Browsing by Author "Kim, Su Yeong"
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Item Adolescent academic achievement in Chinese immigrant families : the direct effects of individual and dyadic acculturation processes and the indirect effects of family obligation and academic engagement(2011-08) Ammon, Natalie Younok 1981-; Kim, Su YeongThe Asian immigrant population is growing more rapidly than any other group in the U.S. (Social Science Data Analysis Network, 2004), and Chinese Americans represent the largest Asian subgroup (U.S. Census Bureau, 2002). Assuming recent trends continue, the number of first- and second-generation Chinese children will increase dramatically, and their developmental needs will demand special attention. Using structural equation modeling to analyze two waves of data from a study on 444 Chinese families, this project aims to provide a better understanding of the relations between family members’ adaptations to life in the U.S. and adolescents’ academic grade point average (GPA). Chinese children of immigrants have been found to succeed in school (Fuligni, Tseng, & Lam, 1999). However, little is known about the ways in which their academic achievement may be related to acculturation, the process through which an individual or group makes socio-cultural or behavioral adjustments through repeated contact with another group or culture (Gordon, 1964; Berry, 2003). Exploring the variation in acculturative processes among Chinese immigrant family members and identifying how the various acculturative strategies may relate to adolescent academic achievement would bridge a gap in the extant literature. Therefore, the first objective of this study was to assess whether fathers’, mothers’, and adolescents’ individual acculturation to American and Chinese cultures were related to adolescents’ GPA. The second goal was to test for moderation effects in these relations. Interaction terms were created for parents’ acculturation in relation to adolescents’ acculturation to test whether the connections between adolescents’ acculturation to the American and Chinese cultures and adolescents’ GPA were conditional on either fathers’ or mothers’ American or Chinese orientation. Third, this study included two culturally salient factors as mediators of potential relations found between individual and dyadic acculturative processes and adolescents’ academic achievement. These mediators were adolescents’ sense of family obligation and adolescents’ level of behavioral academic engagement. The fourth and final objective was to assess whether there was invariance by adolescent gender in the structural model.Item A conditional indirect effect of language brokering on adjustment among Chinese and Korean American adolescents : the roles of perceived maternal sacrifice, respect for the mother, and mother-child open communication(2013-05) Shen, Yishan; Kim, Su YeongAsian American adolescents, such as Chinese and Korean American adolescents, often language broker for their immigrant parents. This study examines how language brokering influences parent-child relationships and adolescents' psychological adjustment in Asian-American families. Using a two-wave sample of Chinese (n = 237; average age = 14.65, SD = .68) and Korean (n = 262; average age = 14.72, SD = .69) American adolescents, this study examined a culturally relevant conditional mechanism through which language brokering may contribute to lower levels of internalizing/externalizing problems. Results suggested that language brokering for the mother was associated with perceived maternal sacrifice, which was in turn associated with respect for the mother, which was eventually associated with lower levels of externalizing problems (but not internalizing problems) in the adolescents. Moreover, the indirect effect was conditional on the level of mother-child open communication. With a lower level of open communication, the indirect effect of language brokering on externalizing problems became stronger. Results indicate that interventions designed to reduce Asian American adolescent language brokers' externalizing problems can target their perception of parental sacrifice and their respect for parents, and that this approach may be especially effective for adolescents experiencing a low level of parent-child open communication. At the same time, for these families with low levels of parent-child open communication, encouraging more open communication may be an additional way to intervene.Item Early maternal employment in context : the role of maternity leave for mother's return to employment, later psychological well-being, and mother-infant interaction(2010-08) Bobbitt, Kaeley Celeste; Huston, Aletha C.; Dix, Theodore H.; Kim, Su YeongWith more than 50 percent of mothers in the workforce by their child’s first birthday, maternity leave’s influence on mothers’ well-being and the mother-infant interaction has implications for millions of employed mothers and their children. In this study, I used data from the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care to examine the relations between variation in maternity leave benefit, length of leave, maternal well-being and mother-infant interaction within the context in which mothers make decisions to return to employment after childbirth. These associations depend on a number of important contextual factors including mothers’ subjective beliefs about the costs of employment, family structure and