earticle

영어

This study examined the interactional relationship between possessing a sense of community and multicultural acceptance among Korean youth by utilizing data from a Korea Child and Youth Panel Survey using autoregressive and cross-lagged modeling. The cohort from 2011 to 2013 used in this study consisted of 2,280 middle school students. The results of the study are as follows: The autoregressive effects of having a sense of community and multicultural acceptance appeared stable. However, the cross-lagged effects between having a sense of community and multicultural acceptance were different. Only the cross-lagged causal effect of multicultural acceptance on sense of community was significant. It shows that multicultural acceptance had a significant influence on developing a sense of community among Korean youth. Consequently, multicultural acceptance is shown to be an influential factor in evolving a sense of community. Based on such findings, schools should play a key role of developing multicultural acceptance among students since Korean youth spend most of their time in school. Suggestions for future studies are also discussed.