Does School Matter?
The Role of School Context in Adolescents’ School-Related Burnout
1This paper is part of a series on “Youth Development in Europe: Transitions and Identities” that will appear in the European Psychologist throughout 2008. Taken together, the papers aim to make a conceptual contribution to the increasingly important area of youth development, especially within the context of an expanding Europe, by focusing on variations and changes in the transition to adulthood and emerging identities. The series will conclude with a summary by the organisers of the series, Katariina Salmela-Aro (University of Jyväskylä, Finland) and Ingrid Schoon (University of London, UK).
Abstract
School burnout can be defined as consisting of exhaustion due to school demands, cynical, and detached attitude toward one’s school, and feelings of inadequacy as a student (Kiuru, Aunola, Nurmi, Leskinen, & Salmela-Aro, 2008; Salmela-Aro & Näätänen, 2005; Schaufeli, Martínez, Pinto, Salanova, & Bakker, 2002). The first aim of the present study was to examine the extent to which schools differ in school-related burnout. Moreover, the aim was to examine the extent to which school-related and background factors are associated with school burnout at the school level and at the individual level. The participants were 58,657 students from 431 comprehensive schools and 29,515 students from 228 upper secondary schools who filled in a questionnaire measuring their school burnout, school-related variables (i.e., negative school climate, positive motivation received from teachers, support from the school), and background variables (i.e., gender, grade-point average, socio-economic status, and family structure). The results revealed only small differences between schools in school burnout. Among the comprehensive school students the results at the school-level showed that negative school climate typical of the school was positively related, while support from school shared among school members was negatively related to school-related burnout. Among upper secondary school students, in turn, positive motivation received from teachers typical of the school was negatively related to school-related burnout. At the individual level, negative school climate was positively related, and support from school and positive motivation received from teachers were negatively related to burnout among both the comprehensive and upper secondary school students. In addition, girls and those with lower GPA experienced higher levels of school burnout compared to boys and those with higher GPA.
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