Social and Emotional Skills for Better Lives

Findings from the OECD Survey on Social and Emotional Skills 2023

Report

26 April 2024

3. Well-being and health

Abstract

This chapter examines the relationships between students’ social and emotional skills and six well-being and health indicators: student health behaviours, body image, life satisfaction, satisfaction with relationships, current psychological well-being, and test and class anxiety. It also looks at skills associated with health and well-being resilience among students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

In Brief

Cultivate students’ optimism to improve their well-being and health outcomes. Students who are more optimistic engage in healthier behaviours; are more satisfied with their lives, relationships, and body image; have less test and class anxiety; and report greater psychological well-being. By building optimism, education systems might help close the well-being gap that exists between boys and girls and advantaged and disadvantaged students, where girls report poorer levels of all health and well-being outcomes and disadvantaged students of all except test and class anxiety. SSES finds that higher optimism is more strongly associated with higher life satisfaction and relationship satisfaction among disadvantaged students and girls, and with better body image for girls, suggesting these students could particularly benefit from efforts to cultivate this skill.
Develop students’ social and emotional skills more broadly to improve their health and well-being. Beyond optimism, higher levels of other social and emotional skills are associated with better health and well-being outcomes. Energy, stress resistance, trust, emotional control, achievement motivation, responsibility and persistence are particularly strongly and consistently associated with positive outcomes.
Build students’ stress resistance and other emotional regulation skills to reduce test and class anxiety among students. Students with higher levels of these skills report being less anxious in relation to tests and schoolwork. Developing emotional regulation skills could also reduce the disparity between girls’ and boys’ levels of test and class anxiety; girls report being more anxious generally, but they may benefit from emotional regulation skills even more than boys.
Assist students with ambitious academic goals to achieve a healthy balance that supports both their aspirations and their well-being. Students who are highly driven towards achievement tend to experience more intense feelings of concern or nervousness during tests compared to students who are less achievement motivated. While a manageable level of this concern may serve as a motivator for some students, high test and class anxiety is associated with poorer academic outcomes. Students can be supported to cultivate a ‘growth mindset’, where challenges and setbacks are seen as opportunities for learning. This approach may support students to approach tests and classwork with a healthier perspective and less fear of failure.
Encourage students to adopt healthy habits to boost their well-being. Students who report healthier behaviours also report better current psychological well-being, life satisfaction, and body image. Sufficient sleep, regular physical exercise and eating fruits or vegetables are the behaviours most strongly associated with better well-being among students. Potential interventions could include multicomponent health promotion programmes, sleep education programmes, or delaying school start times to improve adolescents’ sleep.
Build social and emotional skills to support disadvantaged students’ resilience which can serve as a protective factor. On average, only 1-in-10 disadvantaged students are resilient in their well-being and health – meaning that they have some of the highest levels of life satisfaction, current psychological well-being, or health behaviours in their site. Resilient disadvantaged students report higher levels of most social and emotional skills compared to those who are not resilient.

Building health and well-being through social and emotional skills

An individual’s well-being and health directly impacts their quality of life (Felce and Perry, 1995[1]; OECD, 2013[2]). Well-being and health are foundational for personal happiness, productivity, and societal prosperity. Among children and youth, the importance of well-being is two-fold: children’s well-being today matters for their future (the developmental perspective) and children have a right to a good childhood here and now (the child rights perspective) (OECD, 2015[3]; Ben-Arieh et al., 2014[4]). Education systems around the world increasingly recognise the importance of well-being. The role of schools has expanded to support students’ development more broadly, including their well-being (Burns and Gottschalk, 2019[5])

Equipping students with skills and tools to lead healthy and fulfilling lives is one way to do this, including the development of social and emotional skills. These skills1 are consistently related to students’ subjective well-being as well as their health and health-related behaviours (Strickhouser, Zell and Krizan, 2017[6]; Steponavičius, Gress-Wright and Linzarini, 2023[7]; Chernyshenko, Kankaraš and Drasgow, 2018[8]).

This chapter examines the relationships between 15-year-old students’ social and emotional skills and various measures of their well-being and health. Relationships between social and emotional skills and the following six indicators are discussed:

Life satisfaction, the extent to which students feel satisfied with their life as a whole.
Current psychological well-being, a measure of students’ mood during the most recent two weeks
Satisfaction with relationships, the extent to which students are satisfied with their relationships with their parents or guardians, friends, classmates, and teachers.
Body image, the extent to which students feel positively about how they look.
Test and class anxiety, the extent to which students are concerned about possible negative consequences or failure in tests or their schoolwork.
Health behaviours, a measure of the students’ engagement in healthy behaviours that promote their health and well-being, including getting enough sleep, exercising, and eating well, and avoiding cigarettes and alcohol.

Figure 3.1 shows how these six measures are situated in the OECD aspirational child well-being measurement framework (OECD, 2021[9]). This framework covers multiple dimensions of well-being - material well-being; physical health; social, emotional, and cultural well-being; and cognitive development and educational well-being. Five of the six measures discussed in this chapter are considered child health and well-being outcomes in this framework: life satisfaction, satisfaction with relationships, current psychological well-being, test and class anxiety and body image. These outcomes all sit within the social, emotional, and cultural well-being dimension, while body image is positioned within both this dimension and that of physical health. The sixth measure – health behaviours – is considered a child-level influence of well-being. For this reason, this chapter also examines how students’ health behaviours relate to their body image, life satisfaction, and current psychological well-being outcomes.

Figure 3.1. Survey on Social and Emotional Skills well-being and health measures situated in the OECD aspirational child well-being measurement framework

Differences in well-being and health outcomes by student characteristics

SSES results show systematic gaps in the levels of health and well-being indicators between girls and boys, and between socio-economically advantaged and disadvantaged students2. Average gaps also emerge between native students and students with migrant background3, but the pattern of differences is not consistent across sites.

Boys and advantaged students report better well-being and health than girls and disadvantaged students

Boys report better well-being than girls, on average, across all six measures (Figure 3.2). Compared to girls, boys report higher levels of five of the positive well-being and health indicators, while reporting lower levels of test and class anxiety – the anxiety that students may feel in test settings and in relation to schoolwork.

Advantaged students report higher levels of the five positive well-being and health measures than disadvantaged students on average across sites, however there is no difference, on average, in the levels of test and class anxiety by socio-economic background. Although advantaged students tend to report more positive body image than their disadvantaged peers, meaning they tend to think and feel more positively about their own body, this pattern is not consistent across sites. In Kudus (Indonesia) and Peru, disadvantaged students report better body image than advantaged students, on average.

The gender and socio-economic differences identified in SSES results largely align with previous studies (Inchley et al., 2020[10]; Saab and Klinger, 2010[11]; Cosma et al., 2023[12]). For example, the World Health Organisation's Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey found that girls and less affluent adolescents were more likely to perceive themselves as "too fat", while boys and adolescents from more affluent families were more satisfied with their lives and reported better mental well-being. Social well-being – in terms of family and peer relationships – was on average higher among young people from high-affluence families, while girls reported higher levels of loneliness than boys. At age 15, girls reported a significantly higher prevalence of schoolwork pressure. HBSC also found that adolescents from high-affluence families felt more pressured by schoolwork (Inchley et al., 2020[10]; Cosma et al., 2023[12]).

On average across sites, students with a migrant background report lower levels of health behaviours, life satisfaction, relationship satisfaction, but also lower test and class anxiety than native students. However, behind these averages, there is considerable variation across sites in terms of size and direction of these differences (Tables B3.4, B3.15, B3.21, B3.32). For example, students with a migrant background report greater life satisfaction and relationship satisfaction than native students in Helsinki (Finland). These differences may be due to the nature and extent of migration differing widely between sites.

