The main purpose of this study was to examine three things in the case of mothers who defected from North Korea: 1) the effect of perceived social support and of acculturative stress on the parenting efficacy, 2) the effect of perceived social support...
The main purpose of this study was to examine three things in the case of mothers who defected from North Korea: 1) the effect of perceived social support and of acculturative stress on the parenting efficacy, 2) the effect of perceived social support on the acculturative stress, and 3) the mediating effect of acculturative stress in relationship between perceived social support and parenting efficacy. In addition, to examine these three effects, the socio-demographic characteristics of defected mothers from North Korea were utilized as control variables.
The subjects of this study were mothers who have defected from North Korea having children of school age, residing in Seoul and Gyeong-gi do. The data for this study were collected by using three kinds of questionnaires and the snowball sampling method was applied for data gathering. The perceived social support of mothers was measured by using the scale based on the Park’s work(1985). The acculturative stress was measured by using the scale of Lee’s(1996), which is the modified version of Acculturative Stress Scale for International Student(Sandhu and Asrabi, 1994). The parenting efficacy was measured by using the scale developed by Kim(2008) which is the modified version of Parenting Sense of Competence(PSOC)(Gibaud-Wallston & Wandersman, 1978). The data was analyzed by using series of statistical tests: T-test, Pearson’s correlation coefficient and Hierarchical regression by using SPSS program.
The main findings of this study were summarized as follows:
First, it shows higher parenting efficacy when the North Korea defected mothers apperceive they are being supported by material of those social support.
Second, of those acculturative stresses, discrimination and homesickness were negatively related to parenting efficacy for defected mothers from North Korea.
Third, the higher the perceived material support of North Korean defected mothers sensed, the lower the perceived sense of discrimination was, and the more psychological support North Korean defected mothers sensed, the lower the stress from homesickness was.
Finally, among acculturative stress, the perceived sense of discrimination completely mediates the relationship between informative support and parenting efficacy. Therefore, the higher the informative supports North Korean defected mothers sensed, the lower the stress of being discriminated. Furthermore, among acculturative stress, discrimination and homesickness completely mediate the relationship between psychological support and parenting efficacy. This means the more psychological support North Korean defected mothers receive the less stress they will experience from discrimination and homesickness. Psychological support was positively related to parenting efficacy, as well.
These findings indicate that when develop counseling and programs to increase parenting efficacy, it is necessary not only offer direct material support but also make efforts to alleviate sense of discrimination from acculturative stress and homesickness. This study has two contributions. First of all, it can be applied and extended in the rising issues of North Korean defected mothers and pedagogy of their children. Second, it can be utilized for future research as an empirical data.