary school grades are often accompanied abroad by one parent—typically mother—while the other parent stays behind to work in South Korea (U. Cho, 2005), many adolescents are sent abroad alone. Study abroad during high school years, of course, has been long practiced in the form of international cultural exchange programs for students in many developed nations, typically for one academic year or less. Affluent Chinese families from Hong Kong and Taiwan sent their adolescent children abroad alone to the U.S. and Canada, peaking in the 1990s in a phenomenon that came to be known as “parachute kids” (Waters, 2006). However, what distinguishes the recent South Korean study abroad phenomenon is that it has become an educational strategy that is embraced—in theory,

Hyun Joo Kim, Korea Counseling Graduate University, Seoul, Korea; Sumie Okazaki, Department of Applied Psychology, New York University. This article was supported in part by the NYU Steinhardt Challenge Community Collaborative Award and NYU University Research Challenge Fund awarded to the second author. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Hyun Joo Kim, Korea Counseling Graduate University, 366 Hyoryeong-ro, Seochodong, Seocho-gu, Seoul, 137-865, Korea. E-mail: hyunjooyangkim@ kcgu.ac.kr 1

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if not practice— by a significant proportion of South Korean families of wide-ranging economic means (Kang & Abelmann, 2011) and that adolescents are sent abroad alone for multiple years at a considerable economic cost to the parents, with the directive to master English and to obtain Western educational credentials. These adolescents, then, face multitudes of challenges above and beyond the normative stress of immigration.


Challenges Facing Unaccompanied Minors The stress of English language acquisition has been well documented in literature on immigration. For example, a qualitative study of Korean-born immigrant youth who had immigrated with their parents (Yeh et al., 2005) found widespread concerns with language proficiency. Although many Korean adolescents are exposed to English language instruction through Korean public educational curriculum from elementary school years, many find themselves ill-equipped with respect to their English language skills to engage right away in middle-school and high-school level schoolwork in English in their new settings. Problems acquiring sufficient English proficiency are especially acute for adolescents who begin their study abroad experience at an age past what is commonly believed to be the critical period for second language acquisition to achieve native-like fluency (e.g., Johnson & Newport, 1989). In this respect, their linguistic struggles are similar to those experienced by international students studying at American universities. Another area of challenge involves their experience of living abroad apart from their parents for an extended period of time. Although there is an emerging literature on Korean early study abroad students around the world (e.g., J. Kim, 2010; J. S.-Y. Park & Bae, 2009; Song, 2010), most studies concern children who are accompanied by at least one parent. A small number of studies have also surveyed college students who had experienced early study abroad (Okazaki, Saw, & Cho, in press; Zhou, 1998), but these tend to be accounts of former study abroad students who had made it successfully to American universities. The existing knowledge base thus relies on a handful of survey studies of Chinese and Korean unaccompanied minors. Two studies have examined the psychosocial experiences of Chinese unaccompanied minors. Chiang-Hom (2004) compared the academic, psychological, and behavioral adjustment of Chinese “parachute kids” with Chinese immigrant youth in Southern California. Most students were either living with a relative (36%) or in a home stay (30%), with a small minority living alone, with siblings, or with cousins. Chiang-Hom found that Chinese parachute kids’ scores on depression measures were comparable to those of adolescents in the United States or in Asia, and rates of delinquent behavior were comparable to those of U.S.-born Chinese adolescents, although higher than those of immigrant Chinese American adolescents living with their parents. Without the presence of parents, the parachute kids reported spending a considerable amount of time in the company of peers, almost all of whom were also Chinese parachute kids. Kuo and Roysircar (2006) surveyed 201 Taiwanese adolescents who had migrated to Toronto as unaccompanied minors for education. On average, these students had arrived in Canada around age 15 and had been in Canada for a little more than 2 years. More than half of the Taiwanese parachute kids reported feeling ill-prepared for their study-abroad

