It is well established that expatriates can experience a wide range of difficulties in terms of their socio-psychological, emotional adjustments, especially while adjusting to a new culture and country. However, not much research has been completed on expatriate families facing problems in their host country. How expatriate family members go about adjusting is very important, since it directly impacts the work performance of expatriates at their companies. Korean parents especially place importance on the education of their children and, in fact, many them are willing to sacrifice their lives to improve their children's education. In this paper, the school life adjustments made by children of Korean expatriates is investigated.
The research was designed to incorporate the two major theoretical approaches to the study of cross-cultural adaptation. With respect to predictive models of cultural adaptation, the data did not corroborate the distinction of cultural and gender differences. Overall, Korean expatriate children had experienced well-adjusted school lives abroad. These expatriate children perceived themselves to be well-adjusted when looking at language, class atmosphere or in their relationship with peers in different cultures.