The Impact of Multicultural Policy Participation on Affective and Cognitive Learning Abilities of Multicultural Adolescents

Multicultural policies encompass various forms of emotional, academic, and financial support, but empirical studies on their effectiveness are limited. This study aims to assess the impact of multicultural policies on learning abilities by analyzing data from the “Multicultural Adolescents Panel Study” (MAPS), which tracked 1,295 multicultural adolescents from 2012 to 2016. The results indicate that participation in multicultural policies is positively associated with affective learning abilities, specifically learning attitudes, and this relationship is statistically significant. Analysis by policy content shows that emotional support policies have a positive and statistically significant relationship with learning attitudes. Additionally, participation in multicultural policies has a statistically significant positive relationship with cognitive learning abilities, specifically school grades. However, analysis by policy content did not show statistically significant relationships. This confirms that emotional support policies, such as cultural experiences and psychological adaptation programs, positively influence the learning attitudes of multicultural adolescents. Furthermore, social support, including the Korean language proficiency of foreign-born parents, teacher support, parental support, and peer support, was found to positively impact the learning abilities of multicultural adolescents. This highlights the necessity for policy support that strengthens the social support capacity of multicultural adolescents.