Acculturative Stress and Coping: Gender Differences Among Korean and Korean American University Students

In this study we examined acculturative stress and coping among 86 students of Korean heritage at an American university. Participants indicated their stress levels on 3 scales of cultural adaptation: discrimination, language and cultural ties, and social distance. Findings show that self-identified Korean students displayed higher levels of acculturative stress than Korean Americans on most measures. In particular, Korean males experienced the greatest amount of general acculturative stress overall, especially with regard to language and cultural ties and to discrimination. Gender differences showed that women used collectivistic responses in coping with acculturative stress. Case studies were also conducted with 5 participants to enrich the quantitative findings. Using quantitative and qualitative data from the case studies, we used cultural explanations of traditional gender roles to understand our findings. Implications for university counselors who work with international students from South Korea are addressed.