experience, and a third expressed feeling unclear about the purpose of coming to Canada. Their level of psychological adjustment was associated with their ability to acclimate themselves to the new academic and linguistic environment. Moreover, those who felt discriminated against and excluded by peers in the host culture reported increased levels of acculturative stress. Psychological research on Korean ESA students has only recently begun to emerge. One study (Y. B. Cho & Haslam, 2010) examined factors contributing to negative psychological outcomes among recently immigrated Korean high school students in the United States. This study involved 62 Korean ESA high school students (living with either one parent or neither parent in the U.S.) with 87 recently immigrated Korean American students (living with both parents), 47 Korean high school students living with both parents in Korea, and 31 non-Korean American high school students in the United States. The researchers found that Korean ESA students reported higher levels of life stress, distress, psychological symptoms, and suicidal ideation than the other groups. Finally, in an interview study of 21 Asian (including 5 Korean) international students attending public secondary schools in Vancouver, Canada, Popadiuk (2009) found that students had received inadequate predeparture information about psychological challenges to anticipate in making the cultural transition from Asia to Canada. Precollege Asian international students in this study had also reported experiencing homesickness, loneliness, and isolation but that they had believed such feelings were “wrong” and should not be shared with others. Most of the students in Popadiuk’s study had found their home-stay families to be helpful in the cultural transition, but a minority of students reported home-stay situations that appeared to be abusive. To summarize, the existing literature on secondary students’ study abroad experience hints at various forms of psychological challenges that they face as well as a process of adjustment in the long term. However, missing from the literature are models of cultural adjustment process that accounts for the sociocultural forces that create particular expectations as to how unaccompanied minor students ought to engage in the ESA and how the adolescents cope with such cultural-familial demands. In this study, we use the grounded theory method (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) to build a model of psychosocial adjustment of unaccompanied minors who engage in long-term precollege study abroad.

Method Participants Participants were 10 Korean (8 male, 2 female) adolescents who had come to the United States unaccompanied by parents for the purpose of studying abroad. The participants’ demographic characteristics along with their pseudonyms are listed in Table 1. Although there are no existing data on the sex distribution of Korean early study abroad students, the disproportionate representation of boys in this study may suggest that Korean parents are more apt to permit their sons to engage in unaccompanied study abroad, whereas daughters studying abroad as a minor may be accompanied abroad by a parent. The participants were recruited through Korean youth organizations and Korean churches in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan region with the snowball sampling method (Gall, Borg, & Gall, 1996) in which study

NAVIGATING THE CULTURAL TRANSITION

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Table 1 Participant Characteristics Namea

Gender

Age

Current grade

School type

ESAb start grade

Length of ESA

Chulsoo Insung Chanwoo Minsoo Jumong Susan Dabi Minseok Hosup Gipeum

Male Male Male Male Male Female Male Male Male Female

17 17 18 17 18 18 17 17 15 16

11 10c 12 10 10 12 10 10 8 10

Private Private Public Private Private Private Private Private Private Private

9 8 7 9 8 9 9 9 5 3

2 years 4 years 5 years 2 years 3 years 5 years 2 years 2 years 3 years 6 years

a

All names of the participant are pseudonyms.

b

ESA ⫽ early study abroad.

participants refer acquaintances who share specific characteristics (in this case, Korean unaccompanied minors who were in the United States for the purpose of study abroad) to the study. Data collection was guided by theoretical sampling approach in which sampling decisions were made on the basis of emerging concepts as new cases were added (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). For example, the first participant had reported a previous experience studying abroad before the current stay in the United States, and this was determined to be an important emerging concept that may shape the adjustment experience of unaccompanied Korean international students, thus we sought to recruit and interview students with and without a prior study abroad experience. This variability in the prior study abroad experience emerged in the analysis as a factor that was added to the final theoretical model. Data collection was discontinued when theoretical saturation was reached (i.e., no new information such as properties and dimensions was seen in the data).

Data Collection After obtaining guardians’ and participants’ informed consent to participate in research, the participants were interviewed in Korean by the first author using semistructured interview protocol. Nine adolescents were interviewed in person at their place of residence or another mutually agreed location, and one adolescent was interviewed by phone because she/he resided in California at the time of the interview. The first author’s disclosure of her background as a recent Korean immigrant herself and as the mother of a Korean-born student studying in the United States facilitated the rapport during the interviews. Interview questions probed about the circumstances under which the adolescent came to study in the United States and their experiences as a Korean early study abroad student, challenges and rewards of the early study abroad experience, and impact of the study abroad experience on their peer and family relationships (see Appendix A). After the first round of interviews was finished, 8 participants were interviewed for the second time (6 in person, 2 by phone) approximately one month after the first interview to explore themes that seemed to suggest new categories or to evaluate the suitability of selected categories in the first interview. The initial interviews lasted between 50 to 80 minutes, and the follow-up interviews lasted between 30 and 60 minutes. The interviews were audio-recorded with adolescents’ permission, and the first author also recorded behavioral observa-

c

This participant repeated a grade when he transferred schools.

tions and impressions separately. The first author transcribed the interviews verbatim in Korean and noted the observed nonverbal behavior on the transcripts. These Korean transcripts constituted the raw data on which the initial coding was conducted. The analytical memos with concepts and categories along with excerpts from the raw data that were used to generate the concepts were then translated by bilingual Korean American research assistants. The auditing was conducted in both Korean and English.

