Unlike general adolescents, those being raised in such a special environmental background as orphanages are very much likely to be led to overall maladjustment, showing serious emotional and behavioral problems caused by dramatical changes of family b...
Unlike general adolescents, those being raised in such a special environmental background as orphanages are very much likely to be led to overall maladjustment, showing serious emotional and behavioral problems caused by dramatical changes of family background. The study about school-related adjustment of adolescents in orphanages, who are required to achieve a high level of adjustment, is expected to facilitate the planning of counselling and effective curative intervention, because the adjustment capacity of the early stage is considered as a barometer to measure the degree of adjustment as social members in the future.
This study took a look at whether ego-resiliency, which is a psychological variable, and social support, which is an environmental variable, would have the mediating effects in the issue of 'the influence' that the daily life stress of adolescents living in orphanages has on their school-related adjustment. Structural equation model was used for the research. Also, the relation based on gender and the length of stay in orphanages was analyzed. This research was carried out by getting a total of 322 members of subject group to fill out a questionnaire made up of stress scale, ego-resiliency scale, social support scale, and school-related adjustment scale. The members of the subject group were all teenagers residing in the orphanages located in Daegu and Kyungbook area. The result of the study showed that female students had a higher ego-resiliency, received a higher social support, and were better able to adjust themselves to school than male students. In addition, it was found that the shorter the length of their stay in orphanages, the better they were able to perceive stress with a lower level of school-related adjustment capacity. They were found to better adjust themselves to school when the length of their stay in orphanages was longer than five years, but shorter than 10 years.
The result of the model analysis designed to find the mediating effects of ego-resiliency and social support did not find any buffering effects, which was in contrast to the preceding study. Such a result should not be taken as social support having nothing to do with stress. Rather, we should take into account the probability that teenagers living in orphanages, who cannot help having survival competition in an unfamiliar and a strange environment, would fail to perceive the given support itself due to their distrust toward society and their skepticism about others, even if the same level of social support was provided for them. So, the implication of the result should be that we should try to get adjustment effects to be delivered to adolescents residing in orphanages by facilitating them to better perceive social support, which would help control the negative effects from stress.
It is needless to say that a high enough level of social support should be provided for teenagers living in orphanages. However, the top priority for them to raise their capacity of school-related adjustment is to help solidify and build up their ego-resiliency, which would overcome a variety of obstacles and adversities, so that they are able to control their mind in the face of stressful situations and deal with the situations in flexible and wise ways.