Well-being at School E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: ISTE Consignment
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 581

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

In recent decades, children’s well-being, particularly at school, has become a major political and academic issue that has gained importance both in public policy and in the social sciences.

Well-being at School uncovers and discusses the different ways in which school well-being has been defined and evaluated, by outlining the international and interdisciplinary state of the art. It presents recent and diversified empirical evidence in different European and non-European countries, which bring together perspectives that have often been arbitrarily and artificially opposed in the literature: objective well-being versus subjective well-being; adult-centered perspective versus child-centered perspective; and analysis of family determinants versus analysis of school determinants of child well-being.

This book’s originality lies in simultaneously considering the multiple dimensions of children’s well-being at school and understanding how these different determinants interact and combine, depending on the (geographical, social and family) contexts in which the children live.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART 1: Well-being and Ill-being from Public Policies’ Perspectives

1 The Impact of a “Crisis” of Well-being on Goals and Practices in the British Educational System

1.1. Introduction

1.2. The cultural turn toward psychological vulnerability

1.3. Changing the human and curriculum subject of education

1.4. Problems with the evidence-base

1.5. Educational alternatives to well-being

1.6. Conclusion

1.7. References

2 New Zealand: Educational Inequality in a High-performing System

2.1. Well-being

2.2. Well-being and schools

2.3. New Zealand: A brief history

2.4. The contemporary scene

2.5. “Te Kotahitanga”

2.6. The Covid-19 pandemic

2.7. Conclusion

2.8. References

3 Is Early Childhood Education Part of the Solution to Inequalities, or is it Part of the Problem?

3.1. Introduction: from outcomes to opportunities

3.2. Quality and beyond

3.3. Moderate quality

3.4. Unequal access

3.5. Discussion: a remarkable paradox

3.6. References

PART 2: Family–School Relationships and Children’s Well-being

4 The Conditions for Effective Parental Involvement at School

4.1. Families who anticipate difficulties

4.2. Problem-solving families

4.3. Powerless families

4.4. Conclusion

4.5. References

5 School, Peers and Parental Expectations: Understanding “Ill-being” at School

5.1. Survey method

5.2. Areas of differentiation in subjective school experience

5.3. Characterizing student experience profiles

5.4. Difficulty at school and perceived family expectations of schooling

5.5. School ill-being and the configuration of social bonds

5.6. Conclusion

5.7. References

5.7. Appendices

6 “Well-being” in Harmony with “Performance”: Understanding Parental Choice of Montessori Private Schooling

6.1. Introduction

6.2. Understanding parental rejection of “mainstream” schools

6.3. Understanding the refusal of “mainstream” schools

6.4. What kind of individualization are Montessorian parents looking for their children?

6.5. Conclusion: interpreting the relationship between “well-being” and performance in early childhood

6.6. References

PART 3: School Climate and Children’s Well-being at School

7 Unequal Impact of School-related Factors on Low Levels of Subjective Well-being Among Students in France, the UK and Portugal

7.1. Introduction: from well-being to ill-being and back again

7.2. Data and methods

7.3. Findings

7.4. Discussion

7.5. Conclusion

7.6. References

7.7. Appendices

8 Building Stronger Student–Teacher Relationships to Improve Youth Opportunities and Well-being

8.1. Key terms and concepts

8.2. Why STRs matter

8.3. Group variations in STRs

8.4. Improving STRs, enhancing opportunities and well-being

8.5. Putting relationships first

8.6. Conclusion

8.7. References

9 Trends in Teenage Mental Health and Well-being: Parents, Peers and Poverty Shame

9.1. Introduction

9.2. Measure

9.3. Discussion of findings and conclusions

9.4. Final thoughts

9.5. References

9.6. Appendix

PART 4: Well-being and Ill-being from Children’s Perspectives

10 Well-being, Recognition and Participation: The Challenge for Schools

10.1. Introduction

10.2. “Improving approaches to well-being in schools: What role does recognition play?”

10.3. “Improving well-being through student participation at school”

10.4. Acknowledgments

10.5. References

11 Re-imagining Schooling from the Perspectives of Marginalized Children and Young People: Balancing Children’s Rights and Rights Claims Alongside the Expectations of Parents and Governments

11.1. Introduction

11.2. Context

11.3. Marginalized children and young people’s aspirations for well-being in education

11.4. Some conclusions

11.5. References

List of Authors

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Introduction

Table I.1. Types of interactions between social contexts and school’s experien...

Chapter 5

Table 5.1. School subjective experience profiles

Chapter 7

Table 7.1. Level of overall subjective well-being and well-being at school acc...

Table 7.2. Low level of subjective well-being according to social background f...

Table 7.3. Multi-level logistic regressions on the fact of having a low level...

Chapter 9

Table 9.1. Main effects for gender and age on well-being for 16- to 21-year-ol...

Table 9.2. Multiple linear regression, standardized B (SE) for 10- to 15-year-...

Table 9.3. Multiple linear regression, standardized B (SE) for 16- to 21-year-...

Table 9.4. ANOVA: “Are you embarrassed because of low income?” by gender for 1...

Table 9.5. ANOVA: “Felt small by low income” by gender for 16- to 21-year-olds...

List of Illustrations

Chapter 10

Figure 10.1. How recognition mediates the relationship between student partici...

