Mindset and connectedness: keys to the good life for adolescents
By 克里斯Wenz
在我当高中老师的时候, I worked with my fair share of teenagers who engaged in … challenging behavior. But the students that concerned me the most were those who did not have at least one trusting, positive relationship with some adult in school. 在这些场景中, 我的恐惧源于我们对学生在成长中如此脆弱的阶段的情绪状态知之甚少. 很容易错过严重痛苦的迹象，甚至更容易错过帮助他们扩展能力或可能性感的关键机会. Their classwork and their grades could maybe tell us what, 或者,如果, they were learning; but we had few answers to the most essential question: 如何 are they handling the critical challenges of adolescence? 我们中的许多人都有过这样的经历:老师(或其他有爱心的成年人)在指导我们度过青春期时发挥了关键作用，这证明了我们应该努力与学生建立联系的力量和重要性.
学者们研究这些联系重要性的一种方法是测量“学校联系”的结构.” I’ve been mildly obsessed with the re搜索 on school connectedness for years, 主要是因为经过几十年的研究，我们得出的结论非常明显:青少年觉得自己属于学校, and form attachments with the adults who run it, 更健康, 更快乐，学习成绩更好. 他们不太可能有暴力倾向, 伤害自己, 辍学, 滥用药物, 从事危险的性行为. 我知道这很令人震惊. The other amazing thing about school connectedness? 它可以用一种简单的工具来可靠地测量，在这个工具中，青少年评估他们对五个简单陈述的同意程度(McNeely等), 2002):
- 我觉得和这所学校的人很亲近.
- 我觉得我是这所学校的一部分.
- 我很高兴来到这所学校.
- The teachers at this school treat students fairly.
- 我在学校感到安全.
当然, 知道学校关系很重要, and that it can be easily and reliably measured, 这不是最难的部分吗. To get at the real challenge, we have to ask a few far more challenging questions: 1) 为什么 do some students feel more connected to schools than others? 2) 如何 do we help all teenagers feel that crucial sense of belonging?
没有简单的答案. 然而, I have been intrigued by two recent studies that I think do move us closer to satisfying answers.
金, Furlong and Dowdy (2019) investigated (among other things) the relationship between personality, 积极的心态, 学校联系和生活质量& in a large and diverse sample of high school students (n=1,867). 在他们研究的一部分中，他们建立了一个结构方程模型来测试学校联系是否在积极心态和生活质量之间起到中介作用. 换句话说, 他们的模型测试了心态更积极的青少年是否也会对学校更有归属感，并报告更高的整体生活满意度. 他们的模型还允许他们测试积极心态对生活满意度的影响是否比消极心态的影响更大 五大 人格特质. The inclusion of a personality measure (Rammstedt & 约翰, 2007年)在他们的模型中帮助回答了一个重要的问题:学校的联系是否取决于个性? 尽管最近的证据与此相反, we tend to think of personality as unmalleable: essentially, 我们就是我们, and introverts (for example) will always be introverted (e.g. Yeager et al, 2014). 在教育, this is a pretty dangerous idea that can lead to a dangerous thought: “That’s just 如何 this student is, 我们无法改变这一点.”
幸运的是, 金及其同事建立的模型表明，积极心态是学校联系和生活满意度的更强指标，而不是个性. 本质上, their hypothesis was correct: when students have more 积极的心态s, they are also more connected to school and report higher life satisfaction. 在他们的数据中，性格和学校联系之间的微弱关系使得我们可以有把握地推断性格不能解释学校联系. 金及其同事指出:“这些发现表明，个性特征并不是青少年学校联系的最有效指标.” 换句话说, students of all personality types can (and do!) report feeling connected to their school. 学校的心理健康服务往往过分关注心理健康的负面指标(其中一些可以通过性格测试发现)，而且是在学生已经有问题行为之后才这样做的. 这种过度关注和反应性可能会使学校连通性的保护作用在教育系统中未得到充分利用和开发. 金及其同事非常明确地建议:“教育工作者和研究人员不仅要注意培养学生个体的积极心理取向, but also to cultivating positive institutions.”
Their suggestion is another wonderfully obvious statement. 幸运的是, 有大量证据表明，以学校为基础的项目可以对积极心态的发展产生强大的影响，而且不一定需要大量的资源来做到这一点. 例如, 杰西卡·斯克莱德, director of the Lab for Scalable Mental Health, has explored the efficacy and effectiveness of 单一会话 mental 健康 interventions for children and adolescents (Schleider & 薇兹,2017). 2018年的一项研究, Schleider和Weisz对96名有风险的青少年进行了一次30分钟的成长心态干预，测试了其效果. 在9个月的随访中, 接受心态干预的青少年在抑郁方面比对照组有所改善, 焦虑和情绪控制.
令人鼓舞的是，培养积极心理取向的项目和实践的发展和交付可能不需要大量的资源. 在思考“培养积极制度”的挑战时，我找不到同样的鼓励.” Another of my favorite recent papers has helped me think through our big question above: 如何 do we help all teenagers feel that crucial sense of belonging. 在2016年的一篇概念性论文中, 艾伦和他的同事介绍了一个社会生态框架，作为探索和设计促进青少年归属感的系统的极好指南. Their framework doesn’t provide all the answers, 但它确实明确指出了学校可以建立有效支持系统的循证实践.
最后要说的是, I think it is important to consider that in the study by 金 and colleagues, 对他人的信任(BIO)与学校联系和整体生活满意度的关系最为密切. BIO is theorized domain of social emotional 健康 that captures perceived support from peers, 家庭和学校. 金和他的同事使用社会情绪健康调查-二级(SEHS-S)来测量对他人的信念和他们研究中所有其他积极的兴趣取向(Furlong, 你等等., 2014). To measure the perceived teacher support component of BIO, the SEHS-S asks adolescents to respond to the following statements by choosing “not true at all,“有点对。,”“非常正确,或“非常正确。.”
- At my school there is a teacher or some other adult who:
- 总是希望我做到最好
- 我相信我会成功的
- listens to me when I have something to say
There is a lot about the lives of adolescents that schools cannot control or influence; 如何ever, we absolutely can influence whether the students we see every day read these statements and say, “非常正确.”
参考文献
艾伦,K. A.维拉-布罗德里克，D., & 水,我. (2016). Fostering school belonging in secondary schools using a socio-ecological framework. The Educational and Developmental Psychologist, 33(1), 97 – 121. 点击查看全文.
金E. K.弗隆，M. J., & 懒散的,E. (2019). 青少年人格特质与积极心理倾向:学校连通性与情绪困扰、生活满意度的关系. 儿童指标研究，1 - 19.
弗隆,M. J.，你，S.， Shishim, M., & 懒散的,E. (2017). Development and validation of the social emotional 健康 survey – higher education version. Applied re搜索 in Quality of Life, 12(2), 343 – 367. Click to access the full version of the SEHS-S.
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