The mental health of adolescents in England: How does it vary during their time at school?

The wellbeing of young people has become an important education policy issue, with suggestions that mental health problems amongst young people have increased in recent years. Experiences at school are thought to be a key factor contributing to mental ill-health amongst adolescents. Yet surprisingly, little is known about how mental health outcomes vary across school year groups, independent of the effects of age. This article contributes new evidence on this issue, drawing upon large-scale health data from England. We find substantial growth in mental health problems as young people progress through secondary school. Yet this seems to be driven by the effects of age, rather than due to movement into more senior school year groups. We consequently conclude that evidence of a direct link between school year group and young people’s mental health remains relatively weak.     

‘Doing well’ and ‘being well’—secondary school teachers’ perspectives

The mental health and wellbeing of young people is increasingly a concern in schools. This study explores how English secondary school teachers perceive and engage with the concept of wellbeing. By asking teachers to reflect on their practice, we can draw out their relational experience and knowledge about wellbeing in the classroom. Twenty teachers were interviewed about their practice in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and during the academic year 2020–21. Reflexive thematic analysis reveals the challenges experienced by teachers. Specifically, we find a perceived role conflict for teachers between giving care and purveying knowledge. We draw on recent policy research and the work of Nel Noddings to account for this conflict in terms of conceptualisations of teaching practice and purpose. We illustrate how an emphasis within schools on ‘doing well’ academically undermines and marginalises a more holistic sense of ‘being well’, which contributes to a set of strains on teachers personally, professionally and relationally in terms of their interactions with students and colleagues. We propose that ‘doing well’ arises out of ‘being well’, rather than the converse, and should hence be an educational policy priority. Finally, we offer implications for how wellbeing may be woven into school culture.     

Contribution of the doctoral education environment to PhD candidates’ mental health problems: a scoping review

ABSTRACT

Recent research into the mental health of PhD candidates suggests that their high levels of stress could be caused in part or exacerbated by aspects of the doctoral education environment. However, the particulars of this environment have not been explored in consistent enough ways to provide a clear way forward for universities to respond to this issue. This article presents a systematic scoping review of the recent literature on this topic with the aims of collecting and consolidating the heterogeneous range of findings therein and providing a framework to coordinate further research and inform intervention design. Factors shown by the literature to contribute to stress in doctoral settings are presented, including problems in the supervisory relationship, lack of transparency of university processes, workload, role conflict, financial insecurity and uncertain career prospects. Analysis of the review sample indicates four main themes in this body of literature: shifting ideas about the range of environmental stressors and the relationships between them, a paucity of trialled interventions that target the range of known stressors, a lack of standardisation in instruments used for capturing the effects of stressors and evaluating interventions and finally, a need for comprehensive, agreed upon typologies – to integrate what is known about the issue and prioritise interventions. This article proposes guidelines to address these deficiencies, based on an ecological understanding of the doctoral research setting.     

A critical consideration of ‘mental health and wellbeing’ in education: Thinking about school aims in terms of wellbeing

This paper examines ideas about mental health, wellbeing and school education to illustrate important issues in the relationship between mental health and education. The Covid crisis has amplified the pre-existing mental health problems of children and young people in England and recognition of the opportunities in schools to address these. The paper gives an overview of child and adolescent mental health services and how they position the role of schools. It examines prominent concepts of mental health and their relationship to wellbeing, setting this in a discussion of ‘mentally healthy’ schools, mental health in special educational needs and whole-school approaches. This analysis shows how the relationship between mental health and wellbeing has not been adequately worked out, using this as the basis for arguing for the dual-factor mental health model which separates mental illness/disorder from wellbeing as two related dimensions. The paper then translates the dual-factor model into a two-dimensional framework that represents the distinctive but related aims of school education (wellbeing promotion) and mental health services (preventing, coping, helping mental health difficulties). This framework involves a complex conception of wellbeing, with schools playing an important role in promoting wellbeing (beyond emotional wellbeing), tiered models and establishing school-wide social emotional learning. It is about a whole-school curriculum approach that involves considering what is to be learned and how it is taught. It contributes to a more nuanced concept of wellbeing that has a place for meaningful learning and challenge.     

Young people’s mental health: Exploring the gap between expectation and experience

ABSTRACT

Background

The proportion of young people suffering from poor mental health is on the increase, including in Scandinavian countries. This increase seems paradoxical, as Scandinavian countries are among those with the lowest degree of material deprivation, economic inequality, and social exclusion.     

我国心理健康研究的现状、热点与发展趋势

目前,心理健康研究呈现出对象多元化、方法多样化、内容丰富化的特点,心理障碍的神经机制研究、心身交互作用的机制研究、药物与网络成瘾的机制研究、心理健康服务体系的机制研究成为热点。从我国国民心理健康研究的状况来看,其研究主要包括独生子女的心理健康问题、学生群体的心理健康问题、特殊群体的心理健康问题、职业群体的心理健康问题以及网民群体的心理健康问题五个方面。随着我国心理健康研究的不断深化,也给学校心理健康教育带来了诸多启示:完善筛查机制,提高心理问题的甄别率;采用多种干预方法,促进学生全面健康发展;提供多方保障,提高学校心理健康服务体系的服务质量。     

班级心理健康教育刍议

班级心理健康教育模式的提出,有助于推广学校心理健康教育工作,扩大其教育规模：有助于提升学校心理健康教育的目标;有助于形成与现代班级授课制相协调的学校心理健康教育组织管理系统。班级心理健康教育的途径主要有班集体建设、班级教学、班级管理、班级活动、班级文化和班级教育合力。