Guide

Cover Page

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Begin Reading

List of Authors

Index

WILEY END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT

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SCIENCES

Education and Training,Field Director – Jean-Marc Labat

Education and Society,Subject Heads – Géraldine Farges and Xavier Pons

Well-being at School

A Social Problem

Coordinated by

Claude Martin

Kevin Diter

First published 2024 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:

ISTE Ltd27-37 St George’s RoadLondon SW19 4EUUK

www.iste.co.uk

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030USA

www.wiley.com

© ISTE Ltd 2024The rights of Claude Martin and Kevin Diter to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s), contributor(s) or editor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of ISTE Group.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024943420

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA CIP record for this book is available from the British LibraryISBN 978-1-78945-217-4

ERC code:SH3 The Social World and Its Diversity SH3_11 Social aspects of teaching and learning, curriculum studies, education and educational policies

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the management and research team at Caisse nationale des allocations familiales (CNAF) for their support of the “Childhood, Well-being and Parenting” research Chair, which organized the series of seminars that resulted in this collective work. We would also like to thank the École des hautes études en santé publique (EHESP) for hosting the Chair. This book would not have been possible without the support of our colleagues Julia Buzaud and Zoé Perron. Lastly, we would like to thank the editors of the collection for publishing our manuscript.

Introduction

Kevin DITER1 and Claude MARTIN2

1Clersé, UMR 8019, CNRS, University of Lille, France

2Arènes, UMR 6051, CNRS, EHESP, University of Rennes, France

At the end of the 20th century, the notion of well-being became increasingly popular in public debate, particularly in criticism of GDP as a hegemonic measure of nations’ development (the “go beyond the GDP” movement; D’Ambrioso 2018). Used by international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) or the Organization for Economic and Social Development (OECD), well-being has also been the subject of considerable scientific debate, particularly concerning its measurement (Perron et al. 2019).

Well-being is a broad, polysemous concept that can cover a complex range of dimensions. Depending on the nature of research, it may refer to material comfort, good health, emotional stability, the well-being of a society as a whole, confidence in institutions, or sometimes all of these at once. The question is, at what level and with what emphasis are these different aspects articulated? How does the idea of well-being differ from relatively similar notions, such as happiness, joy, a good quality of life, or a general feeling of satisfaction with our life? Should well-being be analyzed from an individual or collective perspective? Should we try to understand it through quantitative data (such as indicators of living conditions, of wealth, or the health status of populations), or qualitatively by focusing on its subjective aspects (like feelings or self-assessments of the sense of well-being, happiness or satisfaction with our own life)? Should we also distinguish between well-being at different ages? Can it be measured in the same way for adults and children? There is no single, unanimous answer to these questions. They are still at the heart of many rich debates between, on the one hand, advocates of objective, material and more “collective” approaches to well-being; and, on the other hand, those who favor subjective and more “individual” approaches based on individual perception (Veenhoven 2007, 2009; Voukelatou et al. 2021).

In recent decades, child well-being has become a key political and academic issue that has gained importance both in public policy and in the social sciences. It has historically been associated with a number of social and political variables: parenting practices and parental investment; quality of home life; the development of digital tools; and, crucially, child school experiences, which form the core of children’s daily lives. Initially defined negatively – that is, as an absence of health problems, illness, or feelings of failure or low self-esteem – well-being has been viewed as a more positive concept.

This more positive definition has also attempted to take better account of the child not just as an adult in the making, but as a being “in the present” with needs and expectations different from those of an adult, in light of the advances and findings of the new sociology of childhood (James and Prout 1990; Corsaro 2014). In this Introduction, we will review the questions raised by the issue of well-being at school, before presenting this book’s contribution to understand it.

The role of school

The literature on the determinants of the subjective well-being (SWB) of children and adolescents emphasizes the central role played by schools, whether by analyzing children’s relationships with various professionals, particularly teachers (teacher effect), the quality of peer relationships (bullying effect), or by exploring the “school climate,” a particularly rich and promising area of research, whose contours and definitions have evolved over time.

The importance of strong student–teacher relationships

A large body of literature is devoted to student–teacher relationships and has shown that the quality and frequency of these relationships not only have a positive impact on a child’s academic success and development, but also on their self-esteem and level of well-being at school (and in general). In their systematic literature review, Berkowitz et al. (2017) and Quin (2017) underscore that positive relationships or a good climate of relationships between students and teachers are associated with better academic results and success, and, above all, that they can mitigate school inequalities and the strong association between working classes and academic failure, in particular by promoting self-esteem and attachment to school, its challenges and its rules. In this respect, the authors point out that positive student–teacher relationships – characterized by benevolence and an absence of conflict – reduce the use of exclusionary disciplinary measures, and increase students’ sense of belonging at school, their pro-social behavior at school, as well as their feeling of recognition, which enhances their overall level of well-being. In particular, the effects appear to be especially positive for students living in the worst economic deprivation, and for those failing or dropping out of school.

However, numerous studies, such as those by Goddard et al. (2001, 2009) or Thrupp (1999), reveal that teachers are far from successful in establishing positive and quality relationships with all pupils. Teachers find it more difficult to engage with students from working-class backgrounds or with a migrant background, since teachers have less confidence in these students and their academic abilities, viewing them as less “teachable” and badly behaved in the classroom. These obstacles, mainly linked to the students’ social and geographic origins, also hinder the formation of good student–teacher relationships with regard to teachers’ interest in these students’ lives and well-being outside of school, their availability both academically and socially, and the social and emotional support they can give their students. This research generally calls on teachers to become more culturally aware, by learning about their students’ backgrounds, immersing themselves in their personal worlds, and actively integrating issues of race, culture and power into their teaching. Researchers also stress the need for teachers to integrate their work with broader notions of family and community, going beyond the school itself.1

The quality of peer relations

Alongside student–teacher relationships, the quality and frequency of peer relationships also play a fundamental role in children’s well-being at school, and especially in their daily lives. Several studies (Huebner 1991, 1994; Dunn 2004; Holder and Colman 2009; Goswami 2012; Moreira et al. 2021) have found that the variables associated with child well-being are similar to those that have been shown to predict adult and adolescent well-being. More specifically, they stress that children who have positive social relationships with their peers and strong friendships tend to have higher levels of SWB. These relationships offer children a stronger sense of belonging, acceptance, and emotional security, contributing to their personal growth and emotional development. Other surveys (Saklofske and Yackulic 1989; McGregor et al. 2006; Tkach and Lyubomirsky 2006) emphasize that boys and girls who behave “prosocially” or are rated as “social”, i.e., who rated highly in extraversion and agreeableness, experience greater well-being insofar as their social relationships are stronger and more intense, thus increasing both the sharing of positive social experiences and the enjoyment from these experiences.