financial situation, mothers’ separation anxiety, and their commitment to work, all of which have important implications for both family and policy. The financial benefit that mothers use during leave varied positively with their socio-demographic characteristics. Paid leaves were related to shorter leaves and to fewer depressive symptoms, but had no direct relation with parenting stress or sensitivity. Mothers’ beliefs about the costs of employment, family structure and finances moderated the effects of paid leave. No direct association emerged between leave length and either maternal well-being or sensitivity, but interactions between leave length and both separation anxiety and work commitment indicated that long leaves are beneficial for only a sub-group of mothers. Results from this study indicate that individual differences are important in understanding the relations among leave type, leave length, maternal well-being and sensitivity. Consequently, effective maternity leave policy should be flexible to accommodate the varying needs of new mothers.Item Factors comprising adolescents’ readiness for sexual behaviors : a latent profile analysis(2014-12) Orozco-Lapray, Diana Lucellan; Kim, Su YeongThe current study used multi-wave data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to examine the existence of typologies of readiness for sexual intercourse and contraception among a nationally representative sample of adolescents aged 15-18. Grounded in the theory of planned behavior, the current study used latent profile analyses to establish five profiles of sexual readiness based on adolescents' attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control for sexual intercourse and contraception. Analyses were conducted cross-sectionally and longitudinally, and five classes were confirmed at each of two waves. The current study established and characterized four profiles of readiness for sexual behavior at both waves: “impulsive adolescents,” “precarious adolescents,” “well-controlled adolescents,” and “conservatively-reared adolescents.” Two separate fifth profiles also emerged: “hasty adolescents” at wave 1, and “unrestrained adolescents” at wave 2. Logistic regression of longitudinal data indicated that compared to “impulsive adolescents” at wave 1, “precarious” and “conservatively-reared” adolescents were significantly less likely to engage in sexual intercourse at wave 2, and “well-controlled” adolescents were significantly less likely to engage in casual sex. Wave 1 cross-sectional data indicated that “precarious” adolescents were less likely to have used contraception either at their first time or most recent time of sex, and all other profiles were more likely to have employed contraception than “impulsive” adolescents. Wave 2 cross-sectional analyses indicated that two profiles (“precarious” and “conservatively-reared”) were less likely to engage in sexual intercourse, and two profiles (“well-controlled” and “unrestrained”) were more likely to engage in sexual intercourse than “impulsive” adolescents.Item Family-peer incongruence in cultural socialization and adolescent adjustment(2014-05) Wang, Yijie, active 21st century; Benner, Aprile D.; Kim, Su YeongUsing a sample of 8th graders, the current study explored cultural socialization practices by families and peers, and investigated the link between family-peer incongruence in cultural socialization and adolescent adjustment. On average, peers engaged in less heritage cultural socialization but similar levels of mainstream cultural socialization than did youth's families. Incongruence in family and peer cultural socialization was associated with poor socioemotional and academic adjustment only when peers performed greater cultural socialization (either the heritage or mainstream culture) than their parents. The link between incongruence and socioemotional stress can be explained in part by adolescents' feelings of being caught between their families and peers. The detriments of feelings of being caught on school outcomes were buffered by adolescents' active coping and withdrawal, peer support, and similar feelings of being caught shared in the peer network.Item Language brokering among Latino middle school students : relations with academic achievement, self-efficacy, and acculturative stress(2010-05) Tedford, Sara Louise; Suizzo, Marie-Anne; Carlson, Cindy I.; Keith, Timothy Z.; Kim, Su Yeong; Valencia, Richard R.Child language brokers frequently translate in adult-level situations. Research has suggested that through translating, brokers may develop advanced language, cognitive, and social skills (De Ment, Buriel, and Villanueva, 2005; McQuillan and Tse, 1995), and these may lead to greater academic achievement and self-efficacy (Buriel, Perez, De Ment, Chavez,and Moran, 1998). Additionally, language brokers have been found to increase in biculturalism as they translate for people of different cultures (Acoach and Webb, 2004; Buriel et al., 1998). Brokers might experience reduced acculturative stress, for which biculturalism has been found to be a protective factor (Bacallao and Smokowski, 2005). Despite its possible benefits, brokering has been associated with negative emotions and behavioral problems for some children (Chao, 2006; Weisskirch and Alva, 2002). The mixed results of language brokering studies may partially be related to the age of participants, with translating appearing to be a more positive experience for older