Lifestyles, Informal Controls, and Youth Victimization Risk in South Korea and the United States

Abstract

Support has been offered for the relevance of daily activities and pro-social networks for shaping victimization odds among adolescents, but cross-cultural analyses of these effects have yet to be examined. The study presented here examined victimization among middle- and high school students from SK (n = 3343) and the US (n = 4990). Personal victimizations (bullying, physical assaults, and threats) were examined. Youth activities included participation in sports, school clubs, non-school clubs, and employment in part-time jobs. A youth’s perceptions of friends and of teachers’ attachments to students were also examined, possibly influencing guardianship and vulnerability to victimization. Findings revealed inverse effects of school athletics and positive effects of non-school club participation and part-time jobs on victimization risks in both countries. Perceptions of stronger attachments to friends and between teachers and students were also associated with lower victimization risks in the US. Common themes in findings across the two countries are identified but with important caveats regarding our inability to make direct comparisons in model estimates between the samples. Nonetheless, these themes should help guide hypotheses in future research capable of making direct comparisons.