Some researchers (Rook 1984; Antonucci et al. 1998) argue that social interactions or relationships between children should not be equated solely with social support and a factor in well-being, since they may involve conflict, envy, invasion of privacy, broken promises, or other negative aspects that do not necessarily compensate for the positive emotions they can provide, such as affection, satisfaction, joy, and contentment. For these authors, it is crucial to take negative interactions into account when studying children’s SWB, particularly the different experiences of harassment to which girls and boys may be subjected within schools.

Following this classic work, numerous surveys (Salmivalli et al. 1999; Rigby 2000, 2003; Ladd 2005; Card and Hodges 2008; Bradshaw et al. 2017) have highlighted the negative effects of bullying on children’s SWB. First, they have shown that physical and moral violence can affect the self-esteem of children who are direct victims of bullying, thereby increasing their levels of stress, anger and, ultimately, ill-being, both at school and in their everyday lives. They also highlight the fact that bullying can lead to children’s maladjustment to their environment, insofar as negative experiences at school lead them to develop an aversion to the school and its representatives, who are supposed to protect them. Finally, they reveal that situations of peer harassment, beyond psychological distress, can have physical repercussions. Girls and boys who are victims of bullying are more likely than others to develop severe physical and psychosomatic disorders, such as rashes, sore throats, anorexia or bulimia, a feeling of chest tightness, vomiting and wheezing. All in all, the negative interactions of peer harassment at school seem to have a greater impact on children’s level of well-being than positive social relationships. Not only do they drastically increase levels of stress, anxiety, depression and somatic disorders, but they also have a negative impact on children’s self-perception, their social skills and on the perception of their own place in the world – even if they have positive relationships with teachers or other children outside of school.

The school climate

A final body of research on the links between school and children’s SWB stresses the importance of the “school climate”. This term is polysemous and has vague contours that can refer to different dimensions of children’s existence or experiences, depending on the researcher and the historical and geographical contexts in which it has been studied (Benbenishty and Astor 2005; Cohen et al. 2009; Debardieux et al. 2012). Nevertheless, most researchers today agree on the same definition:

The school climate refers to the quality and way of life at school, based on a person’s understanding of their school experience. It reflects the norms, goals, values, interpersonal relationships, the teaching, learning, and management practices, and the organizational structure embedded in school life (Cohen et al. (2009), in Debarbieux (2015, p. 13)).

In other words, school climate is made up of five main elements:

the quality of relations with teachers and parents on school-related matters;

the quality of teaching and learning (including the quality of instruction, the arrangements in place aimed at personal and professional development and the degree of student participation in the organization of schooling);

the level of physical and emotional security, which is fostered by tolerance of difference, conflict resolution and the handling of bullying;

the quality of the physical environment in terms of cleanliness, available materials and extracurricular offerings;

lastly, the sense of belonging, which refers primarily to a child’s feeling of being connected to both teachers and other students, as well as the level of commitment and enthusiasm shown by both.

A great deal of research (Thapa et al. 2013; Kutsyuruba et al. 2015; Aldridge and McChesney 2018; Newland et al. 2019; Darling-Hammond and DePaoli 2020) has focused on the positive impact of one or more aspects of the school climate on child well-being. Regardless of the indicators used, they all emphasize that the school climate has an impact on student motivation, commitment, academic performance and school satisfaction, all of which are factors linked to overall SWB. However, most importantly, these studies have highlighted the importance of positive relationships between children and their teachers, peers and parents, to the extent to which they connect children’s emotional and academic lives. When children feel supported and respected by adults and their peers, they are better equipped to cope with the challenges and stresses of the school environment, as well as the various challenges that they encounter in their daily lives. Conversely, unbalanced, unequal and conflictual relationships can harm children’s well-being, as they negatively impact their self-esteem, confidence and need for recognition.

While these findings seem valid for most children, some researchers (Esposito 1999; Young and Sweeting 2004; World Health Organization 2016; Diter et al. 2021) emphasize that the different variables involved in evaluating school climates do not affect children equally according to their social profile and the social contexts in which they live: girls, working-class children and children from immigrant backgrounds seem to be the most affected (positively as well as negatively) by the school climate insofar as they live in more precarious living conditions, and are more often the victims of bullying and physical and moral violence than other children.

The role of parental involvement

Beyond the school climate and experiences linked to the “student role” (“métier d’élève”), another important part of the research on children’s SWB has focused on the family, and more precisely on the role of primary socialization by parents in forming the basis for inequalities and reproducing them from generation to generation. It is particularly in the relationship between family and school that this phenomenon of reproduction has been most extensively highlighted (see, for example, Bourdieu and Passeron’s (1970) classic work for France, or the work of Reay (1998) for the UK, and Lareau (2011) for the United States).

However, beyond this initial observation of a well-established relationship between social background and school performance, due to the inequalities in capital transmitted and habitus incorporated as part of this primary socialization, many recent studies have attempted to explore the link between parental involvement, family education and support, and school performance, as well as the academic success and adaptation of the pupil more broadly. In the sociology of education, this relationship between human capital, social capital and the quality of parent–child relationships is the subject of numerous studies, including those by von Otter (2014), Von Otter and Stenberg (2015), and, for the United States, Hill and Taylor (2004), and Lee and Bowen (2006).