adolescents (Orellana and Reynolds, 2008). The purpose of this study was to test relations among language brokering, academic achievement, academic self-efficacy, social self-efficacy, and acculturative stress. I proposed and tested if language brokering was associated with more positive outcomes. In addition, I tested if older brokers had more positive outcomes than younger brokers. Participants included 207 Latino middle school students, aged 10 to 14 years, who completed self-report surveys. Measures included a background demographics questionnaire and scales for language brokering, academic self-efficacy, social self-efficacy, and acculturative stress. Achievement was measured with grades from school records. Results were non-significant for the relation of language brokering with achievement and social self-efficacy when controlling for other predictor variables. In contrast to expectations, translating for more people was associated with decreased academic self-efficacy and greater acculturative stress. Further analysis revealed that language brokering for parents and grandparents was associated with greater acculturative stress, while translating for other people was not. Although translating was associated with more acculturative stress, and older children reported less acculturative stress, age was not found to moderate the relation of language brokering and acculturative stress. Limitations, implications, and suggestions for future directions in language brokering research and clinical work are presented.Item Marriage and physical health : selection, causal and conditional effects on weight gain and obesity(2012-12) Bartolic, Silvia Katherine; Anderson, Edward Robert; Vandewater, Elizabeth A.; Kim, Su Yeong; Gleason, Marci; Umberson, Deborah; Hayward, MarkDespite being linked to many health benefits, marriage is known to be related to weight gain and obesity (e.g. Hedblad et al., 2002; Lipowicz, Gronkiewicz, & Malina, 2002). Those who have studied physical health outcomes of marriage have taken three different approaches: 1) analysing selection effects, 2) investigating protection effects, and 3) focusing less on the discrete comparison of marrieds versus others and more on factors that might make marriage more or less beneficial, such as the quality of the interaction. The focus of this research is to examine this last approach. Could the quality of one’s marriage, level of barriers to leaving, sex, and age provide insight into the relationship between marriage and weight gain? Data is from the Americans Changing Lives survey Waves I-III. Stability paths, marital protection paths, relationship commitment paths and psychological stress paths are outlined. The moderating effects of barriers to leaving, sex and age are also discussed. Cross sectional analyses show that marital quality decreases depression while barriers to leaving increases depression with an interaction effect at Wave III where high marital quality decreases depression when barriers are low; when barriers are high, marital quality has a stronger effect on depression. These effects are stronger for the young than the old and for females compared to males. Longitudinal analyses show that marital quality and barriers to leaving are positively related to depression over time. The same effects occur when examined by age (barriers however, are no longer significant) and depression is negatively related to weight gain (only at Wave II) for the old. Analyses by sex show that barriers moderate the effect of marital quality on depression over time for men but not women at Wave III. Once again marital quality increases depression for both sexes but depression decreases weight concurrently and increases weight over time for men. Overall, results show modest support for the links between marital quality and barriers to leaving on depression and little support for its effect on weight. Results should be interpreted with caution as suppressor effects may be occurring and model fit was poor in the longitudinal models.Item Middle school transition : the role of timing and school characteristics(2010-12) Holas, Igor; Huston, Aletha C.; Crosnoe, Robert L.; Kim, Su YeongAchievement and school involvement of children in middle schools in 5th and 6th grades are compared to those of same-grade peers in elementary schools. Both classroom quality and school structure (size and composition) are tested as mediators in a national longitudinal sample of about 900 youth. The results indicate: a) youth in middle schools achieve at least as well as their same-grade peers in elementary schools, but those in middle schools have lower school attachment; b) middle and elementary schools have equivalent classroom quality, but differ in size and student composition; c) the lower school involvement of 6th grade middle school students is attributable to school size; d) the results are similar for boys and girls.Item Mother, father, teacher, and peer support and their links with adolescent psychosocial outcomes(2016-08) Shand, Latoya G.; Gershoff, Elizabeth T.; Kim, Su Yeong; Benner, Aprile; Gleason, Marci; Crosnoe, RobertUsing data from a nationally representative study on adolescent health (Add Health), this study examined the direct and interrelated associations of emotional support from four key providers (mother, father, teacher, and peers) and adolescent psychosocial outcomes. These associations were examined at three time points, following participants from early