A Structural Analysis of Parents' Parenting Attitudes, Peer Attachment, and Self-esteem Influencing Middle School Students' Levels of Depression
AUTHOR : 문은식
INFORMATION : page. 23~36 / 2014 Vol.21 No.2
ABSTRACT
The main purpose of this study was to investigate the structural relationships between perceived parents'
parenting attitudes, attachment to peers, self-esteem, and depression levels in middle school students. Data
were harvested from the Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey 2010, and were analyzed by means of
structural equation modeling (SEM). The results indicated that the model was appropriate in terms of
goodness of fit and significant path based on the validation procedure. The results of the study were as
follows: First, two exogenous (parenting attitudes, peer attachment) and one endogenous (self-esteem)
variables had direct and indirect influences on middle school students' depression levels via three
pathways, and the predictive power for the total variance of depression was 65%. Additionally, their
self-esteem had a full mediating effect on the relationship between parents' parenting styles, peer
attachment, and levels of depression. Second, for the total effect, the most contributive variable to their
depression was self-esteem. The next most influential contributive variables were parenting attitudes and
peer attachment. These findings will provide a basic framework for the structural understanding of middle
school students' depression, and for the development of the intervention strategies to cope with their
depression.