Sociological perspectives on the mental health and wellbeing agenda in education

Abstract

In the UK and other countries there is currently a salient mental health and wellbeing policy agenda which is playing out across the education system, including in schools, colleges and universities, as well as in adult community learning, early years settings and workplace training. It is being driven by perceptions of a crisis of mental health and wellbeing (Ecclestone 2014; Lewis, Ormerod, and; Ecclestone 2020), with educational settings viewed as key sites for intervention (DH and DfE 2017; DHSC and DfE 2018; Hurry et al. 2020). Heightened concerns about children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing have been a key driver for the agenda, and have been ratcheted up by the recent COVID19 and cost-of-living crises. During the pandemic there were fears about social isolation during periods of restrictions exacerbating mental health issues among the UK population (Mind 2020) and wellbeing problems associated with loneliness which were already highlighted by Teresa May’s UK government (HM Government/DCMS 2018). Reports highlighted the effect of this isolation on the mental health and wellbeing of some groups in particular, including children and young people (Mind 2020; ONS 2020b). There were also reports of increases in domestic violence, child abuse and alcohol issues among the UK population during the pandemic (Finlay and Gilmore 2020; Svensson and Robson 2020). The impact of the crisis on mental health inequalities, as the effects of the pandemic have ‘interacted with existing divides by income, age, gender and ethnicity and in many cases exacerbated existing inequalities’ (Blundell et al. 2020, 298) have been discussed, with reports highlighting the long-term nature of many of these effects (British Academy 2021). In terms of gender, research showed how women bore the brunt of the social impact of the crisis, including responsibility for childcare and homeschooling resulting from school and nursery closures, and the effects of this on their mental health and wellbeing (Andrew et al. 2020; Blundell et al. 2020; Svensson and Robson 2020; Zhou et al. 2020), with women more likely than men to experience depression during the pandemic (ONS 2020a). The ongoing impacts of the pandemic for women’s equality in the workplace have also been highlighted (Fawcett Society et al. 2021). At the time of the pandemic we also saw the ten year review of the Marmot Report on health inequalities in England (Marmot et al. 2010), which showed an increasing health gap between wealthy and deprived areas, including in relation to mental health, and a decline in life expectancy for the poorest ten per cent of women (Marmot et al. 2020). On top of the pandemic, the mental health and wellbeing impacts of the recent cost-of-living crisis in the UK have been widely discussed (e.g. Munro, Allen, and Marmot 2023; Nuffield Health 2023). As with the pandemic, concerns have been raised about the effects of the crisis on children’s mental health (Samuel 2022), with its economic effects being particularly severe for some sectors of the population, including low income households, single parents, women and disabled people (Citizens Advice cost-of-living data dashboard March 2023). RESEARCH PAPERS IN EDUCATION 2023, VOL. 38, NO. 5, 715–726 https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2023.2238360