Classifying Latent Classes by the bicultural acceptance attitude of adolescents from multicultural families : Investigation of influential factors and differences between depression and school adjustment in group

This study was conducted to classify latent groups according to the bicultural acceptance attitude of adolescents from multicultural families, to search for influencing factors, and to find out differences in depression and school adjustment according to groups. Using the 9th data from the Multicultural Youth Panel Survey by the National Youth Policy Institute in 2019, latent profile analysis was conducted using the M-plus 8.8 program. Subsequently, Multinomial logistic regression analysis and cross-analysis were used to exam differences in influencing factors, depression, and school adjustment. As a result of the study, the bicultural acceptance attitude latent group was classified into three groups. They were named as the intermediate bicultural acceptance group, high Korean cultural acceptance group, and high bicultural acceptance group. Factors such as self-esteem, maternal parenting attitude, nationality, and child's gender were identified as influencing factors in the latent profile classification. In addition, as a result of analyzing the differences in depression and school adjustment according to the bicultural acceptance attitude latent group, statistically significant differences were found in both depression and school adaptation. Adolescents in the intermediate bicultural acceptance group exhibited higher levels of depression, while school adjustment scores followed the order of high bicultural acceptance, high Korean cultural acceptance, and intermediate bicultural acceptance groups respectively. This study is expected to provide academic help to research on bicultural acceptance of adolescents from multicultural families and contribute to the preparation of educational and counseling measures.