Figure 3.2. Gender and socio-economic differences in students’ well-being and health

Standardised differences in the six measures of well-being and health by gender and by socio-economic status, average across sites

Health behaviours

Health behaviours matter because the actions of young people affect their health and well-being outcomes, both today and in the future. For example, participation in sports for children and adolescents predicts mental and social health (Eime et al., 2013[13]) and is associated with decreases in depressive symptoms (Wegner et al., 2020[14]). Substance use is associated with a variety of adverse mental and physical health outcomes (Hall et al., 2016[15]). Sufficient sleep improves adolescents’ mood and memory, while sleep deprivation contributes to decreased cognitive control and vigilance (Short et al., 2020[16]; de Bruin et al., 2017[17]; Telzer et al., 2013[18]).

SSES measures health behaviours by asking students about the frequency with which they engage in five behaviours: eating breakfast, eating fruits or vegetables, doing at least 20 minutes of vigorous physical activity, sleeping at least eight hours at night, and smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol. A health behaviours index is calculated based on students’ responses to these questions.4 5

Health behaviours predict well-being and many students report insufficient sleep and physical exercise, skipping breakfast and eating too little fruits and vegetables

Because health behaviours function as immediate influences on youth’s well-being, the relationship between students’ health behaviours and three relevant well-being indicators (life satisfaction, body image, and current psychological well-being) are examined. Aligned with the theoretical well-being framework applied in this chapter (Figure 3.1), SSES results show that students’ health behaviours are related to, and potentially influence, students’ life satisfaction, current psychological well-being, and the way that students feel about their bodies.

Health behaviours are most strongly associated with students’ current psychological well-being, followed by their life satisfaction and body image (Figure 3.3). These relationships are found in all sites.

Figure 3.3. Relationships between students’ health behaviours and well-being indicators

Regression coefficients of the health behaviours index and individual health behaviours on well-being indices

Sleeping at least 8 hours each night is the strongest predictor of all three outcomes, which aligns with evidence that sleep improves adolescents’ mood and mental well-being, and conversely, that sleep disturbances contribute to anxiety (Short et al., 2020[16]; Tarokh, Saletin and Carskadon, 2016[19]) (McMakin and Alfano, 2015[20]). For optimal health, adolescents should regularly sleep between 8 to 10 hours (Paruthi et al., 2016[21]). Across sites, however, only a quarter of students say that they sleep at least 8 hours at night every day. 14% of students report that they never get 8 hours of sleep, while overall, over half of students get insufficient sleep most nights (Figure 3.4). Insufficient sleep is most common among students in Gunma (Japan) and Jinan (China), where around a quarter of students never sleep 8 hours per night (Table B3.3). Changes in sleep patterns are a natural part of adolescence and older adolescents go to bed later (Colrain and Baker, 2011[22]). However, factors such as use of screen-based digital technology can further delay bedtimes and contribute to reduced total sleep duration (LeBourgeois et al., 2017[23])Insufficient sleep in adolescence can also be aggravated by early school start times (Minges and Redeker, 2016[24]).

Doing at least 20 minutes of vigorous physical activity each day is the second strongest predictor of student body image and current psychological wellbeing (together with eating fruits and vegetables). It is the third strongest predictor of life satisfaction. Participation in sports contributes to youth’s self-esteem, better social interactions and fewer depressive symptoms, as well as improved body image (Wegner et al., 2020[14]; Eime et al., 2013[13]; Sabiston et al., 2019[25]; Hausenblas and Fallon, 2006[26]). Over 1-in-10 15-year-olds report that they never do as much as 20 minutes of vigorous physical activity, while an additional 2-in-10 only do so once a week or less (Figure 3.4). The World Health Organisation recommends that children and adolescents incorporate vigorous-intensity physical activities at least three times a week (WHO, 2020[27]). This means that approximately a third of 15-year-olds on average across sites do not meet the WHO guideline. Sobral (Brazil) has the highest proportion of students who say they never exercise (almost 3-in-10) whereas in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Jinan (China) and Ukraine, only between 6 and 7% of students report this (Table B3.3).

Dietary habits also have a strong link with students’ current psychological well-being, body image and life satisfaction, and eating fruits or vegetables is a stronger predictor than regular breakfast, except for body image, where both behaviours are equally relevant. There is systematic evidence that eating breakfast is positively related to adolescents’ well-being and quality of life, and that unhealthy dietary habits relate to dissatisfaction with one’s body image (Lundqvist, Vogel and Levin, 2019[28]; Bodega et al., 2023[29]). On average across sites, approximately half of 15-year-old students report eating breakfast every day, and a further 11% say they have breakfast 4-6 times per week (Figure 3.4). However, this leaves more than one-third of students missing breakfast most mornings. In previous research, skipping breakfast has been linked to a risk of obesity and metabolic diseases (Monzani et al., 2019[30]). There is large variation across sites, however. Almost 8-in-10 students in Gunma (Japan) say that they eat breakfast every day, while just over one-third of students in Delhi (India) do so (Table B3.3). Just over 4-in-10 students indicate that they eat fruits or vegetables every day on average across sites, however this varies considerably between sites. According to the World Health Organisation, five portions of fruits and vegetables should be consumed each day (WHO, 2019[31]), which means over half of 15-year-olds across sites do not eat enough fruit and vegetables.

Students who say they have smoked cigarettes or drunk alcohol tend to report lower well-being than students who say they never smoke or drink. This is true for all three well-being indicators. This finding is consistent with existing evidence of negative effects of substance use among youth on mental health and other outcomes (Hall et al., 2016[15]). On the other hand, another explanation is that students who struggle with their well-being turn to alcohol and cigarettes as a coping mechanism (Wills, 1987[32]). SSES data shows that more than 8-in-10 15-year-old students say they never smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol. Around 1-in-10 report smoking cigarettes or drinking multiple times per week, and a similar proportion does this once a week or less often (Figure 3.4). Again, there is a considerable variation across sites. Whereas almost all (99%) of students in Gunma (Japan) report to be non-smokers and drinkers, only 6-in-10 students report this in Bulgaria and Italian sites (Emilia-Romagna and Turin) (Table B3.3).

SSES data suggests that, beyond the direct relationship with students’ physical health, promoting positive health-related behaviours such as sufficient sleep, regular exercise, and a healthy diet, as well as discouraging alcohol and cigarette consumption, can contribute to better well-being outcomes among adolescent students. Education systems could consider incorporating comprehensive, multicomponent health promotion interventions into the curriculum (van Sluijs et al., 2021[33]; Vander Ploeg et al., 2014[34]), implementing sleep education programmes (Chung et al., 2017[35]; Blunden and Rigney, 2015[36]; Cassoff et al., 2013[37]), or delaying school start times to improve adolescents’ sleep (Minges and Redeker, 2016[24]).

Figure 3.4. Students’ health behaviours

Frequency of individual health behaviours among 15-year-old students, average across sites

Boys and advantaged students tend to report healthier behaviours, however girls say they smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol more than boys in some sites

Overall, students report the highest levels of health behaviours in Ukraine, followed by Gunma (Japan) and Jinan (China). The lowest level of the health behaviour index among participating sites are measured in Italian sites (Emilia-Romagna and Turin), Sobral (Brazil) and Kudus (Indonesia) (Figure 3.5).