Analysis The interviews were analyzed using grounded theory methodology developed by Strauss and Corbin (1998). Grounded theory is a qualitative research method and a theoretical framework that aims to explain social and psychological phenomena and to develop or extend theory from the raw data. Researchers using grounded theory method make efforts to analyze the data with theoretical sensitivity (i.e., to respond to the meaningful data) using their personal characteristics, insights, professional experiences, and analytic competences. According to the grounded theory method, coding proceeds from open coding to axial coding, and finally to selective coding. In open coding, researchers carefully read the raw data to analyze line by line and name the concept after finding a meaningful statement. After line by line analysis, the concepts are accumulated, integrated, or classified into more abstract subcategories and categories. After confirming categories, the relationships between categories are developed based on properties and dimensions. Axial coding involves the integration of structure based on paradigm and process with the course of time. At this stage, central phenomenon, or the core theme of the research arising from the data is determined, and causal conditions and the consequences for the central phenomenon are identified. The analysis then proceeds to selective coding, which entails integration of the categories in the axial coding. We drew concepts and developed whereas selective coding entails theoretical integration and elaboration; subcategories and categories were refined through constant comparison. The final stage of analysis involved the generation of a conceptual model depicting the relationships between categories and concepts. Researchers-as-instruments and bracketing biases. The first author is a Korean-born female psychologist who worked as a counselor for Korean youth for 10 years in a South Korean governmental counseling institute, where she conducted individ-


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ual, group, and cyber counseling for Korean adolescents. She also participated in program development for career counseling and family counseling for Korean adolescents and their parents. She obtained her master’s and doctoral training in counseling theory and practicum in counseling psychology in South Korea. In the course of her training, she obtained extensive experience in qualitative research methods. Since immigrating to the United States as an adult, she worked as a counselor with Korean American individuals and families in a Korean American service agency in the metropolitan New York area. She also identifies herself as a mother of a student who was raised and educated in South Korea until the 5th grade and then came to the United States and entered the American educational system. The second author is a Japanese American female professor who was born in Japan and immigrated to the U.S. at age 10 with her immediate family. Trained as a research clinical psychologist with a specialty in Asian American mental health, she has extensive experience conducting research with Asian American individuals and families on mental health issues. In particular, she has been engaged in a number of mixed method research projects in Illinois with Korean American college students (Kang et al., 2010), Korean American youths and parents (Abelmann & Okazaki, in progress), and Korean international students who had engaged in early study abroad (Okazaki, Saw, & Cho, in press). Trustworthiness. Trustworthiness of a grounded theory analysis refers to representation of the data as accurately and completely as possible while minimizing researcher’s bias (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). The findings are said to be trustworthy when findings have truth value (i.e., credibility), applicability, and consistency. “Truth value,” akin to internal validity in quantitative methods, refers to how accurately the result of the study describe the participants’ experiences, and they are ascertained through member checks, in which research participants are presented with opportunities to review the results of the grounded theory analysis and to give feedback to the researcher on the truth value of the findings. In this study, we sent the preliminary results of the analysis to all 10 adolescents and solicited their feedback via e-mail regarding whether the results explained participants’ experiences and whether the concepts and categories fit the phenomenon described. Seven participants returned feedback (in Korean), confirming that the results accurately described their experiences with statements such as “The concepts and categories are appropriately explain our experiences,” “This is an exact description of what I told you. This result represents that other students have experiences similar to mine,” and “I read the results. I think this represents what I told you in the interview. I feel empathy when I read other students’ experiences.” These statements from the participants suggest that the results represented their study abroad experiences and their adjustment process with fidelity. Applicability (or transferability) in qualitative analysis is akin to external validity in quantitative research tradition, and it is an indication of the generalizability of the conclusions from the results. In present research, five Korean adolescents studying abroad in New York/New Jersey metropolitan area who did not participate in the original interviews reviewed the preliminary results (in Korean) and gave feedback to the researchers, with all five agreeing that the experiences described in the results were similar to their own experiences and the adjustment process as unaccompanied early study abroad students. Consistency refers to