adolescence to early adulthood. The study also explored how the influences of various support relationships change during the transition from early adolescence to early adulthood and how such changes affect outcomes. Support from mother, father, teacher and peers were linked to improvements in different domains of adolescent outcomes, with the exception of peer supports’ link with increased delinquent behavior. The perceived support from the sources examined was also predictive of psychosocial functioning across time. This study also found fathers’ perceived support to be predictive of more of the psychosocial domains examined than mothers, indicating that father support has more substantial influence than previously thought. Further, the positive associations among adolescent outcomes and teacher support were not found to be as domain-specific for adolescents as espoused in the literature. In addition, when multi-group models were used to examine age differences in associations between perceived support and adolescent outcomes, middle adolescence appeared to be the period when adolescents are most receptive to all the support relationships examined. Adolescents’ psychosocial functioning was also found to be predictive of different sources of perceived support.Item Parent-child acculturation discrepancy, parental knowledge, peer deviance, and adolescent delinquency in Chinese immigrant families(2011-05) Wang, Yijie, active 21st century; Kim, Su Yeong; Anderson, Edward; Hazen-Swann, NancyUsing a longitudinal sample of Chinese immigrant families, the current study examined parent-child acculturation discrepancy as an ongoing risk factor for delinquency, through the mediating pathway of parental knowledge of the child’s daily experiences relating to child’s contact with deviant peers. Based on the absolute difference in acculturation levels (tested separately for Chinese and American orientations) between adolescents and parents, one parent in each family was assigned to the “more discrepant” group of parent-child dyads, and the other parent was assigned to the “less discrepant” group of parent-child dyads. To explore possible within-family variations, the mediating pathways were tested separately among the more and less discrepant groups. Within each group, the mediating pathway was further compared between father- and mother-adolescent dyads from different families. Structural equation modeling showed that the proposed mediating pathways were significant only in the more discrepant parent-adolescent dyads. For more discrepant dyads, especially those discrepant in American orientation, a high level of parent-child acculturation discrepancy is related to less parental knowledge, which is related to adolescents having more contact with deviant peers, which in turn leads to more adolescent delinquency. This mediating pathway is significant concurrently, within early and middle adolescence, and longitudinally, from early to middle adolescence. Among the more discrepant dyads, the relationship between parent-child acculturation discrepancy and parental knowledge was stronger for father-adolescent dyads than it was for mother-adolescent dyads.Item Parental acculturation, parenting practices, and adolescent depressive symptoms in Chinese American families(2007-12) Huang, Xuan, 1976-; Kim, Su YeongChinese-American parents are parenting within two cultures: the mainstream American culture and their heritage Chinese culture. This study examined parental cultural orientations toward the American and Chinese cultures, and the implications for parenting practices among Chinese-American families. Parenting dimensions examined were both culture-general measures (parental warmth, punitive parenting, non-democratic parenting) and culture-specific measure (parental endorsement of family obligations). Data came from a two-wave survey of about 400 Chinese-American families (one target adolescent, mother, and father). First, within each wave, the study examined the concurrent relationships between parenting practices and adolescent depressive symptoms. Second, this study examined, concurrently and longitudinally, whether parental cultural orientations were associated with parenting practices both directly and indirectly through two mediating factors: parents' bicultural management difficulty and depressive symptoms. Analyses were conducted separately for mothers and fathers. First, study findings showed that parenting practices characterized by higher levels of warmth, strong endorsement of family obligations, and lower levels of punitive and non-democratic behaviors were associated with fewer depressive symptoms in adolescents. Second, the study demonstrated significant direct relationships between both Chinese and American orientations and parenting practices. While American orientation was related to effective parenting (more warmth, low punitiveness, low non-democratic parenting), Chinese orientation was related to effective parenting (more warmth, low non-democratic parenting, strong endorsement of family obligations) as well as ineffective parenting (high punitiveness). This study also showed that parents' bicultural management difficulty and depressive symptoms mediated the relationships between acculturation and culture-general parenting measures (warmth, punitiveness, and nondemocratic parenting). It was through these two mediators (bicultural management difficulty and parental depressive symptoms) that (1) Chinese