Figure 3.5 presents differences in the health behaviours index by gender and socio-economic background for each site. On average and in all sites, boys report healthier behaviours than girls. The gender gap is largest in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) and smallest in Kudus (Indonesia). Advantaged students score significantly higher on the health behaviours index than disadvantaged students. The biggest differences emerge in Spain, Helsinki (Finland) and Italian sites (Emilia-Romagna and Turin). Sobral (Brazil) is the only site where no significant gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students is found, however this could reflect the low variation in socio-economic status in Sobral’s (Brazil) target population, which excludes private schools. In most sites there is no difference in the health behaviours index between native students and students with migrant background.

These results align with the World Health Organisation’s findings that adolescents from more affluent families generally have healthier eating habits. They are also more likely to regularly engage in physical activity, as are boys compared to girls (Inchley et al., 2020[10]). Existing research shows that risk behaviours such as drinking alcohol and smoking are more prevalent among boys than girls (Inchley et al., 2020[10]; Kennedy et al., 2020[38]). While this corresponds to the reported behaviours in some SSES sites, in others, girls report drinking alcohol and/or smoking cigarettes at a higher rate than boys (Table B3.46).

Figure 3.5. Students’ health behaviours, by student characteristics

Mean of students’ health behaviours index, by gender and socio-economic status

Optimism, energy, and task performance skills most strongly predict health behaviours

Higher levels of all social and emotional skills measured in SSES are related to better health behaviours among students, to various extents. Accounting for gender, socio-economic and migrant background, optimism shows the strongest relationship with healthy behaviours among adolescents. This is followed by energy, achievement motivation, persistence, and responsibility. Empathy is the skill least strongly associated with health behaviours, and no significant relationship between this skill and health behaviours is found in Turin (Italy). Turin (Italy) is the only site where tolerance is also unrelated to students’ health behaviours (Figure 3.6, Table B3.5).

The strong positive association between energy and health behaviours may be explained by one of the studied behaviours – physical exercise – which directly requires energy. In turn, healthy diet and sufficient sleep likely contribute to adolescents’ energy levels. Previous studies have reported on the relationship between optimism and a healthy lifestyle, with higher optimism being linked to lower probability of smoking and a better diet (Non et al., 2020[39]; Ansari et al., 2019[40]; Trudel-Fitzgerald et al., 2019[41]). Most evidence on whether optimism primarily leads to a healthy lifestyle or whether a healthy lifestyle reinforces an optimistic outlook on life is not conclusive, though some longitudinal research has suggested that targeting optimism might be a fruitful strategy to improve health behaviours (Boehm et al., 2018[42]; Trudel-Fitzgerald et al., 2019[41]). Achievement motivation, persistence, responsibility, and self-control – all among the top skills associated with students’ health behaviours – are task performance skills. These skills may help students resist engaging in unhealthy, risky behaviours which may offer instant gratification, but can be harmful in excess and over the long term. Task performance skills6 have been found to predict a variety of heath behaviours, including diet and activity habits, smoking and drinking (Bogg and Roberts, 2004[43]).

Health behaviours are more strongly associated with sociability for boys than for girls

Some gender differences exist, on average, in the relationships between skills and health behaviours (Figure 3.7). On average across sites, sociability, tolerance, persistence, assertiveness, creativity, responsibility, stress resistance, achievement motivation and empathy predict boys’ health behaviours more strongly than for girls. Conversely, trust and emotional control are a stronger predictor of these behaviours among girls in comparison to boys. However, these gender differences are not seen in all sites, and sociability is the only skill where this gender difference is seen in most sites (Table B3.6).

In terms of differences by socio-economic background, on average, higher levels of all skills except energy, emotional control, assertiveness, and responsibility are more strongly associated with positive health behaviours among disadvantaged students than their advantaged peers. However, only a few sites drive these differences; in many other sites, no significant difference in the association between skills and health behaviours is found. Overall, this suggests that interventions that aim to build social and emotional skills can support positive health behaviours for students of all socio-economic backgrounds and that disadvantaged students may particularly benefit in some sites.

Figure 3.6. Relationships between social and emotional skills and students’ health behaviours

Standardised regression coefficients of individual skills on students’ health behaviours, average across sites

Figure 3.7. Differences in relationships between skills and health behaviours index by student characteristics

Differences in standardised regression coefficients of individual skills on students’ health behaviours, average across sites, by gender and socio-economic status

Box 3.1. Improving students’ sleep in Japan through project-based learning

Jiyugaoka Gakuen High School in Tokyo was founded by Kishie Tezuka in 1930 to promote liberal education in Japan. Since its founding, the school has continued to develop with changing times. Today, the school develops course content that combines social and emotional learning (SEL), problem-based learning (PBL), and the Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) approach, so that each student can identify and reach their goals.

In addition to traditional classes, students are offered a class once per week to work on an issue of interest to them. During one academic year, students identify a problem, study it, propose a hypothesis and a solution, design an experiment, conduct it, analyse the results, and make a proposal. Project groups are freely decided by the students, and themes and members can be changed during the class. The target group for this class is students aged 15-17. In 2023, approximately 400 students took the class.

To connect students’ experiences in the classroom to the real world, opportunities are provided for students to collaborate online with companies, local people, and high school students from overseas in after-school activities.

The class curriculum has yet to be independently evaluated, however, the following observations have been noted by educators. More than one-quarter of the 113 student-identified problems related to sleep. This resulted in students examining different ways to address a variety of sleep problems. Each team designed an experiment to meet their own needs; for example, those who had problems falling asleep would research and implement relaxation methods for falling asleep, and those who spent too much time looking at their smartphones would put their smartphones in a box so that they could not use them. Students reported the results from their experiments, including whether sleeping for 8 hours made them feel better the next day, if they finished their homework faster when they could not use their phones, or if their intervention had no effect. Students developed skills to ask their own questions and solve their own problems. Students could freely research their interests with their peers, which led to stimulating conversation and creative ideas.

Source : (Imai, 2024[44])

Body image

Body image refers to students’ subjective perceptions, thoughts, and feelings about their body. A healthy body image is an important component of both mental and physical health. A negative body image in adolescence is associated with development of eating disorders, avoidance of physical activity, and dysfunctional exercise (Reel, Voelker and Greenleaf, 2015[45]).

To measure students’ body image, SSES asks students to what extent they agree or disagree with four statements: “I like my look just the way it is”, “I consider myself to be attractive”, “I am worried about my weight”, and “I like my body”. Student responses to these statements form the basis of the body image index.7^,8

Most students are content with their bodies, but around one-third struggle with some aspect of their body image

As shown in Figure 3.8, on average, two thirds of 15-year-old students agree or strongly agree with the statement “I like my look just the way it is”. Variations across sites exist, however. While nine out of ten students in Kudus (Indonesia) agree with this statement, only three out of ten do in Gunma (Japan). Similarly, on average, six in ten students agree with the statement “I consider myself to be attractive”, but this varies between about one-quarter in Gunma (Japan) and nearly three-quarters in Delhi (India). On average across sites, approximately two-thirds of 15-year-old students also agree that they “like [their] body” (between one-quarter and more than eight in ten depending on the site). At the same time, on average, almost half of all 15-year-old students agree or strongly agree that they are “worried about [their] weight”. Almost two-thirds of students worry about their weight in Chile, and even in Bulgaria, where the fewest students worry about their weight, one-third of students still agree with this statement (Table B3.8).

Figure 3.8. Students’ body image

Percentage of students who agreed or disagreed with the following statements

Girls have worse body image than boys in most sites

On average and in most sites, boys report more positive body image than girls. Other studies have found that girls are more likely to perceive themselves as “too fat” and are less satisfied with how their body looks (Inchley et al., 2020[10]; Abbott and Barber, 2010[46]). This gender difference is largest in Italian sites (Emilia-Romagna and Turin) and smallest in Bulgaria. In Delhi (India) and Ukraine, girls report slightly better body image than boys, on average. Advantaged students also report better body image than disadvantaged students, on average, but this is not consistent across all sites (Figure 3.9). On average, there are no differences in the body image of native students and students with migrant background.

