The purpose of this study was to examine socially excluded adolescents, their social surroundings and the structural and functional characteristics of their social network in daily routine life in a bid to define the characteristics and nature of thei...
The purpose of this study was to examine socially excluded adolescents, their social surroundings and the structural and functional characteristics of their social network in daily routine life in a bid to define the characteristics and nature of their social network.
The subjects in this study were academic and vocational high school students in Seoul. After a self-reported questionnaire was conducted, the answer sheets from 486 students were analyzed with SPSS 13.0 program.
The collected data were analyzed to find out how much the adolescents were socially excluded in different fields, whether there was any relationship between their social exclusion in the fields, and to what extent they were doubly left out in the fields. And whether the degree of social exclusion made any differences to the structural and functional characteristics of their social network was investigated.
The findings of the study were as follows:
First, out of 486 teenagers investigated, 281 students were socially excluded in one or more field(s), who accounted for 62.4 percent. They were most left out in the field of housing, followed by the area of finance, health and social participation. By gender, the girls were more socially excluded than the boys in every area except health and employment. The vocational high school students were more left out in the field of economy than the academic high school students.
As for the relationship between social exclusion in the different fields and double exclusion, the average number of social exclusion the teenagers were subjected to was 1.06. The social exclusion in the field of economy had the most significant correlation to social exclusion in the area of education(r=.351, p<.01), followed by the area of housing(r=.262, p<.01) and the field of social participation(r=.149, p<.01). By gender, the girls(M=1.26) were more doubly left out than the boys(M=0.88). By the type of school, the rate of the vocational high school students who were socially excluded was larger than that of the academic high school students who were.
Second, concerning connections between the degree of social exclusion and the general characteristics of social network including the scope of contact, they got in touch with 3.01 people on the average, and they kept in touch with 7.27 friends. As to contact frequency, they were in more frequent contact with friends and families. Regarding the correlation of the level of social exclusion to the structural and functional characteristics of the social network, a higher level of social exclusion was negatively correlated to the positive structural and functional characteristics of the social network. Specifically, that had a significantly negative correlation to all the positive functional variables of it.
Third, regression analysis was made to see how their demographic characteristics and social networks affected the degree of social exclusion. And it's found that in terms of a family network, whether the network functioned positively had an impact on the extent of social exclusion, and that was under the influence of the range of contact in a social network with relatives. In the event of a social network with friends, the range of contact and whether it functioned positively exercised an influence on that. In contrast, a teacher network and other kinds of networks had no impact on that.
Finally, concerning the relationship of the demographic characteristics including gender and school to the social networks and the level of social exclusion, the social exclusion level of the boys was affected by whether the social networks functioned positively, and the girls were under the influence of family contact frequency. By school, the academic high school students were affected by relative contact frequency, whether their friend network functioned positively, whether their teacher network functioned negatively and whether the other networks functioned negatively. The vocational high school students were impacted by the range and frequency of contacting the other groups and by teacher contact frequency.
The findings of the study suggested that the social exclusion of the adolescents was under the great influence of the economic status of parents. Socially excluded youth are likely to be caught in a vicious circle throughout their lives. They aren't usually well backed by their parents in adolescence, and are consequently apt to be disadvantaged and isolated in various regards. And they are highly likely to be socially left out again in adulthood. It's also found in this study that their social exclusion was impacted by social networks with families, relatives, friends, teachers and others. Such social networks could contribute to expediting the further social exclusion of adolescents who have already been left out due to family environments, and even those who haven't yet been left out may be made to experience it because of the social networks at the same time. Therefore the characteristics of disadvantaged and isolated adolescents and their surroundings should be taken into account when it's planned to offer a helping hand to them.