The literature on this subject is so abundant on an international scale that we are unable to give a systematic account of it here. As far as the English-language literature is concerned, Desforges and Abouchaar (2003) compiled a synthesis of this literature, aimed at identifying the main evidence on the relationship between parenting and pupil achievement in a 2003 report submitted to the Department for Education in England.2 They used the concept of parental involvement, which can be contrasted with social investment, and which has been widely used in academic literature on the welfare state and adopted by public policy-makers on a European and international scale (Garrizmann et al. 2022).

Desforges and Abouchaar distinguish several facets to parental involvement: good parenting at home, material conditions (in terms of a stable and secure environment), intellectual stimulation, the discussions and exchanges between parents and children, the “good” models of social and educational values proposed by parents and even parents’ aspirations regarding their children’s personal fulfillment and citizenship. Parental involvement also manifests beyond the home in parents’ interactions with the school, such as their participation in events and school life, contact with teachers and involvement in school governance.

This literature review confirms that the impact of parental involvement clearly varies according to social class, the mother’s education level, household composition and the type of family structure. It also shows that the younger the child, the stronger the parental effect. However, these authors particularly stress the following key points:

Parental involvement at home is the best predictor of children’s achievement and adjustment at school.

Parental involvement is evident in all social milieus, even if its effects vary according to social class.

Parents’ perception of their own role and their level of confidence in their ability to assume it are also determining factors.

The co-production of this trust in parent–child interactions through the adjustment of their respective expectations of the child’s future plays an important role and points to the major importance of communication between parents and children.

3

Among the literature reviewed, Schoon and Parsons (2002) tested how some children manage to succeed academically, despite unfavorable material conditions and environment. By calculating a social index (taking into account material conditions and class status) and a competence index (taking into account academic performance and behavioral dimensions), these authors identified four configurations, as shown in Table I.1.

Table I.1.Types of interactions between social contexts and school’s experiences

Social index

Bottom

Top

Competence index

Bottom

Vulnerable

Underperforming

Top

Resilient

Multiple benefits

Several of the research studies listed in Desforges and Abouchaar’s literature review, and particularly those backed up by the NELS survey mentioned above, underline the decisive nature of these shared aspirations or expectations co-produced in the parent–child dialogue. High parental expectations, which result in increased support to face child workload, and the existence of learning opportunities at home or outside school, are particularly decisive factors for learning and are likely to compensate for inequalities in material resources. Many studies therefore stress the importance of the quality of relationships and dialogue between parents and children for the success of children’s trajectories. In any case, this relational effect seems far more important than the only dialogue between parents and school.

Based on secondary processing of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey, Hartas (2015) greatly refines the findings established in Desforges and Abouchaar’s literature review by testing the model of intense parenting, which refers to a significant investment of time and money by parents for the purpose of enhancing their children’s abilities, particularly academically. While it is undeniable that progress has been made in the learning of children of new generations, thanks to the increase in parental time since the 1970s, and even to the narrowing of the gap between paternal and maternal time, Hartas highlights the importance of the quality of this parental involvement, irrespective of social background. She also reveals the different nature of this parental involvement, depending on whether or not it concerns the academic and school dimension. What her analysis shows is that while intensified parental involvement can have modest effects, including in terms of academic learning, it does not build self-esteem, agency, social skills, resilience or emotional maturity.

Once again, Hartas stresses the major importance of interaction and conversation between parents and their children to reinforce children’s learning. However, it is not so much a matter of parents helping their children with their homework, as helping young people learn more generally about the world and forge their own point of view, thanks to these non-academic exchanges; that is, interactions which do not concern school or the school experience. As she notes:

Aspects of the ‘family habitus’ that encourage dialogic interactions and intellectual conversations between parents and children were found to be more effective in sustaining parental literacy support for 15 year olds than mere school-driven parental involvement, possibly because parent-child conversations and interactions can stimulate diverse intellectual interests in children and an understanding of the world and their place in it (Hartas 2015, p. 192)4.

This analysis provides a particularly promising avenue for interpreting the French situation, which is the particular focus of this book. Although France is not one of the countries analyzed by Hartas, we shall see in several of the book’s chapters that we can extend her analysis to the French case, where it would seem that a significant part of parental involvement and parent–child interactions are geared toward school support, performance at school, extending the school climate and its tensions to the home. This culture of learning, which makes school performance the alpha and omega of parent–child interaction, could explain both reduced dialogue and under-performance in learning.

Other studies suggest that this component of the explanation should be taken into account. Napolitano et al. (2014), for example, analyze the weight of parental expectations and the difficulties experienced by the middle classes in achieving them, given the economic difficulties. The gap between parental expectations and young people’s expectations of their own future is an avenue worth exploring in a context where the generations concerned have, for the first, generally benefited from the post-war social elevator, while the second is faced with a context of weak growth, even recession and social downgrading.

This reflection on the potentially counter-performing role of parents who monitor, supervise and even over-supervise their children academically, or in their discovery of the world, has led to the development of another field of research: intensive parenting or overparenting. This research highlights the sometimes-devastating effects of parental over-investment. It is as much about the academic pressure generated by parents in their monitoring of their children’s school activity and performance, as it is the aversion to risk that leads parents to excessively control the activities, movements, social relationships and experiences of their children and teenagers. There is not enough space here to give an account of this literature as it is so abundant, especially in the fields of psychology and psychiatry (see, in particular, Barber 2001; Munich and Munich 2009; Nelson 2012; Segrin et al. 2012, 2013; Garst and Gagnon 2015; Schiffrin et al. 2015).

Book structure and contributions

This book aims to address several aspects of the global issue of child and adolescent well-being at school, articulating several of the dimensions and factors involved. It takes an international perspective, with chapters devoted to countries as diverse as the UK, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Belgium and, more broadly, Europe, while giving a central place to France, which poses a series of original questions in this respect.