the characteristic of the analysis in which other researchers would be able to follow and trace the process of the present study and could reach similar results. Consistency can be established through external audit of the coding by researchers not involved in the research process examine both the process and the product of the study. In the present research, the preliminary results on concepts and categories coded by the first author from the original interview data were reviewed (in Korean and English) by a doctoral-level Korean psychologist with an expertise in grounded theory analysis, who was not involved in the data collection. The auditor suggested that in the process of open coding, the names of the concepts should employ the words and expressions used by the participants to better represent their voice. The researchers modified the name of concepts and categories according to the auditor’s suggestions in subsequent open, axial, and selective coding and asked the auditor to review the changes. The auditor confirmed that the results appear to represent participants’ experiences with fidelity. The second author also served as an auditor (in English), evaluating whether or not the findings, interpretations, and conclusions were supported by the data and made suggestions regarding combining or clarifying some of the categories. These suggestions were incorporated in subsequent analyses. The process of auditing within grounded theory methodology is regarded as a way to ensure the analytical soundness of the inquiry.

Results Overview Figure 1 is a graphic representation of the model of psychosocial adjustment we built based on the grounded theory analysis of the data. The analysis revealed that unaccompanied ESA adolescents expressed insecurity and ambivalence in their motivations for embarking on an ESA and did not engage in sufficient preparation. These predeparture factors shaped a difficult adjustment process upon arrival in the United States in which the initial period of the study abroad was laden with a pervasive sense of vulnerability, which represented the central phenomenon in the grounded theory analysis. Although their lack of English fluency and cultural knowledge created stress, the Korean students were keenly aware that their coping method of choice (i.e., to seek comfort in the company of fellow Korean-speakers) would interfere with their English learning. Students expressed considerable loneliness, selfdoubt, and angst that they felt unable to reveal to their parents because their parents had made substantial economic sacrifices to finance the ESA. Passage of time and some key assistance from trusted adults facilitated the reevaluation of their ESA experience and renewed effort.

Ambivalence About ESA Ambivalence and uncertainty characterized the Korean adolescents’ decision to study abroad. Some students had wanted to attend an American high school because they wanted to escape from the excessive academic competition in South Korea, whereas others reported that they had had no personal interest in studying abroad but were sent abroad by their parents. In many cases, parents made the decision to send their children abroad with little or no input from the student. The arrangements were made hastily,


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Contextual & intervening factors • Prior study abroad • Level of ambivalence about ESA • Level of perceived cultural gap • Level of perceived discriminaon

community

school parents and guardians


FFigire Ambivalence about ESA

Vulnerability

Rising to the challenge

Coping with conﬂicts

self

Seeking the familiar

Re-evaluang the ESA

Time

Figure 1. Model of psychosocial adjustment of unaccompanied minors engaging in precollege study abroad.

leaving little time for the student to prepare academically and psychologically. Some of the parents had revealed to the students that they had been eager to study abroad themselves when they were younger but did not have such opportunities, and they had wished to send their children to study abroad. The students reported that they reluctantly accepted their parents’ suggestion or that they had given up in arguing with parents even though they did not want to go abroad. Insung recalled, I didn’t want to study abroad. One day my sister said she wanted to go study abroad in the United States, and my parents brought me along with my sister to the United States Embassy to obtain a visa. I came to the United States without any motivation or a study plan but my parents wanted me to come.

However, even the self-motivated students said they had been insufficiently prepared for the challenge, as they either thought that their English proficiency would improve naturally in the Englishspeaking setting or they had not had the sufficient time to prepare for the sudden opportunity that were thrust upon them. Many reported that they had overestimated their English skill acquired through the public education curriculum in South Korea, and they had imagined an easy and pleasurable transition to the new environment.

