Su Yeong Kim: Developmental Research

By Su Yeong Kim Professor, Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin How Culture Adaptation Influences Identity, Behavior and Success The fact that adolescents of migrant families have to move between two cultures can be a challenge and an opportunity simultaneously. The Mexican-origin youth in the United States are mostly anchored between maintaining the heritage culture as practiced by the parents to other contemporary American culture that surrounds them.  But what effect do these cultural identity issues have on their mental health, academic performance, and developmental dynamics over time? A longitudinal study conducted by Jinjin Yan, Lester Sim, Seth J. Schwartz, Yishan Shen, Deborah Parra-Medina, Su Yeong Kim , published in New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development illuminates this question by tracing the patterns of acculturation among Mexican-origin adolescents in families who immigrated to the United States. Findings of the research...

By Dr. Su Yeong Kim and Colleagues First published in the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology Introduction: Why It Matters In the U.S. today, a quarter of all the children are being reared in immigrant families. By 2050, that ratio will be one in three. Kids from Asian, Latino, etc., communities are the overwhelming majority of that group. Here, in this contemporary review, we will be discussing how cultural as well as structural factors, ranging from discrimination to parenting techniques , decide the mental health of immigrant children. A Theory of Well-being in Humans Here we present an informative model in which transcultural (universal) and culture-related (minority-related) sources of stress interact with parenting, community settings, and adolescent development to influence mental health outcomes. Main Takeaways 1. Children of Immigrants Experience Two Worlds of Stress These transcultural stressors are poverty and area disadvantage. Culture-specific sources of distress are dis...

  By Dr. Su Yeong Kim Professor, Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin Rethinking the Acculturation Gap: Su Yeong Kim Highlights Strengths in Mexican-Origin Families Much of the prior research on the “acculturation gap” has relied upon what scholars call a deficit perspective, focusing on how mismatches between parents’ and children’s levels of cultural adaptation generate conflict and predict negative outcomes such as depression or poor academic performance. While these findings are valuable, they leave out an equally important question: Can cultural mismatches also generate positive outcomes for immigrant families? Our study, published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2022) , takes a strengths-based approach to explore precisely this question. We examined how mother-adolescent cultural adaptation mis/matches across four key domains, acculturation (U.S. orientation), enculturation (heritage cultural orientation), English proficiency, and Sp...

  Understanding the Family Context: Su Yeong Kim’s Insights on Parenting Perceptions and Youth Well-Being In immigrant families, the parent-child relationship is uniquely shaped by cultural and linguistic factors that influence adolescent development and emotional well-being. One critical but less explored family dynamic is the discrepancy in how mothers and adolescents perceive parenting behaviors such as warmth monitoring and reasoning. These differences in perceptions are not mere misunderstandings but have profound implications for adolescent mental health outcomes. A recent study published in the  Journal of Youth and Adolescence  (2023) investigates this phenomenon within Mexican-origin immigrant families, a growing and vital population in the U.S. The research sheds light on how perceived parenting discrepancies relate to adolescents’ internalizing symptoms such as anxiety and depression through the mediating role of language brokering experiences. What Is Language...