Changes in cultural orientation classes among adolescents of immigrant descent in South Korea: A nine-year longitudinal study

Adolescents of immigrant descent can be oriented toward their heritage and mainstream cultures. Addressing the lack of longitudinal studies of acculturation, this study identifies cultural orientation classes of such adolescents and tracks changes in their classes from early to late adolescence. Latent class analysis and latent transition analysis were applied using data from 2011, 2015, and 2019 (spanning nine years) of the nationally representative Multicultural Adolescents Panel Study collected from adolescents of immigrant descent in Korea ( n = 1635). We identified three cultural orientation classes: “integration”, “assimilation”, and “moderate biculturalism”. Across all time points, most participants were in the “integration” and “assimilation” classes. At each transition point, the majority of adolescents tended to remain in one specific cultural orientation class, indicating stability. Furthermore, gender, ethnicity, and family language partially predicted membership in the “integration” or “assimilation” classes. Lastly, our findings revealed that adolescents in the “integration” and “assimilation” classes reported higher life satisfaction compared to those in the “moderate biculturalism” class. Based on our findings, we provide interpretations and discussions, taking into account the context of Korean society.