In the first section, we have grouped together the authors who approach child and adolescent well-being at school from the angle of public policy, be it educational policy in the UK or New Zealand, or early childhood care policy in Europe more generally. This first section provides the reader with an overview of the issues at stake in terms of public policy, from the ways in which governments in the UK and New Zealand have responded to what has been seen as a deficit in the well-being in newer generations, to the ways in which, on a European scale, an early childcare policy has been imagined as an equalizer of inequalities and an instrument for combating child poverty, the main obstacle to the well-being of the new generations.

Kathryn Ecclestone examines the cultural shift toward “therapeutic ideas” in the UK between the 1990s and 2020, with the development of notions such as psychological vulnerability (or the “vulnerability zeitgeist”) and resilience in education. According to Ecclestone, the adoption of this lexicon is indicative of a form of moral panic about an epidemic of youth mental illness, that is, the deteriorating emotional and psychological states of children in the UK (depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide). A positive mental health policy is supposed to tackle this “epidemic” by developing children’s social and emotional learning skills and attitudes, as well as by implementing a myriad of well-being initiatives. Ecclestone approaches this conceptual and political turning point by focusing her analysis on “therapeutic cultures” and their dissemination among education and childcare professionals. She points out that these professionals are increasingly drawing on the ideas and practices dictated by these therapeutic cultures to promote children’s psychological and emotional well-being. In her view, these concepts – imported from the United States and drawn from various branches of psychology, therapy, counseling and self-help – permeate popular culture, politics, education, legal and welfare systems, institutional and everyday life. Ecclestone exposes these cultural therapeutic narratives, which accentuate the perception of human subjects as emotionally and psychologically vulnerable. More specifically, she addresses how cultural and political choices in favor of promoting vulnerability in educational settings are changing assumptions about the human subject, and discusses the question of the evidence that is defended by experts in evaluating their interventions. She concludes with a series of possible educational alternatives to these developments of well-being orientation that draw on ethical and moral understandings of well-being, as well as practical experience.

Grant Duncan questions whether well-being can be the subject of government objectives or public policies, starting with education policy. His chapter analyzes the New Zealand government’s policy since 2019 to promote student well-being and address the disparities in school performance among children from Māori and Pacific Island communities (in 2015, one in four Māori children left school without formal school qualifications), as well as experiments with schemes to give preference to teachers from these communities. Drawing on the Hegelian dialectic to address issues of education and well-being, Duncan asks whether SWB has any cross-cultural validity to the point of constituting a statistical variable with measurable determinants. He criticizes the individualistic, utilitarian and identity-based view of well-being, and defends a cultural, relational and social vision that focuses on the way in which a series of values are culturally constructed and hierarchized. As he argues, “individual liberty, for example, may be valued more or less highly than family or community belonging, according to one’s cultural norms and personal preferences”. This leads him to conclude that “[f]or the well-being of students at school, and for their development in the future, we should regard teaching and learning in terms of developing relationships, or as a dialectic of mutual and transformative recognition. That will help I argue, to avoid instrumentalism and cultural essentialism”.

Addressing the role of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) institutions and policies, Michel Vandenbroeck offers an overview of what is known about their ability to reduce the inequalities that are one of the main obstacles to children’s well-being and success at school. In particular, he looks back at the cohort studies carried out in the United States from the 1960s to the early 1980s to assess the impact of these arrangements for children from poor families, which, to put it in today’s terms, aimed to guarantee them a “better start” and evaluate the return on investment of their implementation. One of the conclusions drawn from this seminal work is that ECEC schemes represent “the greatest of equalizers”. However, despite its well-established positive effects, formal childcare has failed to stem the rise in child poverty. In his chapter, Vandenbroeck attempts to identify the necessary conditions for the success of ECEC policy by looking back at the changes that have taken place in social welfare systems over the last few decades, particularly at the European level, with the promotion of an “enabling welfare state”, notably through discussion of the different conceptions of justice conceived either in terms of equality of outcome or equality of opportunity. This assessment reveals the extent of the unfulfilled promises of ECEC policy, far from its stated aim of guaranteeing universal access to childcare. According to Vandenbroeck, in order for ECEC policy to achieve its objective of combating inequality, we must take into account three components: its quality (contrasting a meritocratic and competitive vision with one that favors the values of democracy and solidarity), its accessibility and its affordability. As Vandenbroeck points out:

This is not to say that early childhood education cannot contribute to a fairer, more equal society. Of course, it can. Especially when it is embedded into a broader political conception of a social welfare state that also invests in parental leave, gender equality, a minimum wage, and other forms of social protection.

The second section of the book shifts the focus to the French case, and takes a closer look at the environment, that is, the everyday context where children live their lives. It brings together contributions that examine the role of school–family relations on the well-being of girls and boys, both in primary and secondary school. The focus on France is particularly interesting here, as it is characterized both by a major investment of public funds in its education policy and by a level of pupil achievement far below this investment when compared on an international scale (particularly in the OECD’s PISA surveys).

