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Background: Schools are increasingly recognized as key facilitators of child and youth well-being. Much attention has been directed to the school social environment and the areas of school climate or school connectedness/identification. Drawing on the social identity approach and related work, it has been argued that school social identification may be the mechanism or process through which school climate comes to impact individual student functioning ("Applied Psychology," 28, 2009, 171). Much of the previous research on social identity and well-being, though, is limited because it is cross-sectional. Aims, Sample & Methods: This current study aims to advance understanding of the relationships between school climate, school identification and positive and negative well-being. It adopts a three-wave longitudinal sample of Australian students (N = 6537 wave 3, grades 7-10) and incorporates a range of control variables. Multilevel modelling (MLM) is used to test relationships of interest. Results and Conclusions: In line with predictions, school identification was a significant mediator of the relationship between school climate and the well-being dimensions of positive affect and depression (but not anxiety). The substantial theoretical and practical implications of this research are discussed, including the role of the school social environment in helping young people successfully transition to adulthood.

There has been sustained interest in the intersection between social constructs and mental health from diverse disciplines including psychiatry, sociology and public health. However, no systematic attempt has been made to catalogue what is meant by 'social' by different researchers, how variables deemed 'social' constructs are linked to mental health, nor whether these patterns differ by academic discipline. Understanding interdisciplinary differences and commonalities may reveal opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration to enhance our understanding of how social factors relate to mental health. This article presents a prospectively registered systematic map of social approaches to mental health using an innovative synthesis methodology (coding all sentences from a random selection of N = 287 articles). Results indicated that although approaches are diverse, disciplinary overlap is substantial. Psychology and psychiatry led articles tend to focus on social skills or emotions as features of mental (ill-)health, while public health and social sciences led articles tend to focus on social relationships, status or context as determinants of mental (ill-)health. Medicine led articles were most likely to focus on social outcomes of mental (ill-)health. Potential growth areas are noted, particularly the relative dearth of intervention research drawing upon social approaches. The findings are discussed with a view towards enabling more effective interdisciplinary collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although accumulating research indicates that negative expectations about interracial interactions undermine the quality of such interactions, little research has examined the factors that moderate the influence of negative expectations on responses to interracial interactions. We propose that individuals who endorse work-related ideologies such as the Protestant work ethic (PWE) expect that outcomes in interracial interactions should be contingent upon individual effort. As a result, such individuals are hypothesized to respond in a negative manner when they believe that regardless of their effort in an interracial interaction, interaction partners will respond negatively to them (termed negative response expectancies). Consistent with this hypothesis, negative response expectancies led to an increased desire to avoid interracial interactions (Studies 1a and 1b) and more antisocial behavior directed at an interracial interaction partner among individuals who strongly endorsed the PWE (Study 2). Across the studies, effects of negative response expectancies were relatively weaker or non-significant among individuals lower in the PWE. The implications of these findings for understanding the interplay between the PWE and expectancies in interracial interactions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There has been sustained interest in the intersection between social constructs and mental health from diverse disciplines including psychiatry, sociology and public health. However, no systematic attempt has been made to catalogue what is meant by 'social' by different researchers, how variables deemed 'social' constructs are linked to mental health, nor whether these patterns differ by academic discipline. Understanding interdisciplinary differences and commonalities may reveal opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration to enhance our understanding of how social factors relate to mental health. This article presents a prospectively registered systematic map of social approaches to mental health using an innovative synthesis methodology (coding all sentences from a random selection of N  = 287 articles). Results indicated that although approaches are diverse, disciplinary overlap is substantial. Psychology and psychiatry led articles tend to focus on social skills or emotions as features of mental (ill-)health, while public health and social sciences led articles tend to focus on social relationships, status or context as determinants of mental (ill-)health. Medicine led articles were most likely to focus on social outcomes of mental (ill-)health. Potential growth areas are noted, particularly the relative dearth of intervention research drawing upon social approaches. The findings are discussed with a view towards enabling more effective interdisciplinary collaboration.