Abstract

This study examines factors influencing stress and life-satisfaction level of urban and rural students. A total of 5,504 grade eight and nine students living in five provinces completed a questionnaire that assessed their psychological functioning, and the of influence family, school, friends, and Korean society have on their mental health. To assess adolescents' psychological functioning, the following aspects were assessed: self-efficacy, attributional style, achievement motivation, academic aspiration, academic grade, extra-curricular activities, problem behavior, and delinquent behavior. To assess the role of family, parental socio-economic status, academic pressure, and social support received from parents were measured. To assess the role of the school environment, school ethos and social support received from teachers were measured. In addition, social support received from friends and perception of Korean society were also measured. Overall, the results indicated that relational efficacy was the most important factor affecting overall life-satisfaction. For familial life-satisfaction, those students, who had higher familial life satisfaction scores, had higher scores on parental social support and lower scores on delinquent behavior. Those students, who had higher school satisfaction scores, had higher scores on social support received from teachers and academic grade. For psychological stress level, it was positively correlated with problem behaviors and perception of Korean society as unjust. Comparing urban and rural students, a different pattern of results was obtained. Urban students had higher scores on self-efficacy subscales, academic aspiration, and participated in healthy extra-curricular activities. They had lower scores on delinquent behavior and stress level. For urban students, stress was correlated with lower self-assertive efficacy, father's social support, and higher fate attribution. For rural students, stress was correlated with lower relational efficacy and higher luck attribution. Finally, a different pattern of results were obtained in terms of the influence of family, school, and society. Detailed analysis and discussion of these results are presented.