orientation was related to less warmth, high punitive and non-democratic parenting and (2) American orientation was related to more warmth, low punitive and non-democratic parenting. Lastly, there was some evidence of longitudinal relationships (father's American orientation at w1 predicted more warmth at w2; mother's American orientation at w1 predicted low punitiveness at w2 through the mediating factors of bicultural management difficulty and depressive symptoms at w1). The study suggests that parental psychological maladjustment is a promising area for interventions to promote parenting and adolescent development among ChineseAmerican families.Item The patchwork perspective : multi-informant ratings of children’s psycho-social well-being over time using child and informant factors(2011-05) Silcox, Karen Kinsel, 1975-; Anderson, Edward Robert; Huston, Aletha; Kim, Su Yeong; Hazen-Swann, Nancy; Loukas, AlexandraThis study was part of a larger multi-informant longitudinal study with a sample of 319 children (52% male, 48% female) ages 4-12 (mean= 7 years 9 months) whose parents had recently filed for divorce. Three annual waves of data from four informants were used for analysis: child self-report, mother, teacher, and observer report. The purpose of the study was to add to the understanding of multi-informant research and children’s psycho-social well-being. The first goal was to determine the consensus of children’s psycho-social well-being scores within informant across time, within child across informant, and between children over time. The second goal was to determine factors that contribute to the levels of consensus, such as, child gender, child age, child ethnicity, and length of parents’ separation, maternal baseline depressive symptoms score, and timing of the teacher questionnaire. The third goal was to determine if children could be classified into meaningful psycho-social well-being groups. Lastly, a visual diagnostic tool, the “patchwork”, was created using a random sample of eight prototypical cases of group membership based on predicted probabilities. This tool displayed the four informants scores, and child and informant characteristics. A single measure of child psycho-social well-being was created for each informant to compare rater consensus in hierarchical linear modeling. Latent class analysis was used to determine groupings. The HLM results indicate that 53% of the variance is within informants across time, 31% is within child across raters, and only 16% is between child over time. As expected, results showed more consensus of informants’ scores among girls than boys, the greatest consensus for children in middle childhood over other age groups, among Non-Hispanic White children compared to other ethnicities, and among spring reports than fall reports from teachers. Maternal baseline depressive symptoms score was significantly related to level of consensus of reporters, with greatest consensus when mother’s baseline depressive symptoms scores are at the mean (15.47). Mother’s scores of children’s psycho-social well-being decrease from highest scores of when baseline depressive symptoms score is 0, decreasing -.02 with each point increase in baseline depressive symptoms score. The results of the latent class analysis show two latent classes with maternal baseline depressive symptoms as a covariate best fit the data, one class with psycho-social well-being scores above the mean (N=258), and one with scores below the mean (N=61). Baseline data alone sufficiently models these groups and is chosen for parsimony over latent transition analysis. In sum, this study demonstrated benefits of multi-method multi-informant research, while acknowledging the strengths and biases that influence informant consensus of children’s psycho-social well beingItem Predicting parents' intentions to support their adult children's stigmatized romantic relationships(2011-12) Boelter, Jill Marie; Loving, Timothy J.; Gleason, Marci; Kim, Su Yeong; Lehmiller, Justin; Neff, Lisa; Priem, JenniferSome romantic relationship types have a greater likelihood of receiving parental support than do others. Specifically, adults in traditional romantic relationships (i.e., same-race, opposite-sex) perceive more parental support for their relationships than do individuals in socially stigmatized relationships (e.g., interracial, same-sex relationships; Lehmiller & Agnew, 2006). The goal of the current study was to understand better what motivates parents to provide support for their adult children’s romantic relationships. To address this question, the original and a modified version of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1975) were tested. The TRA was implemented to measure whether parents’ attitudes toward showing support and the parents’ subjective norms were associated with the parents’ intentions to provide support for their children’s relationships in the future. In the modified model, subjective norms was reconceptualized to include parents’ perceptions of stigma by associating with their children’s relationships and the perceived threat of sanctions from the parent’s social networks if the parents were to provide support for their children’s relationships in the future. To improve predictive ability of the models, theoretically relevant covariates were included in each model. To capitalize on a variety of viewpoints, this study included parents whose children were either single or in dating