In the first text, Sandrine Garcia takes an indirect look at children’s well-being at school by examining the social conditions of two of its strongest determinants: namely, parental involvement and academic success. In other words, it shows the different cultural and social forces behind effective parental involvement at school, which also contributes to a high level of satisfaction – with school and life – for girls and boys, by highlighting the social logics at the heart of a balanced form of parental involvement that is neither too full nor too light on expectations, nor too constraining from an academic point of view. After outlining the chapter’s theoretical framework and use of the Bourdieusian concept of “transmission through osmosis” – whereby middle- and upper-class children can acquire knowledge of “the legitimate culture” conducive to academic success without the need for specific, direct transmission practices, but instead by contact with or exposure to the cultural universe of their highly capital-rich parents – the author sets out to empirically describe the different forms of parental intervention in schooling. Analyzing three individual case studies of three children, Garcia aims to highlight what in the parental interventions of middle-class families favors the academic success and well-being of girls and boys. She shows that middle-class families, especially those with the most economic and cultural resources, are “proactive” in their children’s schooling: they anticipate their (academic) needs, organize their daily lives and plan extracurricular activities (including meetings with teachers). They strive to create an “enveloping” emotional and educational environment, helping to develop their children’s autonomy, establish work habits and instill in them a strong work ethic (“le gout de l’effort”). In the event of academic difficulties, they implement “catch-up strategies,” such as reading or extracurricular activities to (re)instill the pleasure of reading (and working) in their children. This support is all the more effective as it has “beneficial effects on their children’s sense of competence and self-esteem”. In the least affluent middle-class families, those closest to the working classes, parental intervention is not the same. It is characterized more by parents “handing over” their children to educational institutions or to health professionals (such as psychologists and speech therapists). Children’s difficulties at school are perceived in a fatalistic way by these parents, and so can only be managed by professionals. These parents simply make themselves available to their children, helping them on request, but do not take on a proactive role. No remedial or anticipatory strategies are put in place. In this way, the children’s difficulties are reinforced and accumulate over time, while their sense of enjoyment and self-esteem gradually disappear.

Agnès Grimault-Leprince, Lilia Le Trividic-Harrache and Rozenn Nedelec continue this exploration of school and family relationships, this time looking at the ill-being of high-school students and its various (family) determinants. Based on a quantitative survey of students from nine high schools in the Brittany region of France (n = 1,358), the authors take a close look at teenagers’ “negative school experiences”, detailing their contours, content and their various causes. While the distressing dimension of school is only one of the four school experiences of these high-school students5, it accounts for almost a quarter of the respondents – mostly girls, who are dissatisfied with their educational program, and worried with their popularity. This dimension translates into feelings of stress regarding academic results, high levels of stress and anxiety about schooling, fear of disappointing parents and teachers, and a sense of injustice. The authors show that these negative feelings are primarily due to a mismatch between the priorities of teenagers in high school (not repeating a year and making friends) and those of their parents (focused on getting good grades or being top of the class). This pressure to excel at school is all the more acute for teenagers when parents neglect the sociability aspect of their children’s high school experience. Alongside this relatively expected explanation, two other discrepancies seem to have a significant impact on the “academic hardship” experienced by young people: on the one hand, the gap between the effort put in, the time invested in studying, and the actual results, which leads to a strong sense of injustice; and, on the other, the distance between the strong desire to be popular and poor sociability (including on social networks). In other words, these discrepancies lead to frustration and mark a poor integration. Lacking protection and recognition from adults and peers, high school students develop feelings of injustice and humiliation, which results in “uncontrolled disorders” (physical and psychological). In conclusion, the authors return to the multidimensional aspect of malaise at school, reminding us of the importance of family, school and peers, as well as the need to consider the different determinants of negative high school experiences simultaneously and all together.

Ghislain Leroy and Julie Pinsolle devote their chapter to alternative schools, and, more specifically, to the various reasons why some parents prefer to enroll their child(ren) in Montessori-type schools rather than “conventional” ones. Based on a qualitative survey of a dozen families (from upwardly mobile middle- and upper-class backgrounds), the authors begin by looking “behind the scenes” at the choice of an alternative pedagogy, highlighting the various arguments given by parents to justify their refusal of a “mainstream” school. They note that parents have an unfavorable perception of “conventional” schooling, considering it to be archaic, outdated, and physically and morally violent. Not only is it said to provide an old-fashioned education based on “training” and “molding” children, but it is also said to be incapable of considering the uniqueness of boys and girls, thus generating disgust and phobias about school. Montessori schools, on the other hand, personalize children’s learning to take account of their individual desires, and, in doing so, enable them to progress at their own pace and develop their full potential. In a nutshell, they promote academic performance, while ensuring a “welcome for the child’s whole person (accueil de la personne intégrale de l’enfant)”. This child-centered approach is all the more valued because it resembles the one provided at home (mainly by the mother) and has no negative impact on their own children’s schooling. In the event of a problem (such as when a child is considered particularly difficult to manage), parents seem ready to renounce Montessorian “benevolence” and pedagogical and socio-affective personalization for a child deemed “atypical”, so as not to harm their child’s (autonomous) development. The authors conclude by underlining the “totalitarian traits of anti-authoritarian pedagogy” which, under the guise of rejecting coercion and valuing children’s interests, forces them to constantly put into words, at school and at home, their emotions, activities and relationships in order to better control and direct them.

The third section enters the school setting and looks more specifically at the (socially differentiated) way in which peer relations or student–teacher relations affect children’s level of well-being, overall and at school, and in doing so, their academic success. Despite the diverse geographical areas studied (the United States, UK, France and Portugal), the three chapters in this section underline the importance of the school climate, particularly for children from working-class backgrounds or in precarious situations. Moreover, they highlight the unequal importance of peer sociability or relationship quality, which depends on the child’s gender, social background and geographical context, thus underlining the need for a multidimensional, contextualized approach to well-being or ill-being, whether in terms of research or public policy.