Figure 3.9. Students’ body image, by student characteristics

Mean of students’ body image index, by gender and socio-economic status

Optimism, energy, and stress resistance relate most strongly to body image

On average, all social and emotional skills show a significant positive relationship with students’ body image when controlling for gender, socio-economic and migrant background. The skill that stands out for its strongest association with body image is optimism. This is followed by stress resistance, energy, sociability, and responsibility. Most skills are significantly related to students’ body image, not only on average across sites, but also in all sites. There are two exceptions – which are also the two most weakly related skills: empathy (no significant relationship in six sites and negatively related in Emilia-Romagna [Italy]), and tolerance (no significant relationship in Emilia-Romagna [Italy] and Sobral [Brazil]) (Figure 3.10, Table B3.11).

Emotional regulation skills enable students to deal with negative emotional experiences and stressors. This can include unrealistic beauty standards and expectations imposed by oneself and others. Three of the six skills most strongly related to body image (optimism, stress resistance and emotional control) are emotional regulation skills and two are engaging with others skills (sociability and energy). That these skills should be among the most relevant corresponds with research that finds lower levels of emotional regulation and engaging with others skills, as well as task performance skills9, are associated with body dissatisfaction, regardless of gender or actual body weight (Allen and Robson, 2020[47]).

Girls’ body image relates to optimism even stronger in comparison to boys

SSES results show that, while optimism predicts better body image for both girls and boys, on average and in most sites, this relationship is stronger for girls. On average, higher levels of emotional control, stress resistance, energy, self-control, trust, curiosity, and creativity are also more strongly related to positive body image for girls than boys. On the other hand, boys’ body image is more strongly related to sociability and empathy than for girls’ (Figure 3.10). Most of these differences are observed in a minority of sites, however. As for socio-economic differences, on average, the relationship between higher self-control and assertiveness with body image is larger for disadvantaged students than advantaged students, but these average differences are also driven by only a few sites (Table B3.13).

Figure 3.10. Relationships between social and emotional skills and students’ body image

Standardised regression coefficients of students’ body image on individual skills, average across sites

Life satisfaction

Beyond physical and psychological health, measuring how people subjectively feel about their lives provides us with valuable insights into well-being and overall quality of life as experienced by individuals and communities. Pursuit of high life satisfaction goes together with a commitment to overall happiness and fulfilment in society. Life satisfaction is a measure of subjective well-being. This means that, when a student is asked how satisfied they are with their life overall, their response is based on an evaluation of their quality of life according to their chosen criteria. This is a strength of this measure: it can provide insights into adolescents’ well-being based on what is important to them. Students’ evaluations may place different value on certain aspects of their lives, such as good health, their relationships or their family’s financial situation. In addition to students’ life experiences and values, cultural differences may also shape how adolescents evaluate different aspects of their lives and respond to such survey questions. The SSES results show not just differences in life satisfaction between sites, but also, as discussed below, differences between student groups and how social and emotional skills relate to this well-being outcome.

To measure life satisfaction, SSES asks students, “Overall, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?”. Students respond on a scale from 0 (“not at all satisfied”) to 10 (“completely satisfied”).10 This is the minimal single-question measure of subjective well-being recommended by the OECD (2013[2]) It captures respondent’s evaluative judgement of how their life is going with minimum response burden, and it was also used in SSES 2019 and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) since 2015.

Most students say they are satisfied with their lives, however more than one-in-ten say they are not satisfied

SSES finds that – on average and in all sites - the average student is largely satisfied with their life. Some 68% of students reported that they are satisfied with their lives (students who reported between 7 and 10 on the life satisfaction scale). On average, 13% of students report not being satisfied (0-4 points) and just under one-third of 15-year-olds are very satisfied (9-10 points).

SSES shows there is variation in 15-year-old students’ life satisfaction across sites (see Figure 3.11). In Spain, 7% of students said they were not satisfied with their lives, while over 20% of students reported this in Delhi (India). In Manizales (Colombia), almost half of students said they were very satisfied with their lives, compared to about 15% in Turin (Italy) and Türkiye (Istanbul).

Life satisfaction in Helsinki (Finland) and Bogotá (Colombia) developed differently between 2019 and 2023

Life satisfaction was measured in both SSES 2019 and 2023. The average life satisfaction of 15-year-old students remained the same in Helsinki (Finland) but decreased from 7.6 to 7.2 in Bogotá (Colombia) in the intervening four years. The decrease in Bogotá (Colombia) may potentially reflect the aftermaths of the COVID-19 pandemic that took place in between the two SSES rounds, as children and adolescents faced increased rates of loneliness, anxiety, depression, and various mental health difficulties during the pandemic (Farrell et al., 2023[48]; Meherali et al., 2021[49]). Children and youth were particularly affected by pandemic-induced school closures. The fact that schools in Colombia remained closed for approximately three times longer than in Finland is one possible explanation for the difference in the students’ life satisfaction trend between the two sites (UNESCO, 2022[50]; OECD, 2022[51]). Of note, however, the decrease in life satisfaction observed in Bogotá (Colombia) is mostly accounted for by a drop in girls’ life satisfaction, while boys’ life satisfaction remained relatively stable. Boys and advantaged students report being more content with their lives than girls and disadvantaged students

Girls are less satisfied with their lives than boys (0.5-point difference) on average across sites. The gender gap is most pronounced in Chile and Peru, while in Ukraine, Delhi (India), and Kudus (Indonesia) there is no significant gender difference. The gap between girls’ and boys’ life satisfaction in Bogotá (Colombia) widened from 0.4 in 2019 to 1.0 in 2023 due to a drop in girls’ life satisfaction, and the gap remained stable (0.8) in Helsinki (Finland) (see Figure 3.11).

On average across sites, advantaged students are 0.5 points more satisfied with their lives than disadvantaged students Figure 3.11). The biggest gap of 0.9 points in favour of advantaged students emerges in Chile and Jinan (China). There is no significant difference in students’ life satisfaction by socio-economic status in Delhi (India), Gunma (Japan), Manizales (Colombia), Peru and Sobral (Brazil). In both Bogotá (Colombia) and Helsinki (Finland), an inequality in life satisfaction between advantaged and disadvantaged students emerged in 2023, whereas in 2019 there was no significant difference.

The SSES results are consistent with past PISA findings, which found that 15-year-old boys and advantaged students were more satisfied with their lives than girls and their disadvantaged peers (OECD, 2017[52]; OECD, 2019[53]).

The gap in life satisfaction of native students and students with migrant background suggests native students tend to be more satisfied, on average, but the size, direction, and significance of the difference varies across sites.

Figure 3.11. Students' life satisfaction, by student characteristics

Mean of students' life satisfaction index, by gender and socio-economic status

Emotional regulation skills, energy, and trust are the strongest predictors of life satisfaction

All the social and emotional skills measured by the SSES are associated with students’ life satisfaction, accounting for gender, socio-economic and migrant background. The most strongly related skill is optimism, with students who report being more optimistic also reporting to be more satisfied with their lives. Following optimism are energy, trust, stress resistance, and emotional control. Tolerance is the skill with the weakest positive link with life satisfaction, though this link is still found in most sites. The only sites where students who report being more tolerant are not more satisfied with their lives are Istanbul (Türkiye) and Manizales (Colombia)(Figure 3.12, Table B3.17).