relationships. Parents whose child was single completed the questionnaire while imagining his or her child in a traditional, interracial, or same-sex relationship whereas parents whose child was in a dating relationship reported on his or her child’s current relationship. A sample of 438 parents completed an online survey. Overall, across all groups, parents’ attitudes toward providing support were consistently associated with parents’ intentions to provide support. Associations between the parents’ subjective norms and intentions to provide support varied across groups and were not always significantly associated with parents’ intentions to provide support in the future. Furthermore, parents’ motivations to provide support differed among parents who imagined their children in relationships compared to parents whose children were in real relationships, suggesting parents may overestimate problems with their children’s interracial and same-sex relationships and underestimate problems with their children’s traditional relationships than may occur in real-life situations.Item Race/ethnic and immigration-related diversity in children’s internalizing and externalizing symptoms in school(2013-05) Wu-Seibold, Nina Hui Jing; Crosnoe, Robert; Kim, Su YeongUsing the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (Kindergarten Class), this research explored the developmental trajectories of internalizing and externalizing behaviors during the elementary school years, with an emphasis on the connections between these behaviors, how they are embedded in social structural settings defined by broad stratification systems, and what their implications are for the future. Specifically, this study was organized around three aims: (1) To estimate trajectories of internalizing and externalizing behaviors (e.g., co-occurrence and dynamic interplay); (2) To explore variations in those trajectories across segments of the population (e.g., race/ethnicity); and (3) To examine the links between children's internalizing and externalizing pathways in elementary school and their 8th grade academic functioning, as well as possible group variation in those links. Four analytical techniques -- growth curve analysis, latent class growth analysis, cross-lagged modeling and regression analysis -- were used. Results indicated a low incidence of internalizing and externalizing symptoms in the whole sample as well as small incremental changes over time and small differences across groups. More in-depth investigation revealed that children of Black parents and boys were at greater risk for present and future problematic behaviors, and boys and children of immigrants were at greater risk for future academic failure when their earlier overall combined symptom trajectories fell in the risky category. In addition, the general patterns of children's internalizing symptoms serving as protective factors for future externalizing symptoms and of externalizing symptoms serving as risk factors for future internalizing symptoms tended to be most consistent among children of White parents and children of non-immigrants. Moreover, findings revealed that what matters about the symptom trajectories in relation to later school functioning is not just the initial level of symptoms but also the change in levels from kindergarten through fifth grade. Overall, this study suggested that intervention efforts need to take into account both the symptomatic child's initial (and overall) levels of symptoms as well as over-time change of symptoms when putting together a specific intervention plan for the affected individual. Finer prevention and intervention efforts are also needed for boys and for children of immigrants to facilitate positive academic functioning.Item The relations of television exposure in infancy and toddlerhood to early elementary cognitive outcomes(2014-05) Park, Seoung Eun; Kim, Su YeongDespite a growing body of research regarding the effects of media on very young children, most studies have focused on relatively short-term effects, and those that examined long-term effects have not done so with a representative sample. The current study examined long-term effects of screen media exposure on children aged 0 to 35 months. The data for this study came from the first and second waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) Child Development Supplement (CDS-I and CDS-II), which offers several advantages in examining the longitudinal relationships between early television exposure and subsequent academic performance. This nationally representative dataset includes a measure of cognitive skills, as well as time diaries that provide a record of how and with whom children spent their time. First, this study examined television viewing contexts likely to be operative in infancy and toddlerhood -- what these children view, whom they co-view with, what they co-view, and what they are doing while the television is on. Second, this study assessed the long-term effects of early exposure to different program content (i.e., child-educational programs, child-noneducational programs & adult programs) on subsequent cognitive outcomes (mainly academic achievement) in early childhood. Finally, the role of parental co-viewing in the long-term effects of exposure to child-educational content on academic skills was examined. Descriptive analyses and multiple OLS regressions were conducted. On weekdays, children were exposed to child-educational content, child-noneducational