Social-Emotional Resilience

Our lab advocates for a dual-factor (complete mental health) model, supporting a balanced approach of promoting strengths that may serve as protective factors as well as treating distress. Results of our studies in complete mental health screening a) supported the combined use of emotional and behavioral risk and strength screeners, as it better predicted children’s subjective well-being than one approach alone (Kim et al., 2014), b) provided professionals with empirical methods to evaluate the balance of children’s distress and strength (Kim et al., 2018; 2017), and c) examined the relations between youths’ complete mental health and school connectedness (Kim et al., 2019). We are currently collecting data to identify the moderating effect of complete mental health on the relation between children's loneliness and school adjustment. Furthermore, our lab is currently implementing a school-based mentoring program, Check, Connect, & Respect (CCR), with an aim of improving school engagement and resilience among underrepresented youths at local middle and high schools.​​

Our lab research has been both collaborative and interdisciplinary within and across countries, publishing peer-reviewed articles on culture-specific predictors of youths’ overall well-being such as bullying, video games, exercise, and body dissatisfaction (e.g., You et al., 2018; Lim et al., 2017). We are currently developing cross-cultural studies to examine cultural differences and similarities in understanding the well-being of students and teachers across nations. As part of the efforts, we are planning to develop and validate a psychological measure that assesses school connectedness among teachers.

We are developing a project to examine the cultural mismatch in Korean newcomer immigrant adolescents' (NIAs) experience and perception of social-emotional learning (SEL) norms and practices between home and school, and how it affects their school adjustment. When schools emphasize SEL values that differ from students’ cultural values, it may exacerbate inequities for those whose cultural values do not align with the U.S. school system (Lorenc et al., 2012). Therefore, it is essential to explore different SEL values held by minoritized groups to empower them and establish a framework that embraces their SEL skills and practices. This study’s findings will encourage schools to critically assess whether their structural norms and practices uplift the strengths and assets of minoritized students, especially Asian NIAs, and examine the SEL lens they use to understand students' social and emotional competence. The findings will aid in discovering more inclusive ways to conceptualize SEL and shape SEL policies and practices.

Our lab aims to gain a more nuanced understanding of the social-emotional well-being of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) K-12 students. In partnership with a school district in Texas, we are beginning a project to run focus groups with teachers and parents of newcomer immigrant students from Central America to understand cultural disparities in family engagement. The overarching goal is to spotlight the voices of immigrant youth, families, and educators and provide actionable guidance to schools on inclusive social-emotional practices.