The first chapter of this section, written by Kevin Diter and Claude Martin, aims to measure the effects of school determinants on adolescents’ low Overall Life Satisfaction (OLS), and, more specifically, to see which factor (or factors between the following) has the greatest effect on young people’s well-being according to the context in which they live and their social profile: the (too) intensive parental involvement in young people’s schooling, the quality of relationships with teachers, the quality of peer relationships and/or the level of integration at school. Based on a secondary analysis of the PISA 2015 survey, Diter and Martin stress that there are strong inequalities in terms of SWB. Girls and 15-year-olds from working-class backgrounds (in UK) are not only far more likely than boys and children from higher classes to report low levels of OLS, but the effects of gender and class differ across countries. OLS levels are higher in the UK than in France and Portugal, so we can see that girls and middle- and lower-class children do not appear to be unhappier than boys and upper-class children in all places and contexts. So, for example, whatever their background, French girls are less likely to have a low level of OLS than the UK boys. Similarly, working-class children in France and Portugal are less likely to report a low level of OLS than upper-class children in the UK. Second, the authors reveal that these differences (of class and gender) within the difference (between countries) also concern the nature and impact of various school factors affecting OLS levels. Not only are boys and girls not equally likely to experience factors that negatively impact their OLS levels depending on their social background and country, such as having a low sense of belonging at school, a high level of school stress or being subject to (intense) bullying by peers or teachers, but these factors do not impact as negatively on OLS levels depending on whether the young people are girls or boys, from working-class or upper-class backgrounds, or whether they attend school in France or the UK. The authors conclude that this gendered and social variability in school determinants, their number and the strength of their effects is, because of its pervasiveness, one of the reasons for the accumulation of inequalities in SWB over time and between countries.

Maia Cucchiara builds on these findings and extends the study of school-based determinants of children’s well-being by focusing on student–teacher relationships (STRs). Her chapter provides a comprehensive and detailed overview of the association between the quality of student–teacher relationships, children’s SWB and academic success. She points out that strong relationships between students and teachers (i.e. those that evoke positive emotions) have a positive effect on the development, academic success and overall well-being of both boys and girls. More specifically, she suggests, on the basis of an extensive literature review, that this association is mediated by one important factor: mutual trust between educators and their students. The better the relationship between students and teachers, the stronger the mutual trust, and the greater the cognitive, social, emotional and academic benefits for the children, especially those from low-income backgrounds. Most importantly, the author demonstrates that the quality of STRs can help reduce social and racial inequalities at school: strong personal bonds with teachers improve the school engagement of working-class, African-American and Mexican children, as well as their sense of belonging to the school and academic success. Second, Cucchiara clearly identifies the conditions for establishing good relations between students and teachers, and a sense of mutual trust. She highlights the central role played by the social profiles of children and teachers, as well as the importance of the school climate and organizational structure. In other words, she demonstrates that the quality of STRs depends not only on individual characteristics, but also (and above all) on structural factors. In this respect, she concludes by stressing that the behavior of teachers and students, as well as the quality and nature of their relationships, cannot be detached from the social, cultural and economic context in which they take place, and, in particular, from the school environment and the children’s family universe.

After highlighting the diversity of approaches and conceptions of what well-being means in the literature, Dimitra Hartas turns to the situation in the UK to look at the level of young people’s psychological and mental health well-being in relation to the way young people interact with their peers, as well as the world around them more broadly, particularly in terms of the social and economic constraints they face. Taking care not to reduce well-being to the absence of mental health problems, she also avoids the pitfalls of an individualistic, psychological approach by instead looking at mental well-being and mental health in relation to how young people interact with their parents and peers, and more extensively the world around them, and the social, economic and gender inequalities they face. As Hartas points out: “We live in an era where social problems are individualized and poverty is seen as moral failure. Some young people internalize the causes and effects of disadvantage, feeling shame for being poor”. Drawing on the UK Household Longitudinal Survey which started in 2009, Hartas presents the findings on the mental health and well-being of 10- to 15-year-olds and young people between 16 and 21. She highlights several important findings: first, the data confirm and clarifies gender inequality, with a significant gap between girls’ levels of well-being and psychological/SWB compared to those of boys. Second, communication with parents plays a major role in the mental health and well-being of these young people. Being able to talk to their parents, especially their mother, about what is worrying these young people is particularly decisive. In peer relations, the survey also clearly highlights the very negative effects of bullying, particularly verbal and symbolic violence. The author also stresses the specific difficulties of entry into adulthood for 19- to 31-year-olds in a context marked by high youth unemployment rates and increasing precariousness and poverty, as well as by a reinforcement of a discourse of responsibility, giving young people the impression that their failure is largely due to their lack of mobilization or capacities (internalizing failure). The successive economic and health crises have only amplified these negative effects, leading Hartas to defend the idea that mental health problems among young people are not just increasing, but changing in nature. To combat this, she calls for the development of a genuine “political economy of mental health” to replace within-the-individual explanations or bad parenting (which largely blame women).

The final section of the book offers an account and understanding of the notions of child well-being and ill-being from the child’s point of view. More specifically, it brings together two contributions that both aim to demonstrate the (political and scientific) value of giving a voice to children on a subject that primarily concerns them: their well-being at school.

Based on two large-scale mixed-methods studies (interviews, a corpus of local and state policies on well-being and online questionnaires) carried out in Australia, Nigel Patrick Thomas seeks to understand well-being at school from the child’s point of view, and, to a lesser extent, from the perspective of their teachers and the school administration. Not only does Thomas highlight the plural and multifaceted definitions of well-being, as well as their different components, but he also takes up a new and relatively little discussed issue in the literature on children’s well-being: the role of recognition. Using Axel Honneth’s theory, Thomas shows that the three modes of recognition – “love”, “rights”, and “solidarity” that were presented to the children as “cared for”, “respected” and “valued” – are the key determinants of their conceptualization of well-being. Specifically, he points out that the quality of student–teacher relationships is central to their recognition, and thus to children’s level of well-being at school. Children identify caring, supporting, encouraging, mentoring and respectful behaviors by teachers as helping their well-being. Adversely, children feel not listened to, treated unequally, disrespected, yelled at, forced to comply with too many rules and not liked when teachers do not display those positive behaviors. The second research continues the first one and underlines that the children’s recognition also depends on their (active) participation in school life. More precisely, he emphasizes the direct and indirect effects of children’s involvement at school on their SWB. On the one hand, children’s involvement at school has a positive effect on their quality of life by involving them directly in school life, its functioning and organization. On the other hand, it indirectly increases their recognition, which also helps increase their overall SWB. He concludes his chapter by stressing the need for schools to develop a culture of inclusion, connection and recognition that allow children to “work together” with teachers, to have their voice recognized and taken into account so that they can “having influence” and “have a say with influential people”.

