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This study examined the mediating effects of self-esteem and sense of community on the relationships among culture and arts education, academic achievement, and adolescents’ life satisfaction. Data were collected and analyzed from a sample of 560 adolescents who responded to an online survey among the adolescents who participated in the CJ Welfare Foundation’s Culture and Arts Education Program in 2022, and the results are as follows. First, culture and arts education and academic achievement were found to have a positive impact on life satisfaction when no mediating variables were introduced. Second, culture and arts education had a positive impact on both self-esteem and sense of community, but academic achievement had a positive impact on self-esteem only. Third, both self-esteem and sense of community had a positive impact on life satisfaction. When they were introduced as mediating variables, the relationships among culture and arts education, academic achievement, and life satisfaction became insignificant, thus confirming the full mediation of self-esteem and sense of community in the relationships among culture and arts education, academic achievement, and life satisfaction. Fourth, the total indirect effect of arts and culture education on life satisfaction through self-esteem and sense of community was greater than that of academic achievement. In addition, the individual indirect effect of self-esteem was greater than that of sense of community in the relationships among arts and culture education, academic achievement, and life satisfaction. Based on these research findings, suggestions were made regarding ways to promote cultural and arts education as a means to enhance the life satisfaction of adolescents.
Kang et al. (Sun,) studied this question.