It is not surprising that students who tend to have more positive, optimistic outlook on life are also more satisfied with how their life is going. Likewise, students who have objective reasons to be satisfied with their lives might be more inclined towards optimistic views of the world. Optimistic people have been found to experience less distress in the face of adversity and possess better coping skills, which likely contributes to increased life satisfaction (Carver, Scheier and Segerstrom, 2010[54]). Optimism, stress resistance and emotional control are all emotional regulation skills, helping students navigate feelings of sadness, anxiety, and anger. Previous research has found a relationship between emotional regulation and engaging with others skills11 and life satisfaction (Schimmack et al., 2004[55]), which persists over the long-term (Gale et al., 2013[56]). As students with higher energy levels approach daily life with more excitement and spontaneity, this may allow them to partake in a broader set of fulfilling experiences and activities. Trust then enables students to assume good intentions and refrain from suspicion towards others and the world, possibly contributing to greater contentment in life.

For girls, higher energy, optimism, and emotional control predict life satisfaction even more strongly than for boys

In terms of gender differences, while higher levels of all skills are associated with better life satisfaction among both boys and girls, the relationship between life satisfaction and eight of these skills is, on average, more pronounced for girls than for boys. This is especially true for energy, optimism and emotional control,, where this is found in most sites. A similar pattern appears in terms of differences by socio-economic background. On average, the relationships between most skills and life satisfaction are stronger for disadvantaged students than for advantaged students (Figure 3.13). This is due to differences in some sites, although not most. In other words, when it comes to life satisfaction, higher social and emotional skills appear to play a bigger role among girls and disadvantaged students in some sites.

Figure 3.12. Relationships between students’ social and emotional skills and life satisfaction

Standardised regression coefficients of individual skills on students’ life satisfaction, average across sites

Figure 3.13. Differences in relationships between skills and life satisfaction by student characteristics

Differences in standardised regression coefficients of individual skills on students’ life satisfaction, average across sites, by gender and socio-economic status

Satisfaction with relationships

During the formative years of adolescence, individuals navigate complex social dynamics and seek support from relationships with peers, parents, and teachers. Positive relationships contribute to a sense of belonging, self-worth, and emotional resilience, fostering a supportive environment crucial for navigating challenges (Giordano, 2003[57]; Smetana and Rote, 2019[58]) (Burns and Gottschalk, 2019[5]). Adolescents’ relationship satisfaction is therefore instrumental in promoting their overall well-being.

SSES asks students, “Overall, how satisfied are you with the following aspects of your life these days?” in relation to their relationships with four groups: their parents or guardians, their friends, their classmates, and their teachers. Students answer by rating their satisfaction with each of the four relationships on a scale from 0 to 10. A relationship satisfaction index is created based on the responses to these items.12 13

Around eight in ten students say they are satisfied with their relationships with parents and friends, while six in ten say the same about their relationships with teachers and classmates

15-year-old students’ satisfaction with their different relationships varies. On average across sites, almost eight-in-ten say they are “satisfied” (7-8 points) or “very satisfied” (9-10 points) with their relationships with their parents and their friends. Six-in-ten say the same about their relationships with their classmates and teachers. On average across sites, one-in-ten students say they are “not satisfied” (0-4 points) with their relationship with parents or guardians, while just under one-in-ten (8%) say they are not satisfied with their friendships, and around 15% of 15-year-old students report being dissatisfied with their relationships with their classmates and teachers (Figure 3.14, Table B3.20).

Figure 3.14. Students’ satisfaction with their relationships

Level of satisfaction with their relationships among 15-year-old students, average across sites

Boys are more satisfied with their relationships than girls in most sites

On average, boys are more satisfied with their relationships than girls, and this holds true in most sites (Figure 3.15). This difference may arise from adolescent girls’ greater psychological and emotional investment in peer relationships and friendships, which can cause them more interpersonal stress (Rudolph, 2002[59]). Exceptions are Delhi (India), Kudus (Indonesia) and Ukraine, where no significant difference emerges between the relationship satisfaction of girls and boys.

Advantaged students report higher satisfaction with their relationships, on average, though in many sites there is no significant difference (Bulgaria, Bogotá [Colombia], Delhi [India], Dubai [United Arab Emirates], Gunma [Japan], Peru and Sobral [Brazil]). Native students also report higher satisfaction, on average, with their relationships. However, this relationship is seen in less than half of sites. In seven sites, there is no significant difference in relationship satisfaction between students with a migrant background and native students, while in Bogotá (Colombia) and Helsinki (Finland), students with migrant background report more satisfaction with their relationships than their native counterparts.

Figure 3.15. Students’ satisfaction with relationships, by student characteristics

Mean of students’ satisfaction with their relationships index, by gender and socio-economic status

Higher optimism, trust, and task performance skills are most positively related to students’ greater satisfaction with their relationships

Higher levels of all social and emotional skills are positively related to students’ satisfaction with their relationships, on average, and in all sites. Of all skills, students’ optimism, trust, achievement motivation, persistence, and responsibility are most strongly related to better relationship satisfaction. Assertiveness is most weakly associated, on average (Figure 3.16).

After optimism, trust is most strongly related to higher relationship satisfaction. Trust implies an ability to assume good intentions and forgive missteps and is crucial for healthy relationships, as it enables an individual to rely on another person for support and advice.

All skills are significantly related to both boys’ and girls’ relationship satisfaction, but some skills have a stronger relationship for one group or the other. Sociability, achievement motivation, tolerance, creativity, persistence, empathy, and assertiveness, on average, have a stronger association with relationship satisfaction among boys than girls. The opposite is true for energy, emotional control, and optimism: the same increase in these skills is associated with an even larger increase in relationship satisfaction among girls than boys (Figure 3.17). While these gender differences are seen on average across sites, it is important to note that they are not found in all sites.

In terms of socio-economic background, the association between most skills and relationship satisfaction among disadvantaged students is stronger, on average, than that of advantaged students. The relationships are found for both groups, however, and the overall differences are driven only by a few sites.

Figure 3.16. Relationships between students’ social and emotional skills and satisfaction with their relationships

Standardised regression coefficients of individual skills on students’ satisfaction with their relationships, average across sites

Figure 3.17. Differences in relationships between skills and satisfaction with relationships by student characteristics

Differences in standardised regression coefficients of individual skills on students’ satisfaction with relationships, average across sites, by gender and socio-economic status

Box 3.2. Bullying and student well-being

When students experience bullying, their health and well-being can suffer, and the effects may be long-lasting (Rigby, 2003[60]). Negative outcomes associated with typical bullying are also seen with cyberbullying (Gottschalk, 2022[61]). In SSES, more than half (55%) of 15-year-old students reported being bullied at least a few times in the past year, with around one-quarter experiencing this a few times a month or more. (Table B3.38). While SSES did not specifically ask about cyberbullying, students were instructed that bullying behaviours may occur even in digital space.

Figure 3.18. Relationship between students’ well-being and bullying experience

Regression coefficients of well-being indices on bullying experience index

The high prevalence of bullying is concerning: students who say they are bullied report worse health and well-being outcomes across all indicators. Students who report being bullied are less satisfied with their lives and their relationships, have poorer psychological well-being and body image, engage in fewer healthy behaviours, and experience more test and class anxiety (Figure 3.18). Students who have been bullied also have lower levels of all social and emotional skills, particularly optimism, emotional control, responsibility and trust (Tables B3.39, B3.40, B3.41, B3.42, B3.43, B3.44 and B3.45).

The most common type of bullying that students report to experience is being made fun of. Being made fun of on a weekly basis or more often is among the bullying behaviours most strongly related to lower levels of all well-being and health indicators (Figure 3.18). Bullying is an important phenomenon that shapes students’ experience in school and beyond. SSES 2023 Volume II, which will be published later in 2024, will further focus on how students’ environments contribute to their social and emotional skill development.

