The influence of adolescent physical abuse on school adjustment in South Korea: The mediating effects of perceived parenting types

Abstract

The present study examined whether adolescents' perceptions of parenting behavior mediated the link between physical abuse and school adjustment in South Korea. Additionally, we investigated adolescents' perceptions of their parents' acceptance as a potential protective factor of the relation between physical abuse and school adjustment. Participants included 1354 South Korean adolescents from 26 schools in a metropolitan area of Seoul. Structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression analyses were conducted. Our results suggested that the perceived acceptance fully mediated the association between physical abuse and school adjustment. Moreover, the negative association between physical abuse and school adjustment is likely to be less strong for adolescents with high perceived acceptance than those with low perceived acceptance. These findings highlight the importance of adolescents' perceptions of parenting in understanding how and when physical abuse affects their school adjustment in South Korea. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.