It is widely known that there is social and human resource gap between rural and urban regions. Also, it is expected that gaps will be seen among rural regions in the extent of isolation and population sizes. While research on adolescents' academic ac...
It is widely known that there is social and human resource gap between rural and urban regions. Also, it is expected that gaps will be seen among rural regions in the extent of isolation and population sizes. While research on adolescents' academic achievement and life satisfaction focused on the different outcome between the urban and rural regions, no in-depth research has been done on the differences among the rural regions. Therefore, the current study focused on rural adolescents deprived of human and social resources compared to their peers of urban regions. Specifically, academic achievement and life satisfaction of rural adolescents are analyzed with parental socio-economic status, self-efficacy, family social capital, social relations, and cultural capital. Each independent
* A thesis for the degree of Doctor in August 2014.
variable can be broken down into subordinate variables: "Family social capital" into parent-child relationship, parents' supervision, parental involvement at school, and academic socialization, "Social relations" into relationship with peers, relationship with teachers, and community attachment, and "Cultural capital" into participation of cultural activities and the cultivation of reading. 2,409 middle school 3rd-graders(9th grader) who were residing in Euop/Myeon regions big size Euop: population of 20,000 or more / regular size Euop: population of
10,000-20,000 / Myeon: population of 1,000-3,000
under Gun level district within 8 provinces across South Korea, based on 2010 Statistics Korea population and housing census were recruited for the self-administered questionnaire.
Followings are the summary of results.
First, self-efficacy, family social capital, social relations, cultural capital, academic achievement, and life satisfaction of rural adolescents were compared among different regions in terms of size differences. Adolescents residing in larger regions showed higher parent-child relationship, parents supervision, and academic socialization in "family social relations", higher participation of cultural activities in "cultural capital", and higher academic achievement. Only community attachment was higher for adolescents in Myeon district compared to others in larger regions.
Second, after controlling the effects of participant's demographics, hierarchical regression were conducted to examine the influences that self-efficacy, family social capital, social relations, and cultural capital had on academic achievement and life satisfaction level. In terms of academic achievement of adolescents in the rural region all together, family social capital had the largest effect, and social relations had the smallest. Cultural capital and self-efficacy came after family social capital in order. In the final model, academic socialization under "family social capital" influenced academic achievement the most. Other significant effects were, also, observed from self-efficacy, parents supervision(negative) under "family social capital", relationship with peers(negative) under "social relations", and participation of cultural activities(negative) and the cultivation of reading under "cultural capital". Among control variable, socio-economic status had most significant effect. Gender(female>male), family structure(two-parent family>single-parent family), size difference(big-size Euop & regular-size Euop > Myeon) had significant effects. In contrast, life satisfaction level for the entire rural region was influenced by social relations the most, followed by family social capital, self-efficacy, and cultural capital in order. In the final model, community attachment had the most significant effect. Additionally, self-efficacy, parent-child relationship, parental involvement at school, and academic socialization(negative) under "family social capital", relationship with peers and teachers under "social relations" influenced life satisfaction level significantly. However, only gender(Female<Male) and size difference(Big-size Euop>Euop & Myeon) had significant effects among control variables.
Third, hierarchical regression were conducted each according to the size of regions, and we observed differences among rural regions varied in size. In terms of academic achievement, the significance was not clear for the other two rural regions except Euop. Family social capital influenced academic achievement the most across all the rural regions, and cultural capital, self-efficacy, and social relations, in order, influenced big-size and regular-size Euop. Lastly, cultural capital had the largest effect in Myeon, followed by social relations and self-efficacy. Considering all the variables, only academic socialization had significant effect on academic achievement of the adolescents throughout all the rural regions. Self-efficacy and the cultivation of reading, which had comparatively higher influence for adolescents of big-size Euop and regular-size Euop, did not show significant effect on their peers of Myeon. Furthermore, academic achievement level of adolescents of big-size Euop, regular-size Euop, and Myeon was respectively influenced by participation in the cultural activities(negative), parental involvement at school, and parents' supervision(negative). Among control variables, only socio-economic status had significant effects on adolescents of all the rural regions, and gender(female>male) on regular-size Euop and Myeon.
Overall, the model fit better with rural adolescents' life satisfaction, than with academic achievement, and Myeon as region explained life satisfaction level the most. Social relations influenced adolescents' life satisfaction the most, followed by family social capital, self-efficacy, and cultural capital in order. Among all the variables, community attachment, self-efficacy, parent-child relationship, relationship with teacher had significant effect on life satisfaction of adolescents across all the rural regions. Furthermore, life satisfaction level of regular-size Euop adolescents was influenced by parental involvement at school, and academic socialization(negative), relationship with peers, and parental involvement at school influenced that of Myeon. Among control variables, only gender(female>male) had significant effect on all the rural regions.
Consequently, it is possible to claim that the current research model better explains life satisfaction level than academic achievement of rural adolescents. Moreover, many people considered rural regions to be homogeneous until now, but the results of this study proved that each rural region varied in size have its own characteristics. Especially, adolescents reside in Myeon regions, where the deprivation level is relatively high in human and environmental resources, showed different characteristics from their peers of big-size and regular-size Euop. Therefore, future research on rural adolescents should overcome the general assumption of homogeneity of rural communities and go further to achieve more accuracy and sophistication.