Vulnerability Korean unaccompanied adolescents reported a multitude of challenges upon encountering the realities of studying abroad in

American schools. In the grounded theory analysis, we characterized the central phenomenon (i.e., the core theme) of the ESA for unaccompanied minors as a pervasive sense of vulnerability. This central phenomenon was further coded into four subcategories reflecting different levels of social ecology: (a) isolation and loneliness at the individual level; (b) parents’ expectations and feeling of guilt within family context; (c) difficulty making friends and coping with academic pressure within the school context; and (d) a lack of belonging within the community context. Self: Isolation and loneliness. Adolescents reported a positive sense of freedom from the fierce academic competition and strict rules of social conduct in South Korea, but such freedom came at the cost of feeling disconnected from the loved ones. They were suddenly separated from their family and friends and had to forge relationships with guardians or distant relatives with whom they have had no or little prior contact. Participants described acute feelings of isolation and loneliness using phrases such as being “depressed and feeling neglected,” “trying to contain myself but I missed my family,” “wanted to go back to Korea,” “had no one to talk with,” “felt envious of friends living with their families,” or even “felt so lonely that I thought about attempting suicide.” For example, Minsoo stated the following: I felt left out. That’s a kind of a symptom of depression. Although I had frequent contacts with my parents, I only felt good for that moment [when we were talking on the phone]. After hanging up, I had nothing to do and I felt abandoned again. I didn’t have anyone to talk to, and I felt isolated. Then I felt depressed.

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Family: Expectations and guilt. The students reported that their parents in South Korea were focused almost exclusively on their academic progress and that the parents constantly expressed their worries that the students might be spending more time playing than studying. In fact, many students felt that their phone contacts with parents became so centered on their academic progress that, after a while, they had nothing else to discuss. In addition to the geographical distance, some students felt there was also a new psychological distance between themselves and their parents as they struggled to share their daily lives with parents through phone calls. Some described feeling as if their “heart was sinking” whenever they were reminded of their parents’ expectations, whereas others experienced guilt that they were not living up to their parents’ expectations. Because the students were well aware of how much their parents had stretched the family finances to afford the study abroad, they felt indebted to their parents. For example, Minseok said the following: My parents have spent a lot of money on me. If I achieve my dream [to succeed in ESA] I think I should pay my parents back. Although I sometimes want to give up on studying abroad . . . I have to come through in the end because my parents put in a lot of money to pay for my study abroad. I have already wasted so much time.

Although initially eager to communicate frequently with their parents by phone or email when they arrived in the United States, the students found themselves gradually avoiding contact or withholding information because of the anxiety and guilt surrounding their own disappointing progress in academics. Moreover, even though the adolescents longed for emotional support in the face of difficulties, many felt that they had not established sufficiently supportive relationships with host guardians or relatives whose financial interests were entangled with the students’ academic success. Some students reported being scolded by their guardians because of poor school grades, but the students felt unable to appeal to their parents for support because of the parents’ stakes in their academic success. School: Friendship and academic challenges. The students reported that they were not able to befriend American peers due to the language barrier, and they spoke of envying American students who displayed natural and easy camaraderie with one another. Another source of stress involved the unexpectedly difficult academic transitions. Academic pressure at American high schools was much higher than the Korean ESA student had expected, and they described feeling bewildered by the unfamiliar academic environment and overwhelmed by the number of English vocabulary they did not know. Lacking English fluency made it extremely challenging for the adolescents to keep up with the schoolwork, and many reported three to four times more studying time and effort than they had expended in South Korea. Minsoo said: I was suffering in my schoolwork. I had to do homework and prepare for tests. The academic pressure was hard to bear. Once starting school, I had to do a lot of schoolwork, and I was so stressed. I wondered if I could do this or not, and because I couldn’t imagine doing well in this environment, my self-esteem got lower and lower.

Hosup remarked: In the past, I just didn’t want to do anything. I would just put my face down [on my desk] in class because I didn’t understand any English.

I would just lay face down at school and then come back home. In class, I also used to draw pictures on my notes when I was actually supposed to be writing down class materials.

The students felt an enormous sense of vulnerability as they began to realize that studying abroad was going to be a daunting challenge. Community: Lacking a sense of belonging. Students also experienced a sense of vulnerability in the community outside of their school settings because they sensed an enormous cultural gap and a language barrier. Many spoke of not being able to relate to either American peers or American-born Korean peers; being “treated like an alien” or being “viewed as a stranger without a name,” and “experiencing discrimination against Asians.” For example, Insung said the following: People gave me an odd look. Think about that. When I tell them that I came from Korea, people don’t even know where Korea is. Some friends were surprised that I had to fly in from Korea on a flight for 12 hours. They asked me with curiosity how I could do that.