Current psychological well-being

Immediate circumstances and experiences may cause students’ well-being to fluctuate. SSES uses the World Health Organisation-Five Well-Being Index (WHO-5) (Topp et al., 2015[62]) to measure students’ current psychological well-being. Students are asked how often during the past two weeks they felt: “cheerful and in good spirits”, “calm and relaxed”, “active and vigorous”, “fresh and rested” after waking up, and that their “daily life has been filled with things that interest [them]”. The answer options range from “at no time” to “all of the time”. Based on this information, an index of the current psychological well-being was created.14^,15

Almost two-thirds of students felt cheerful and in good spirits, calm and relaxed, active and vigorous, and that their daily life has been filled with things that interest them more than half of the time during the past two weeks

Figure 3.19 presents the average number of students in all sites who felt each way at a given frequency. On average across sites, more than 60% of students report that, in the most recent two weeks, they have felt cheerful and in good spirits, calm and relaxed, active and vigorous, and that their daily life has been filled with things that interest them more than half of the time. Less than half of students say they woke up feeling fresh and rested more than half of the time, which is consistent with the finding that over half of students do not get 8 hours of sleep most nights. Similarly, of the five statements, it was most common that students say they never wake up feeling fresh and rested (17%).

Figure 3.19. Students’ current psychological well-being

Level of individual current psychological well-being among 15-year-old students, average across sites

As with life satisfaction, there was a decrease in students’ current psychological well-being in Bogotá (Colombia) between 2019 and 2023, but not in Helsinki (Finland) (Table B3.26).

Girls report lower current psychological well-being than boys in almost every site

Girls report significantly lower psychological well-being than boys, on average and in every site except Delhi (India), and the gender gap widened in Bogotá (Colombia) between 2019 and 2023. On average, advantaged students report higher levels of current psychological well-being than disadvantaged students, though this inequality is not found in all sites. While there was no significant difference in students’ current psychological well-being by socio-economic status in Helsinki (Finland) in 2019, such a difference emerged in 2023 (Figure 3.20). There is no consistent pattern of differences in current psychological well-being based on students’ migration background.

Figure 3.20. Students' current psychological well-being, by student characteristics

Mean of students' current psychological well-being index, by gender and socio-economic status

Emotional regulation skills and energy have the strongest association with students’ current psychological well-being

Higher levels of all social and emotional skills are associated with greater psychological well-being among students, on average and in each site. The most strongly associated skills are optimism, energy, and stress resistance, followed by emotional control and trust. The skill with the weakest relationship with students’ current psychological well-being is tolerance (Figure 3.21).

Overall, skills in the emotional regulation domain are among the most strongly related to students’ current psychological well-being. This aligns with previous research, which has shown that both mental health and overall health are most strongly associated with emotional regulation skills, followed by task performance and collaboration skills16 (Strickhouser, Zell and Krizan, 2017[6]).

Some of the skills most strongly related with students’ current psychological well-being are optimism, energy, and stress resistance, which are also among the top skills associated with better life satisfaction and body image. The SSES results suggest that the relative importance of an optimistic outlook, energetic disposition, and ability to navigate anxious feelings is shared across all three well-being outcomes, although the strength of the association between the skills and the three outcomes varies.

Students’ trust and sociability, their ability to approach others and maintain social connections, also matter for their well-being. This may be explained by the support that adolescents harness from close relationships, and it is consistent with literature on peer support in adolescence as a protective factor against stress, anxiety, depression, and even suicide (Roach, 2018[63]; Burns and Gottschalk, 2019[5]).

Gender and socio-economic differences in the strength of association between skills and current psychological well-being on average across sites are presented in Figure 3.22. In terms of gender differences, higher energy, emotional control and optimism are more strongly associated with better current psychological well-being among girls than boys. Boys’ current psychological well-being is more strongly related to eight of the measured skills. Simultaneously, the relationship of nine of the social and emotional skills and current psychological well-being is more pronounced for disadvantaged students than for their advantaged peers. However, these differences are only found in some of the sites.

Figure 3.21. Relationships between students’ social and emotional skills and current psychological well-being

Standardised regression coefficients of individual skills on students’ current psychological well-being, average across sites

Figure 3.22. Differences in relationships between skills and current psychological well-being, by student characteristics

Differences in standardised regression coefficients of individual skills on students’ current psychological well-being, average across sites, by gender and socio-economic status

Box 3.3. “En Sus Zapatos”: An emotional education programme to tackle bullying from Spain

En Sus Zapatos: Un espacio de Empatía Activa ("In Their Shoes: A Space for Active Empathy") is an emotional education program to tackle bullying and to foster coexistence that relies on an artistic methodology called Teatro de Conciencia (“Theatre of Awareness”), which dramatises emotions. This training initiative is based on three pillars: identification and management of emotions, active empathy and positive conflict solving. The program is aimed not only at teachers and students (aged 4 to 17) but also at their families and no-teaching staff. "In Their Shoes" has reached more than 100,000 people in Spain (95,500 students, 4,500 teachers, families and no teaching staff) since its launch in the 2017-2018 school year, and it has been implemented in 8 Autonomous Communities: Madrid, Galicia, Andalusia, Catalonia, Castilla La Mancha, Valencia, Extremadura and the Balearic Islands. Since 2018, the Community of Madrid adopted it as an institutional program within the General Subdirectorate of Innovation Programmes and Teacher Training of the General Directorate of Teaching Quality and Bilingualism.

The methodology is based on a cascade-learning model: a number of teachers are trained and qualified to teach teachers and families of the participating schools about emotional literacy using the methodology of Theatre of Awareness, afterwards teachers trained will implement it to their classrooms. Finally, students also teach what they have learned to their peers in lower grades by performing a final play created by themselves and inviting the audience to participate in a forum. It is an internationally recognised programme for its important contribution in the field of socioemotional education by entities such as the Finnish organization HundrED and the Lego Foundation.

In the 2019-2020 school year, the programme was externally assessed by experts from the Carlos III University of Madrid and the University of Utrecht (Netherlands) with a close cooperation of the INEE (National Institute for Educational Assessment) of the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training, and Sports of the Government of Spain. The results of these assessments confirm that teachers have improved their emotional literacy and also as a result students have improved in inhibition and decreased their levels of concern and anxiety, which has allowed them to feel more confident in expressing their emotions and communicating with their peers and teachers. Students have also shown progress in their ability to feel, to practice active empathy, and to forgive sincerely. Finally, disruptive behaviors have decreased while the capacity to resolve conflicts positively and creatively has increased. This has led to a better classroom and school environment, resulting in fewer arguments among peers and less defiant and impulsive attitudes.

Source: (En Sus Zapatos, Un espacio de Empatia Activa[64])

Test and class anxiety

Test anxiety relates to anxieties or concerns about possible negative consequences or failure in evaluative situations (Zeidner, 2007[65]). It typically arises when students believe that the demands of the test situation exceed their abilities, and it is negatively associated with academic performance, including standardised tests and university entrance exams (von der Embse et al., 2018[66]).

SSES 2023 measures test and class anxiety using five items: “I often worry that it will be difficult for me to take a test”, “Even if I am well prepared for a test I feel very anxious”, “I get very tense when I study for a test”, “I worry that I will get poor marks in school”, and “I feel anxious about failing in school”. Students are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with these items. These items were used to create a test and class anxiety index.17^,18

Half or more students express test or schoolwork related worries

On average across sites, approximately half of 15-year-old students worry about tests, while around two-thirds of students worry that they will get poor marks or report feeling anxious about failing in school (Figure 3.2315-year-old students in Ukraine report the lowest levels of test and class anxiety, while students in Gunma (Japan) report being most anxious in relation to tests (Table B3.32).

