The Interplay of Emotional Instability and Socio-Environmental Aspects of Schools during Adolescence

Year 2018, Volume: 7 Issue: 2, 281 - 293, 15.04.2018

Alexander Latsch

https://doi.org/10.12973/eu-jer.7.2.281

Abstract

According to Bronfenbrenner’s socio-ecological model,
school is an essential microsystem of the developing child. Schools provide
important developmental contexts for children and adolescents, as they
constitute environments that might either foster or evoke students’ emotional
instability. In particular, less is known about the precise and dynamic
interplay of students’ socio-environmental aspects in school (i.e., sense of
school belonging, social relationships with teachers and peers) and emotional
instability (i.e., depressive symptoms, perceived stress, feelings of
loneliness) during adolescence. To close this gap, this study examined within-
and over-time cross-lagged associations based on data from a quantitative
questionnaire-based survey of adolescent students (T1: N= 1088; Mage = 13.70,
SD = 0.53) from 23 secondary schools in Brandenburg, Germany. Results of latent
cross-lagged panel design supports the mutual relations for within-time
associations, which is in line with Bronfenbrenner’s model. However, only the
over-time association between school belonging and teacher-student relationship
was found to be reciprocal.

Keywords

Depressive symptoms, perceived stress, school belonging, loneliness, teacher-student and student-student-relationship

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