Coping With the Challenges Seeking the familiar. The adolescents reported that they initially sought out the company of other Korean ESA students and Korean media (via Internet) to ease the stress of feeling alone and adrift in unfamiliar cultural settings and unable to fully communicate in English. However, this sense of comfort and camaraderie was marred by guilt and anxiety because the adolescents also believed that a prolonged contact with other Koreans (and the use of Korean language) detracted from their adjustment to American culture and improvement of their English skills. Although they were heartened by the rare instances in which American peers took the initiative to befriend them, the Korean students reported avoiding interacting with American peers because of the anxiety of having to converse in English. While reminding themselves to limit contact with Korean peers and blaming themselves for avoiding contacts with American peers, the students spoke of “failing to exercise self-control” as they often found themselves spending time with Korean friends until late into evenings. Such times spent with other Korean ESA students were also tarnished by hierarchical senior-junior social statuses that ruled the nature of Korean social relationship and some within-group discrimination depending on their English skills. The students reported spending much of the time alone playing games and searching Internet for Korean dramas, music, and news to avoid feeling overwhelmed by the sense of alienation and loneliness that come from not feeling fluent in the English language. Jumong stated, My time to use computer was strictly restricted in Korea. I felt pressure even during my free time because my mom was always watching over me. But here, since I am free to use my computer for hours . . . and even to shop around whenever I want to, I started to feel that I was out of control. There was no one watching me.

However, there was also anxiety and guilt associated with extensive Internet use. Hosup remarked, Honestly, I’m not fluent in English and I’m only familiar with Korean websites. I just download Korean stuff and surf Korean websites. It’s

NAVIGATING THE CULTURAL TRANSITION like wasting time to sit in front of the computer when I should actually be making American friends.


Although using Korean media made them feel homesick, the students felt they could not express these feelings to their parents because returning to Korea would signify a failure of the ESA. The male students reported feeling too ashamed to talk to their parents about their hardships because such admission would violate their family’s idea of how men and boys should act. On the other hand, Gipeum, a girl who had been away from her family for 6 years, expressed her homesickness more freely: So by the end of school year in the 9th grade, I cried because I missed my family in Korea. I cried even at the beginning of school year as a 10th grader. I would just start to cry when my mom said “hello” over the phone, just because I heard her voice.

Coping with conflicts. As adolescents began to settle into their new lives, they described conflicts and hardships with parents and host families. Many adolescents recalled feeling a growing psychological distance between themselves and their parents. They reported not wanting to answer phone calls from their parents because the parents were mainly interested in discussing academic performance and school life. For example, Chanwoo remarked: In my dad’s point of view, I should be studying. I understand his stance . . . because he is getting older. But it’s really hard to put up with his repeated lectures. I keep telling myself that I need to study and that I should be studying. But when my dad calls me, I don’t feel like answering the phone because I am tired of [hearing] it.

The students’ feelings toward their parents were particularly tense for those who came to the United States involuntarily. They reported feeling angry at their situation and blamed their parents who sent them abroad against the students’ wishes and illequipped to face the challenges. In the absence of parents, the adolescents expressed a wish to have adults in their lives to attend to their everyday needs. However, most students also experienced some form of conflict with relatives or guardians who took on the new role of in loco parentis. The students reported that they did not feel a bond with their guardians and often faced conflict over the guardians’ pressure regarding students’ academic performance. Students expressed mixed emotions: on the one hand, they feel that grateful for the guardians’ concerns, but on the other hand they did not like being nagged by the guardians. For example, Jumong said, My relationship with the guardian was just based on money. We lived in a house together, but they were never warm or kind to me. Our relationship was just based on money. They just cooked for me when it was a mealtime and gave me rides at the right time, but I was really lonely.

The adolescents did not talk to their parents about the conflicts with guardians because they did not want the parents to confront the guardians in ways that may make their home stay experience even more tense or acrimonious. Some students repeatedly sought new boarding arrangements and guardians in search of a better environment. Reevaluating the ESA. As time progressed, the adolescents found that some of the hard feelings about their predicament began to ease. With the support, encouragement, and admonitions from

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more senior Korean ESA peers as well as their guardians, the students started to realize that they should view the ESA as an opportunity to better their future rather than as a burden to bear in the present. After they reaffirmed their motivations, the adolescents reported feeling more empowered to decline other Korean students’ invitations to hang out after school or on weekends. For example, Jumong recalled, I knew that I have to have self-control. I think the willingness to control myself was what most important. I needed to have a strong desire and to exercise control to be successful. Willingness was really important. I goofed off in the past because I didn’t have that willingness at first, but I am changing now.