Cath Larkins continues the challenge to the adult-centered view of children’s well-being (at school) begun by Thomas in the previous chapter, by exploring the perspectives of marginalized children. Based on Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum’s capability approach, she questions “the universal distinctions between children and adults” and suggests that children should be regarded as agentic and citizens as opposed to being passive, incompetent, dependent, incomplete and “not-yet-citizens”. Through a reflective analysis of eight studies she co-led, Larkins discusses six recurring themes related to education and well-being that were mentioned by the children participants: peer relationships, supportive teaching staff, respect for diversity, punishment and privacy, the school curriculum and assessment, and participation. First, she highlights that while peer relationships are crucial to children’s well-being, experiences of violence and bullying related to ethnicity, social class, disability and gender remain prevalent in school. Since teachers do not consistently intervene in this area, the formation of friendships can become extremely difficult for marginalized and victimized children, even though friendship can be a protective factor against peer violence and other negative school-related determinants. After demonstrating the importance of the impact of teachers’ behaviors on students’ well-being, as well as the need for supportive relationships – where the teachers are fair and kind, and understand students’ gender, ethnic or class identities – Larkins underlines the concerns expressed by children about unfair punishment in schools. This includes the punishment of the entire class rather than just individuals, degrading treatment such as locking children in cupboards, physical abuse or disrespecting their privacy. These actions impede children’s ability to feel positive, valued and respected, and like they are making a positive contribution to society. She also notes that, for marginalized children, it is important that there are a variety of learning pathways, which are accessible to everyone and which move away from the dominant view that all students should be tested in the same way, and that their voices are taken seriously and taken into account in designing solutions to problems in schools. Finally, Larkins recommends engaging children in public debate, working in partnership with them, and challenging the denial of structural inequalities in order to promote a new conception of social justice that is developed by children, teachers and parents alike.

Main themes and contributions

The book’s originality lies in bringing together works of different disciplinary, theoretical, and methodological perspectives that allow us to challenge and go beyond the three oppositions, which, generally speaking, tend to structure the basis of research on young people’s (subjective) well-being and its various determinants:

First, we can identify two opposing research approaches: on the one hand, there is research that places itself on the side of adults and focuses on the importance of the conditions of existence and coexistence of families and/or on the level of parental involvement with children. On the other hand, there is research that places itself on the side of children to capture the factors or constellation of family-related, school-related or friend-related factors that act most on children’s level of well-being (for a more detailed discussion of the differences between these two perspectives, see Ben-Arieh (

2005

); Bradshaw (

2019

); for a critique of the adult-centric approach, see Larkins in the book; James and Prout (

1990

)).

Second, we have the opposition between research on objective well-being and SWB. Research on objective well-being is primarily concerned with reporting on the economic, material and cultural resources of families in order to highlight the different living situations of children, being more or less privileged or more or less precarious. On the other hand, research on children’s SWB and its determinants particularly focuses on the role of the frequency and quality of the relationships between children and their loved ones or significant others. This opposition is reminiscent of the one that has long prevailed (and is no longer as clear-cut today) between research in economics, epidemiology and public health, and research in psychology and sociology. While the former emphasize the importance of wealth and health as indicators and/or causes of children’s well-being (Feeny and Boyden

2003

; Gordon et al.

2003

; Singh and Sarkar

2014

), the latter focus on the experiences and feelings of individuals whatever their age, since in their view, no one is in a better position than the individual to assess their quality of life, morale and mood, repeating over and over again that “no man is happy who does not think himself so” (see Diener et al. (

1999

) and Veenhoven (2011) for the contribution of psychological and sociological perspectives).

Finally, we can identify two strongly opposing strands within research on SWB. On the one hand, we have research on SWB that focuses primarily on school determinants, such as the school climate, sense of belonging at school and/or the frequency and quality of relationships with peers and teachers. On the other hand, we have research that focuses on family determinants, which examines the material, economic and cultural resources of the home, the involvement of the parents (or parent) in the child’s daily and school life, and the frequency and quality of parent–child relationships. Little research offers a multidimensional approach to the various determinants of children’s SWB, despite the fact that such an approach would enable us to understand how these determinants articulate and combine, and what effect(s) they would have on children’s quality or satisfaction of life, and also to highlight which of the school or family determinants plays the most in which social, cultural and political context(s), for which child(ren), with which social property(ies) and trajectory(ies) (Sarriera and Bedin

2017

; Diter et al.

2021

). This relative oversight is all the more astonishing given that a large body of literature has reflected on and proposed highly varied and precise indicators to define, characterize and measure children’s (subjective) well-being levels (for a list of these indicators, see Ben Arieh (

2005

), Bradshaw et al. (

2007

) and Buzaud et al. (

2019

)). In other words, while well-being indicators are plural and multidimensional, the analysis of the determinants of the type of well-being measured by these indicators tends to focus rather on one type of logic or mechanism: relational/affective, material/cultural, family based or school based.

Reading across the chapters in this book has several advantages: not only does it provide an opportunity to read recent and geographically diverse empirical investigations into the links between school, family and children’s (subjective) well-being, it also brings the different perspectives presented above into dialogue – even to the point of reconciling some – which are still too often arbitrarily and artificially opposed by the literature.