The first issue for this year is a little light on because Cambridge is changing the typesetters for the journal. Consequently, this issue can only contain those articles that were ready last year for production. We have had many articles accepted since then (see the journal’s website and look under First View for a read of these articles before they are printed in hard copy), and so the next issue should be a bumper one. That is not to say that these articles are not excellent, which they are, but there are just six of them instead of the usual nine.
We begin with an article by Terence Bowles and Janice Scull, which presents a model of school connectedness. This is a very important topic, as many studies have shown that a student’s connectedness to school is a highly protective factor for their wellbeing. After reviewing the literature, four factors were identified, of attending, belonging, engaging, and flow. Based on these four factors, a sequential, four-level model of school connectedness was proposed for adolescents in secondary schools. The authors argue that this model can act as a template for increasing students’ engagement with school at a practical level. The article has already been viewed by 85 people, has 121 readers on Mendeley and has been featured in a news article.
The next two articles are about anxiety in children and adolescents. The first one, by Victoria Etherington and Shane Costello, compared two methods for the delivery of a program of mindfulness for upper-primary children to reduce anxiety. The program was delivered either to a targeted group of children because they were at risk of elevated anxiety or as a class universal program. It was found that anxiety scores decreased both for the targeted group and those in the universal intervention who had elevated anxiety scores, but not for the universal group as a whole. The authors conclude that universal delivery provides the most opportunities for all children and also supports children with problematic anxiety. The next article on anxiety is by Özkan Çikrıkci, Evren Erzen and İlknur Akistanbullu Yeniçeri, who studied test anxiety in secondary school students. They found that there were significant correlations between test anxiety and life satisfaction, with self-esteem and optimism mediating the correlation.
Angela Curcio, Anita Mak and Amanda George were authors of the next article also examining secondary school students. This study assessed students’ bonding with mothers and fathers separately and the consequences of poor parental bonding. It was found that girls reported lower self-esteem and higher levels of psychological distress than boys. Girls who reported higher levels of psychological distress also reported low self-esteem and perceived maternal or paternal rejection. However, psychological distress in boys was only correlated with low self-esteem.
The last two articles are about school psychologists/counsellors. The first is an interesting article on Turkish school counsellors, by Halis Sakız and Mehmet Sarıçalı. It was found that counsellors did not have a theoretical orientation to their counselling practice, and the authors maintain that this led to less effective counselling, as the approaches were arbitrary. It would be interesting to compare Australian school psychologists/counsellors’ theoretical orientation of their counselling practices. The last article, by Brett Furlonger, Marko Ostojic, Jasmine Chung, Katrina Philips, Margherita Busacca, Dennis Moore and Angelika Anderson, examined a framework to assist school psychologists and counsellors in recommending quality apps for supporting students with diabetes in self-management. They found that few apps incorporated behaviour change strategies. The authors advocated for school psychologists/counsellors to review apps to match the needs of students with diabetes.