The reevaluation of the ESA also extended to efforts to improve relationships with their guardians. They sought help from their parents or adults in the Korean church community to resolve conflicts with their guardians. For example, Minseok said, The relationship with my guardian is better now because I changed my attitude. I try to suppress my emotions even if I get annoyed because they are scolding me for my own good. It’s all for my sake, so I try to think in a positive way. I just thought I should change my attitude.

Rising to the challenge. With their newly affirmed determination to make the ESA a success, the Korean students talked about becoming more proactive in their studies and in improving their relationships with their guardians and parents. For example, they reported seeking out more academic help from close friends, tutors, and teachers. They challenged themselves to express their thoughts even in broken English, to become involved in extracurricular clubs and sports, and to participate in volunteer programs. They also sought American peers with common interests, to be more receptive to the approaches by American peers, and in one case offering to tutor their peers in math. The adolescents expressed that they had become much more independent as a result of their ESA experience, which was still unfolding. Because many students had to manage personal finance and solve problems in their daily lives in the absence of their parents, they started to realize that they needed to better manage the money sent by their parents. The students started to gain confidence as they overcame the fear of misspeaking in English and their academic grades began to rise. For some, their ability to rise to the challenges of ESA and the fruits of their effort were visible during short visits home to South Korea. Gipeum recalled, My family lives in another city, not Seoul, and my friends and peers in my hometown are not as fluent in English as people in Seoul. When I see them, I feel that I am fortunate to be learning English in the States. I feel so good when I interpret for others. I went to a restaurant once with my friends. One American customer was trying to place an order but the Korean wait staff did not understand him. So, I went up and said, “May I help you?” I interpreted for him at that time, and I felt so good. After I interpreted for the American customer and the staff, I saw the value of coming to the United States. I was so proud of myself. My friends were like, “Wow,” so I was really happy.

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Individual Differences in Adjustment Process In grounded theory analysis, properties refer to characteristics of a category and dimensions refer to the range of properties of categories (Strauss & Corbin, 1998; Corbin & Strauss, 2008). The selective coding across the participants revealed that there were intervening and contextual factors that modulated the properties and dimensions of the theorized process of adjustment (see Figure 1). First, some participants had prior experience studying abroad prior to their current stay in the United States. Although all students reported some feelings of vulnerability upon arrival in the United States unaccompanied by parents, those who had prior study abroad experience reported more realistic expectations and had anticipated challenges such as the language barrier and culture gap. The students with prior study abroad experiences also appeared to have shorter period in which they felt vulnerable. Another individual differences factor was the level of ambivalence they reported before engaging in ESA. Those who reported greater ambivalence also reported feeling vulnerable for a longer period and that it took longer for them to feel the need to rise to the challenge. Other conditions that affected the adjustment process included the extent of perceived cultural gap and racial discrimination, with greater perception associated with greater vulnerability and longer period of adjustment. In sum, the theoretical frame explained adjustment process of the participants’ common experiences, but there were individual differences in properties and dimensions that shaped the strength and duration of the vulnerability stage and subsequent adjustment.

Discussion This study used the grounded theory approach to construct a process model of adjustment of unaccompanied adolescents who engage in precollege study abroad. The narratives of Korean unaccompanied minors revealed a multitude of psychological challenges that face a young student coming alone, under high expectations, to a foreign land to live with nonfamily members and to attend a secondary school in a language that they have not mastered. We found that most adolescents had had only had vague ideas about what it would be like to study abroad when they first arrived in the United States. The lack of preparation reported by students in our study echoes the findings from Popadiuk’s (2009) study of unaccompanied Asian international high school students who also reported being insufficiently prepared to face the challenges of cultural transitions. Our analysis suggests that unaccompanied minor Korean adolescents typically experienced a pervasive sense of vulnerability upon arrival in the United States, which arose from multiple sources of stress: isolation and loneliness from not being able to connect to peers and guardians, academic pressure resulting from parental expectations for success, and feelings of guilt for not meeting parental expectations. Ward and Kennedy (1993) had found that loneliness and social difficulties were associated with psychological adjustment and that cultural distance, language difficulty, and satisfaction with host contact were associated with sociocultural adaptation among New Zealander high school students who participated in a short-term cultural exchange program. Zhang and Goodson’s (2011) review of psychosocial adjustment among international students in the U.S. higher education had also found similar sets of predictors of adjustment including English