content and adult content on TV (33 minutes, 29 minutes, 27 minutes, respectively); on weekends, children were exposed to child-educational content, child-noneducational content and adult content on TV (23 minutes, 31 minutes, 31 minutes, respectively). Although it is commonly believed that television displaces time spent with others and playing, nearly half of infants and toddlers' time spent viewing television was spent playing and in social interaction (30% and 16%, respectively). Different relationships emerged among groups with differing amounts of total television exposure: children who were exposed to 1 to 2 hours of television per day had higher academic test scores compared to children who were exposed to less (those who watched no TV at all and those who were exposed to between 0 and 1 hour). As regards television content, the only relationship found was among toddlers exposed to adult content. Toddlers who were exposed to more adult programs in their early years were likely to have worse passage comprehension test scores 5 year later. However, there was no relationship between early exposure to child programs (i.e., child-educational and child-noneducational content) and subsequent academic test scores. Parental co-viewing of child-educational content was positively related to the academic achievement test scores (the passage comprehension test scores and the applied problem scores), indicating that parental co-viewing plays an important role in children's experience of media in infancy and toddlerhood. The findings have implications that may allow us to increase the effectiveness of learning from screen media in infancy and toddlerhood.Item Rethinking the effect of duration on immigrant health : evidence from the National Health Interview Survey (2006-2008) and the New Immigrant Survey (2003)(2011-08) Li, Jing, 1977-; Hummer, Robert A.; Ross, Catherine E.; Angel, Ronald J.; Powers, Daniel A.; Kim, Su YeongPast studies often find that, upon arrival U.S. immigrants generally have favorable health profiles than native-born persons, but their health deteriorates with prolonged stay. The classical explanations of this phenomenon are healthy immigrant selection and negative acculturation. With the number of foreign-born people living in the United States reaching an all-time high, the health and financial costs of this “negative acculturation” is substantial. Meanwhile, the negative duration effect on health is contradictory to expectations from classic assimilation theory and what has been observed by labor economists. This study aims to empirically study the effect of duration on immigrant health, with particular attention given to how socioeconomic status differentiates the duration-health relationship. Results based on two national datasets confirmed that immigrants, especially recent arrivals, have a considerably lower risk of worse health relative to native-born adults. I also found that socioeconomic status plays an essential role in the varying level of initial health selectivity among immigrants. The analysis of the interaction effect between duration and SES reveals that duration effects on health vary significantly by socioeconomic status. High SES immigrants tend to experience a non-negative duration effect regardless of their length of U.S. residence, while immigrants with lower socioeconomic standing are more likely to experience a negative duration effect on health with longer duration. Moreover, this study also shows that the initial foreign-born advantages in health are typically larger for persons with low SES than for persons with high SES. However, little evidence suggests there is a health convergence between long-term immigrants and their native-born counterparts with similar socioeconomic status. Potential explanations and implications of these findings are also discussed.Item The antecedents and outcomes of preschool programs for children in America(2016-05) Ansari, Arya; Gershoff, Elizabeth T.; Crosnoe, Robert; Benner, Aprile; Kim, Su Yeong; Callahan, RebeccaThere has been an increased interest in the early childhood years as a point of intervention and, specifically, on preschool programs, which hold great promise in preparing children for school. Despite the extensive body of literature on preschool education, there remain a number of key issues that need to be addressed to move the early childhood field forward. This dissertation addresses three of these areas that require continued attention. First, we need to know why Latino children from U.S.- and foreign-born households are under-enrolled in preschool education (Aim 1). The second area that we need to know more about is the potential long-term benefits of large-scale preschool programs (Aim 2). Finally, the third area where more information is needed is on the different sources of heterogeneity in the benefits of preschool for children (Aim 3). Thus, the aims of this dissertation were to address these gaps in the knowledge-base by using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Birth (ECLS-B) and Kindergarten (ECLS-K 1998) Cohorts. The first set of findings reveals that there are important differences that exist within the Latino population (culture, household resources, parents’ beliefs about school readiness, and child elicitation) with respect to preschool selection. These differences indicate that, in order to boost the preschool enrollment of Latino children from U.S.