Girls report higher levels of test and class anxiety than boys

In all sites, girls score higher on the test and class anxiety index than boys, which means girls tend to feel more anxious about tests and schoolwork. The biggest gender gap was observed in Italian sites (Emilia-Romagna and Turin). On the contrary, Suzhou (China) has the smallest difference in girls’ and boys’ test and class anxiety. There is no difference, on average, between advantaged and disadvantaged students’ experiences of test and class anxiety, although small differences in either direction were seen in a minority of individual sites (Figure 3.24).

The gender difference in test and class anxiety within SSES is consistent with previous studies, which find that adolescent girls have higher prevalence of test anxiety and report more schoolwork pressure than boys (Inchley et al., 2020[10]; McDonald, 2001[67]). Girls also tend to express greater fear of failure than boys (OECD, 2019[53]). In Bogotá (Colombia), the gender gap in test and class anxiety widened between 2019 and 2023 (Figure 3.24).

Figure 3.23. Students' test and class anxiety

Level of individual test and class anxiety among 15-year-old students, average across sites

Figure 3.24. Students' test and class anxiety, by student characteristics

Mean of students' test and class anxiety index, by gender and socio-economic status

Higher emotional regulation skills and energy predict lower test and class anxiety most strongly, while higher achievement motivation and empathy can be associated with greater levels

Higher levels of all but three social and emotional skills are associated with lower test and class anxiety, on average. By far the most strongly related skill is stress resistance, with students who report being more stress resistant also saying they are less anxious about tests and schoolwork. In the order of strength of their relationship with stress resistance, the other most important skills are optimism, emotional control and energy (Figure 3.25). Of note, a degree of variation exists between sites, as presented in Figure 3.27. For example, while most skills are negatively associated with test and class anxiety on average across sites, in Sobral (Brazil), only students who report greater stress resistance, optimism, emotional control, and energy also report lower anxiety. All other skills are either unrelated or associated with higher levels of anxiety in Sobral (Brazil).

There is little relationship between tolerance and test and class anxiety, while achievement motivation and empathy are positively related to this outcome. This means that, on average across sites, students who report setting high standards for themselves and those who say they are empathetic also experience higher levels of test and class anxiety. While achievement motivation is an important skill to foster – it is the skill most positively associated with better academic outcomes (see Chapter 4) - students who work hard to reach their goals might need additional support to manage feelings of anxiousness in high-pressure test situations. Students might benefit from cultivating a ‘growth mindset’, where challenges and setbacks are seen as opportunities for learning. This mindset may support them to approach tests and classwork with a healthier perspective and less fear of failure (OECD, 2023[68]; Gouëdard, 2021[69])

Some social and emotional skills are, on average, more strongly related to test and class anxiety for girls and others for boys Figure 3.26). With increasing levels of stress resistance, trust, energy, optimism, and emotional control, girls report even lower average levels of test and class anxiety than boys. On the other hand, higher levels of persistence and responsibility are associated with even less test and class anxiety among boys than girls, on average. Empathy is not associated with boys’ anxiety, but it has a positive relationship with this outcome among girls in some sites – meaning girls who are more empathetic tend to experience higher test and class anxiety. Similarly, while tolerance tends to be unrelated to girls’ test and class anxiety, it is associated with lower levels of anxiety among boys.

In terms of socio-economic background, advantaged students on average seem to benefit even more so in terms of lower test and class anxiety from most social and emotional skills than disadvantaged students. These differences are found in several sites, but not in all.

Figure 3.25. Relationships between students’ social and emotional skills and test and class anxiety

Standardised regression coefficients of individual skills on students’ test and class anxiety, average across sites

Figure 3.26. Differences in relationships between skills and test and class anxiety by student characteristics

Differences in standardised regression coefficients of individual skills on students’ test and class anxiety, average across sites, by gender and socio-economic status

Figure 3.27. Relationships between social and emotional skills and students’ test and class anxiety by sites

Standardised regression coefficients of individual skills on students’ test and class anxiety, by sites

Well-being and health resilience

Students from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds tend to have a lower prevalence of healthy behaviours and have poorer well-being outcomes. This is consistent with previous studies (Inchley et al., 2020[10]; Quon and McGrath, 2014[70]; Reiss, 2013[71]; Cosma et al., 2023[12]). Examining social and emotional skills of disadvantaged students who, nevertheless, have high levels of well-being and positive health behaviours can help identify skills that can support disadvantaged students’ well-being and health resilience.

SSES 2023 defines students resilient in their health and well-being as those who are socio-economically disadvantaged in their own site, but who score in the top quarter of life satisfaction, current psychological well-being, or health behaviours in their site.

Box 3.4. Social, Emotional and Ethical (SEE) Learning in Ukraine: Resilience Amidst and Beyond War

SEE Learning, originally designed by Emory University, focuses on developing social and emotional skills needed to foster resilience, compassion, ethical awareness, attention, systems thinking, and the proactive and non-discriminatory mindset. Through the programme piloting, this has become the top priority of NGO EdCamp Ukraine in overcoming the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

EdCamp Ukraine, supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, began implementing SEE Learning within a nationwide pilot in 26 schools across 23 regions in 2019, at a time military confrontation was limited to the temporarily occupied parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. The expansion of SEE Learning in Ukraine has now gone beyond the initial pilot: the programme is now being implemented in nearly 200 Ukrainian schools, with around 5,000 educators having undergone comprehensive training. The programme can be integrated into the school ecosystem in various ways – as a separate lesson, within other disciplines, as club activities, or as class hours. The emotional component has also been integrated into the Standard of Elementary & Basic Education and the Professional Standards for Teachers/School Principals. In addition, the international SEE Learning programme is now present in 144 countries worldwide.

A key component of the SEE Learning programme includes the core concepts of the Community Resilience Model, created by the Trauma Resource Institute. After the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, educators reported that they, as well as children, have practiced SEE Learning within their families: teaching resiliency skills to neighbours and friends.

The demand for SEE Learning in contemporary Ukraine is driven by three needs. First, it is a resilience-oriented approach that cultivates the belief that, often, individuals can use their own resources to handle challenges. Second, it encompasses body literacy: an integral part of recovery strategies and the ability to cope with stress. Finally, it includes self-compassion, which relates to the societal need to overcome survivor’s guilt and take care of oneself. In this context, SEE Learning stands out because it spreads across the educational sector and is equipped with the essential teaching tools designed to foster skill development in both children and adults (educators, parents, and caretakers).

Currently, SEE Learning is being dynamically scaled across Ukraine, encompassing a range of associated educational initiatives. The national platform of opportunities for teacher professional development, EdWay, operated by EdCamp Ukraine, has 182 professional development programmes, which involve developing social and emotional skills and corresponding emotional-ethical competencies. These include Getting to know SEE Learning; Hibuki-school: Using the therapeutic toy in educational institutions as part of SEE Learning integration; and Resiliency Toloka. EdCamp Ukraine also oversees the government-public project POVIR (Podolannia Osvitnikh Vtrat i Rozryviv, “Overcoming Educational Losses and Gaps”) launched to address the inevitable educational losses and gaps in students during crisis times, particularly through SEE Learning.

Source: (EdCamp Ukraine, n.d.[72])

Around one-in-ten disadvantaged students across sites are resilient in their well-being and health

On average, around one in ten disadvantaged students are resilient in their well-being and health across sites (Figure 3.28). The proportion ranges from 9% in Spain and Jinan (China) to 13% in Peru.