language proficiency, social support, self-efficacy, and social interactions with Americans. The current study contributes to the knowledge of intercultural adjustment by suggesting that secondary school students who engage in unaccompanied study abroad may face the added stress that accompany self-imposed social isolation due to their parents’ and guardians’ pressure for the students to succeed in their study abroad. Whereas previous studies examined the study-abroad adolescents’ relationships with supportive adults primarily in terms of parent– child relationships (e.g., Choi & Dancy, 2009; Okazaki et al., in press; Yeh et al., 2005), this research expands the support structure to also encompass student-guardian relationships. We found that the unaccompanied students’ relationship with the local guardians, who are in effect in loco parentis, greatly affected their cultural adjustment process. Whereas some of the students were able to establish a trusting relationship with their guardians, others experienced conflict with guardians that exacerbated their sense of vulnerability. Given the increasing number of adolescents who are crossing borders as educational migrants prior to college (J. S.-Y. Park & Bae, 2009; Popadiuk, 2009), our finding suggests that adjustments as well as psychosocial developments of international students must be understood in context of relationships with guardians and other nonkin adults in the local host community. Although many students in our study reported some initial difficulties forming trusting relationships with individuals in their new context, being able to establish or reestablish supportive relationships seemed to play a powerful role in unaccompanied minor adolescents’ adjustment process. Supportive relationships included receiving instrumental and emotional support from parents, guardians, friends, church people, teachers, and school counselors. Previous studies with Asian American students have suggested that they tend to seek emotional support from friends or religious groups rather than from professional counselors (Yeh & Inose, 2003). A recent study found that Korean early study abroad students make an extensive use of online social network services to remain connected with family and friends in Korea and to adapt to the new language and culture in the United States (Lim & Meier, 2012). Together, the emerging literature on early study abroad students suggests a critical need for the local host communities to provide psychosocial support to these students in the early months of study abroad. Although international undergraduate or graduate students can often rely on university offices dedicated to aiding and supporting international students, high schools that receive international students may not have similar institutional support structures in place. Our study suggests that secondary schools that enroll international students may require consultation and assistance to meet the particular needs of unaccompanied international students, especially those who are living with guardians. Using the grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), we generated a model of cultural adjustment for precollege study abroad from the perspective of the unaccompanied students themselves. There are some limitations that should be considered in interpreting the results. First, as with any research involving volunteer participants, the Korean ESA students in this study were willing and motivated to share their experience. Their adjustment process may be different from those ESA students who were not willing to speak about their experiences or those who returned to South Korea because of lack of funds or failure to adjust to the ESA. Second, the current model only includes the perspectives of the students but not their parents or guardians. Future studies may explore how the parents who



remain in their home country while their adolescent children study abroad view their relationships with their adolescent children over time, their strategies for providing support and encouragement, and the extent to which they become aware of the nature of their adolescent children’s challenges as an unaccompanied minor. Such data may, together with the findings from the present study, suggest ways to better support both the adolescents and their parents from a family system perspective. Third, our analysis was based on the students’ retrospective narratives. Because the students were still in high school at the time of the interviews, their adjustment process was still very much in progress. It would be valuable to conduct a study using prospective method to follow the adjustment of unaccompanied minors over time, starting from predeparture preparation period through adjustment process in high school into emerging adulthood. Nonetheless, given the increasing number of students who are engaging in extended study abroad as primary and secondary students, our finding suggests an urgent need to attend to the unmet psychological needs of young adolescents who struggle alone to navigate difficult cultural transitions.

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(Appendix follows)

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Appendix A Interview Questions (translated from Korean) The Decision to Study Abroad When did you come here (to America) to study? What did you do to prepare for studying abroad? What made you decide to do a study abroad? Could you tell me what your experience was like when you first came to America?

What, if anything, has hampered your study abroad experience?

Influences of Studying Abroad How has your study abroad affected your relationship with your family? How has your life changed since you came here to study?


Study Abroad Experience Could you tell me what your experience as a study abroad student has been like since then? What has been the most difficult experience while studying abroad? What did you do when you had a hard time while studying abroad? What, if anything, have been helpful in your study abroad experience?

The Meaning of Study Abroad Do you see yourself as having adjusted to the study abroad experience? At what point did you think you had become adjusted to studying abroad? What advice would you give to other young students who are considering studying abroad?