- and foreign-born households, policymakers may need to focus on targeting a specific set of barriers. Findings from Aim 2 underscore the potential long-term benefits of preschool education. Specifically, despite evidence for partial convergence of test scores, children who attended preschool at age four consistently outperformed their classmates who attended informal care in areas of academic achievement through the end of middle school. Although all children benefited from preschool participation, analyses from Aim 3 of this dissertation revealed that there was evidence for systematic heterogeneity, with findings supporting developmental theories on cumulative advantage and diverging destinies. Taken together, the results from this dissertation add to the existing evidence base on preschool education by highlighting new means of engaging families in the preschool market and underscoring both how and why preschool programs have long-term benefits for children.Item Understanding the excluder : why young children exclude their peers(2012-12) Fanger, Suzanne Marie; Hazen, Nancy Lynn; Jacobvitz, Deborah; Reifel, Stuart; Keating, Elizabeth; Kim, Su YeongThe present study attempts to further our understanding of peer exclusion in young children’s social interactions by answering the question, “What are the motivating factors behind children’s usage of exclusion.” Exclusion is very common amongst young children (Corsaro, 1985; Fanger, Frankel & Hazen, 2012), but can also cause harm to the victims (Juvonen & Gross, 2005; MacDonald, Kingsbury & Shaw, 2005). This study used modified grounded theory to examine data collected on the exclusionary behavior of 43 children (mean age 61 months). Extensive data on all incidents of peer exclusion occurring amongst the children, including audio recordings, as well as interviews on children’s relationships and social status were used. Results indicated that some exclusion is perpetrated by a particular child if they want be in control of a social situation or to help them be powerful or high status. An entirely different type of exclusion is the exclusionary behavior that occurs for social reasons; either to help a friendship or to support a group identity. Exclusion is sometimes simply the result of the particular context surrounding the interaction: either some aspect of the children’s school environment leads to exclusion, the exclusion has become an ongoing pattern for the children or the exclusion is perpetrated to protect the children’s play. Exclusion is also sometimes the result of the excludee’s behavior—either something they did immediately prior to the incident caused them to be excluded or the way they behave, in general, contributes to them being a target of exclusion. Finally, it appears that the overall social culture of a particular classroom or specific peer group can, itself, contribute to the frequency with which children use exclusion. Typically, exclusion occurs for a combination of these reasons and only rarely does an incident of exclusion have only one cause. Implications of these findings for future research as well as practical applications and interventions are discussed.Item What stands in the way of the transition to marriage among unmarried, new parents?(2011-05) Melz, Heidi Marie; Osborne, Cynthia Anne, 1969-; Anderson, Edward Robert; Raley, Kelly; Kim, Su Yeong; Gleason, MarciThis study examines the transition to marriage among low-income urban mothers and fathers who are unmarried and have a newborn baby together. The study contributes to an emerging body of research that explores the concept of obstacles to marriage by testing whether obstacles to marriage operate in the way that the descriptive literature has proposed: by standing in the way of loving and committed couples who might otherwise make a smooth transition to marriage. Using survival analysis techniques and data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, and introducing a new measure, the Headed to Marriage Index, the study tests the influence that three categories of determinants of marriage — relationship quality, investment in the relationship, and guiding values and beliefs — have on how long couples with a newborn remain unmarried to each other. It also determines whether and how the association between these determinants of marriage and time to marriage is affected by the presence of three obstacles to marriage: low education, poverty, and multiple partner fertility. Results show that the Headed to Marriage Index can be used to estimate hazard of marriage among these couples, and that as a predictor of marriage behavior, this simple index performs nearly as well as the individual components that it comprises. Results also show that low education, being in poverty, and having multiple partner fertility are formidable obstacles that might help to explain why some new parents never marry each other, even though they report wanting to. Finally, interaction terms using the Headed to Marriage Index and each of the three obstacles to marriage test the hypothesis that the extent to which these obstacles to marriage matter might differ depending a couple’s score on the Headed to Marriage Index. The results provided evidence that poverty is an obstacle to marriage for couples at all levels of the Headed to Marriage Index, but that its effect grows stronger as HMI score increases. Poverty is a significant barrier to marriage for those who are otherwise most prepared and oriented toward marriage.