The purpose of this study is to test the structural relationship among early adolescents’ perceptions of social support (parental, teacher, and peer support), self-esteem, and academic engagement. For this purpose, a multi-group structural equation modeling was applied to the 2 wave of the Korean Children & Youth Panel Survey 2018 (KCYPS 2018) data sets (5th graders, n=2,471 and 8th graders, n=2,590). Results are as follows. For both elementary and middle school students, students’ perception of parental support had a significant positive effect on academic engagement by mediating self-esteem. Also, students’ perception of teacher support had a direct effect on academic engagement. Moreover, students’ perception of peer support had a significant positive effect on academic engagement by mediating self-esteem. In addition, for middle school students only, students’ perception of teacher support had a both significant direct effect as well as indirect effect by mediating self-esteem on academic engagement. While middle school students’ perception of peer support had a negative effect on academic engagement, it had a significant indirect effect on high academic engagement through self-esteem as a mediator. Based on the results of the study, implications to improve the academic engagement of early adolescents and suggestions for future research are discussed.