Students resilient in their well-being and health report higher levels of all but one skill

Results indicate that students resilient in their health and well-being report higher levels of most social and emotional skills, compared to students who are not resilient – the only exception being tolerance (Figure 3.29). The size of the difference varies across skills, however. The biggest difference is in optimism: resilient students report being much more optimistic than their non-resilient peers. Optimism is followed by higher levels of energy, trust, emotional control and stress resistance.

The fact that resilient students report higher levels of social and emotional skills suggests that social and emotional skills may function as a protective factor for disadvantaged students’ well-being. Conversely, disadvantaged students with higher levels of well-being may find it easier to build their social and emotional skills. While these findings cannot ascertain the direction of the relationship, previous evidence shows that higher optimism is associated with people taking action to minimise health risks (Carver, Scheier and Segerstrom, 2010[54]). Developing social and emotional skills of disadvantaged students could therefore be a viable way to boost well-being and health outcomes and reduce socio-economic inequalities in health and well-being outcomes.

Figure 3.28. Students’ health and well-being resilience

Percentage of socio-economically disadvantaged students resilient in their health and well-being, by sites

Figure 3.29. Social and emotional skills of students resilient in their health and well-being

Difference between skills of resilient students and other disadvantaged students, by sites

Annex 3.A. Chapter 3 Tables

Online tables for each chapter can be accessed via the StatLink.

Table	Title
Table B3.1	Correlations between the six measures of well-being and health
Table B3.2	Dispersion of the six measures of well-being and health
Table B3.3	Students’ health behaviours
Table B3.4	Students' health behaviours, by student characteristics
Table B3.5	Relationship between students’ health behaviours and social and emotional skills
Table B3.6	Relationship between students’ health behaviours and social and emotional skills, by gender
Table B3.7	Relationship between students’ health behaviours and social and emotional skills, by socio-economic status
Table B3.8	Students’ body image
Table B3.9	Students' body image, by student characteristics
Table B3.10	Relationship between students’ body image and health behaviours
Table B3.11	Relationship between students’ body image and social and emotional skills
Table B3.12	Relationship between students’ body image and social and emotional skills, by gender
Table B3.13	Relationship between students’ body image and social and emotional skills, by socio-economic status
Table B3.14	Students' life satisfaction
Table B3.15	Students' life satisfaction, by student characteristics
Table B3.16	Relationship between students’ life satisfaction and health behaviours
Table B3.17	Relationship between students’ life satisfaction and social and emotional skills
Table B3.18	Relationship between students’ life satisfaction and social and emotional skills, by gender
Table B3.19	Relationship between students’ life satisfaction and social and emotional skills, by socio-economic status
Table B3.20	Students’ satisfaction with their relationships
Table B3.21	Students' satisfaction with their relationships, by student characteristics
Table B3.22	Relationship between students’ satisfaction with their relationships and social and emotional skills
Table B3.23	Relationship between students’ satisfaction with their relationships and social and emotional skills, by gender
Table B3.24	Relationship between students’ satisfaction with their relationships and social and emotional skills, by socio-economic status
Table B3.25	Students' current psychological well-being
Table B3.26	Students' current psychological well-being, by student characteristics
Table B3.27	Relationship between students’ current psychological well-being and health behaviours
Table B3.28	Relationship between students’ current psychological well-being and social and emotional skills
Table B3.29	Relationship between students’ current psychological well-being and social and emotional skills, by gender
Table B3.30	Relationship between students’ current psychological well-being and social and emotional skills, by socio-economic status
Table B3.31	Students' test and class anxiety
Table B3.32	Students' test and class anxiety, by student characteristics
Table B3.33	Relationship between students’ test and class anxiety and social and emotional skills
Table B3.34	Relationship between students’ test and class anxiety and social and emotional skills, by gender
Table B3.35	Relationship between students’ test and class anxiety and social and emotional skills, by socio-economic status
Table B3.36	Students’ health and well-being resilience
Table B3.37	Social and emotional skills of students resilient in their health and well-being
Table B3.38	Students’ bullying experience
Table B3.39	Students’ bullying experience, by student characteristics
Table B3.40	Relationship between students’ health behaviours and bullying experience
Table B3.41	Relationship between students’ body image and bullying experience
Table B3.42	Relationship between students’ life satisfaction and bullying experience
Table B3.43	Relationship between students’ current psychological well-being and bullying experience
Table B3.44	Relationship between students’ satisfaction with their relationships and bullying experience
Table B3.45	Relationship between students’ test and class anxiety and bullying experience
Table B3.46	Students' health behaviours, by student characteristics
Table B3.47	Relationship between students’ bullying experience and social and emotional skills

Statlink

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Notes

← 1. Some studies referenced refer to the Big Five domains of personality, on which SSES’ social and emotional skills framework is based.

← 2. Disadvantaged/advantaged students refer to those students who score in the bottom/top quarter of the index of economic, social, and cultural status (ESCS) in their own site.

← 3. Native students are students who were born in the country of assessment and students who have at least one parent born in the country of assessment. Students with migrant background are students who were born abroad and/or have parents who were born abroad.

← 4. The frequency of these behaviours and the relationships between social and emotional skills and these behaviours are assessed in 15 sites (data on these behaviours were not collected in SSES 2019).

← 5. Readers interested in additional technical details about the calculation of the health behaviours index are directed towards the short technical note at the end of this volume (Annex A) and the SSES 2023 Technical Report (forthcoming).

← 6. The referenced study refers to conscientiousness, the Big 5 domain on which the task performance domain is based.

← 7. The agreement with these statements and the relationships between social and emotional skills and agreement with these statements are assessed in 15 sites (data on the agreement with these statements were not collected in SSES 2019).

← 8. Readers interested in additional technical details about the calculation of the body image index are directed towards the short technical note at the end of this volume (Annex A) and the SSES 2023 Technical Report (forthcoming).

← 9. This reference refers to the Big Five domains of Neuroticism, Extroversion and Conscientiousness, on which the domains of Emotional regulation, Engaging with Others and Task performance skills within the social and emotional skills assessment framework are based.

← 10. The evaluation of life satisfaction and the relationships between social and emotional skills and life satisfaction are assessed in 22 sites (data were collected in SSES 2019 and 2023).

← 11. This reference refers to the Big Five domains of ‘emotional stability’ and ‘extroversion’, on which the domains of ‘emotional regulation’ and ‘engaging with others’ within the social and emotional skills assessment framework are based.

← 12. Students’ satisfaction with these relationships and the associations between social and emotional skills and their satisfaction with these relationships are assessed in 15 sites (data on satisfaction with these relationships were not collected in SSES 2019).

← 13. Readers interested in additional technical details about the calculation of the relationship satisfaction index are directed towards the short technical note at the end of this volume (Annex A) and the SSES 2023 Technical Report (forthcoming).

← 14. The frequency of these feelings and the relationships between social and emotional skills and frequency of these feelings are assessed in 22 sites (data were collected in SSES 2019 and 2023).

← 15. The item ‘My daily life has been filled with things that interest me’ was not included in the current psychological well-being index. Readers interested in additional technical details about the calculation of the WHO-5 index are directed towards the short technical note at the end of this volume (Annex A) and the SSES 2023 Technical Report (forthcoming).

← 16. This reference refers to the Big Five domains of Emotional stability, Conscientiousness and Agreeableness on which the domains of Emotional regulation, Task performance and Collaboration skills within the social and emotional skills assessment framework are based.

← 17. The agreement with these statements and the relationships between social and emotional skills and agreement with these statements are assessed in 22 sites (data were collected in SSES 2019 and 2023).

← 18. Readers interested in additional technical details about the calculation of the test and class anxiety index are directed towards the short technical note at the end of this volume (Annex A) and the SSES 2023 Technical Report (forthcoming).

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