The well-being of adolescents with and without SEN : the role of gender, socioeconomic factors, and parenting

Globally, young people's mental health difficulties are on the rise. The gap in well-being (i.e., mental well-being [MWB] and school experiences) between children from socioeconomically disadvantaged families and peers from socioeconomically advantaged families has increased. Within policy circles, parenting has been seen as a key mechanism to narrow this gap. Over the last two decades politicians in the UK, from New Labour to Conservative governments, have increasingly attributed children's well-being to what parents do for their children, rather than acknowledging the role of parents' socioeconomic status in shaping adolescents' well-being and school experiences. This research study investigated how socioeconomic factors, gender, and parenting contribute to the mental health and school experiences of adolescents, with and without SEN. By examining adolescents with and without SEN, this study revealed differences between SES, gender, parenting and adolescents' well-being and school experiences, beyond those usually seen for children without SEN. A mixed research methodology is used. Associations between family socioeconomic status and gender and parenting, and the well-being of children with and without SEN were examined using data from the Millennium Cohort Study, focusing on 11 and 14 year olds. In addition, semi-structured interviews with eight parents, four of whom have children with SEN, offered rich data to examine in depth aspects of the quantitative findings. The findings revealed associations between non-optimal parenting, socioeconomic disadvantages, mental health difficulties and negative school experiences among adolescents with and without SEN. While parents in poverty were aware of optimal parenting behaviours, due to economic hardship and lack of quality time to spend with their children, they had difficulties enacting them. The findings opposed the stigmatization of non-optimal parenting with poverty culture explanations. Namely, non-optimal parenting was not a cultural reflection of parents in poverty but a consequence of the socioeconomic constraints and limited affordances of parents in poverty. The findings showed the cumulative and unique contributions of socioeconomic factors, parenting, and gender to adolescents' wellbeing. Namely, adolescents with and without SEN in poverty were more likely to have mental problems and negative school experiences, and in all socioeconomic levels, girls were more likely to have internalizing problems while boys were more likely to have externalizing problems. The findings also showed that because, for adolescents with SEN, parenting and fulfilling the pre- and mid-adolescents' needs require extra time and economic resources, poverty affects the well-being of pre- and mid-adolescents with SEN more than that of prexi and mid-adolescents without SEN. The findings stress how vital economic well-being is to parenting to assure adolescents' well-being, and suggest that policies aimed at improving parenting and the policies related to adolescents' mental health and SEN should be comprehensive to include improvements to the socio-economic well-being of families and also to take on board gender inequality.