Research project The relevance of the school for young people’s psychological health
The school provides an important arena for the promotion of public health in the younger part of the population. In addition to being a work environment for educational training, the school is a social arena where the training and practicing of social relations takes place.
The circumstances under which young people work and socialize in school may be of crucial importance for their psychological health – an issue of growing concern in Sweden.
In this research programme different aspects of the school will be evaluated with regard to their impact on psychological and psychosomatic health problems. These aspects include school performance, the burden of demands, scope of control, intrinsic effort and perceived rewards in combination with social support and individual coping strategies. They also include the individual’s social status or popularity in the school class and experiences of harassments or bullying.
Project description
The student’s wider environment, such as the situation and the resources of the family, will be taken into consideration too, since it is assumed to affect not only young people’s health per se but also their situation in school. In addition, the pervasive health difference between girls and boys means that gender has to be incorporated and visualized in all stages of analysis.
The situation in school will primarily be explored as a health determinant during adolescence, but will also be considered in a more long-term perspective. Finally, school effects may be due to factors operating at both the individual and the contextual level, and will be investigated accordingly. The research group is composed of researchers in sociology, psychology and medicine. By analysing large-sized data materials, and by collecting new data on markers of stress and in-dept information on social relations in school, we aim to increase the knowledge in this research area.
Project members
Project managers
Viveca Östberg
Professor
Members
Sara Brolin Låftman
Director of studies doctoral level/Senior Lecturer
Lisa Folkesson Hellstadius
Project member
Anders Hjern
Guest Researcher
Petra Lindfors
Professor
Bitte Modin
Professor
