A Review of Research on the Relationship Between Boarding School and Mental Health
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v13i3.7452Keywords:
Boarding School, Mental Health, StudentsAbstract
This review surveys existing data on the relationship between boarding school attendance and mental health outcomes. Many families all over the world choose to send their children to boarding school. Given the current youth mental health crisis, understanding how different educational and parental decisions influence the mental health outcomes of children is extremely important. We review 13 empirical studies on how boarders and non-boarders differ in mental health outcomes. There are three types of study we found in our review: cross-sectional studies, which compared boarders to non-boarders at a single point in time,, cross-sectional longitudinal studies, which compared boarders to non-boarders across multiple time points, and non-comparison surveys, which surveyed boarders only. Taken as a whole, the data show a significant negative relationship between boarding and mental health outcomes, including depression, anxiety, and loneliness. Whether or not a causal relationship exists is less clear from the data. We consider, based on the sample, a number of candidates for causal explanations, including parental alienation, bullying, loneliness, and academic stress. We conclude that, while there is some indication that boarding increases parental alienation, bullying, and academic stress, more studies are required to establish a firm causal relationship between boarding and negative mental health outcomes.
Downloads
References or Bibliography
Blomqvist, I., Henje Blom, E., Hägglöf, B., & Hammarström, A. (2019, March 11). Increase of internalized mental health symptoms among adolescents during the last three decades. OUP Academic. https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/29/5/925/5374731?login=true
Chen, Q., Chen, Y., & Zhao, Q. (2020, August 14). Impacts of boarding on primary school students’ mental health outcomes – instrumental-variable evidence from rural northwestern China. Economics & Human Biology. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1570677X20301908
Hopkins, E. (2021, November 22). Exploring the impact of attending boarding school on adult well-being, mental health and relationships. Research Repository. https://repository.essex.ac.uk/31581/
Lester, L., & Mander, D. (2020, January). Gale - Institution finder. A Longitudinal Mental Health and Wellbeing Survey of Students Transitioning to a Boys’ Only Boarding School. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE|A512496603&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=19326203&p=AONE&sw=w
Lester, L., & Mander, D. (2024, March 29). A Longitudinal Mental Health and Wellbeing Survey of Students Transitioning to a Boys’Only Boarding School. Australian and International Journal of Rural Education. https://journal.spera.asn.au/index.php/AIJRE
Li, H., Law, W., Zhang, X., & Xiao, N. (2023, October 24). Social support and emotional well-being among boarders and day school students: A two-wave longitudinal study. Children and Youth Services Review. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0190740923004139#:~:text=Multi%2Dgroup%20analysis%20revealed%20that,positively%20associated%20with%20later%20happiness
Mander, D., & Lester, L. (2017, May 2). A longitudinal study into indicators of mental health, strengths and difficulties reported by boarding students as they transition from primary school to secondary boarding schools in Perth, Western Australia: Journal of Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools. Cambridge Core. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-psychologists-and-counsellors-in-schools/article/longitudinal-study-into-indicators-of-mental-health-strengths-and-difficulties-reported-by-boarding-students-as-they-transition-from-primary-school-to-secondary-boarding-schools-in-perth-western-australia/19100869AF88A301DD013B61B7D25003
Po, Y., & Zhiyi, Y. (n.d.). How Boarding Schools Affect Student Mental Health?. Journal of East China Normal University (Education Science Edition). https://xbjk.ecnu.edu.cn/article/2022/1000-5560/2022-8-67.shtml
Rau, T., Ohlert, J., Fegert, J. M., Pohling, A., Andresen, S., & Allroggen, M. (2018, December). Psychische Auffälligkeiten von Jugendlichen in Internaten: Eine deutschlandweite Befragung. eLibrary. http://www.vr-elibrary.de/doi/pdf/10.13109/prkk.2016.65.6.464
Rudrum, M., Houghton, S., & Glasgow, K. (2022, June 19). Loneliness and depressive symptoms ... - sage journals. Loneliness and depressive symptoms among Australian female boarding school students. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01430343221107394
Steinhausen, H.-C., & Metzke, C. W. (2019, April 20). Risk, compensatory, vulnerability, and protective factors influencing mental health in adolescence - journal of youth and adolescence. SpringerLink. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1010471210790
Tang, B., Wang, Y., Gao, Y., Wu, S., Li, H., Chen, Y., & Shi, Y. (2020, November 6). The effect of boarding on the mental health of primary school students in Western Rural china. International journal of environmental research and public health. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7664204/
Wahab, S., Rahman, F. N. A., Hasan, W. M. H. W., Zamani, I. Z., Arbaiei, N. C., Khor, S. L., & Nawi, A. M. (2013, April 17). Stressors in secondary boarding school students: Association with stress, anxiety and depressive symptoms. Wiley Online Library. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/appy.12067
Widyaningsih, B. N., Marchira, C. R., & Claramita, M. (2022, May). Comparison of family function and mental emotional health of adolescents in a state junior high school, modern and traditional boarding schools. Review of Primary Care Practice and Education (Kajian Praktik dan Pendidikan Layanan Primer). https://journal.ugm.ac.id/rpcpe/article/view/33980/34202
World Health Organization. (2021, November 17). Mental health of adolescents. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-mental-health#:~:text=Globally%2C%20one%20in%20seven%2010,illness%20and%20disability%20among%20adolescents.
Xing, J., Leng, L., & Ho, R. T. H. (2021, May 19). Boarding school attendance and mental health among Chinese adolescents: The potential role of alienation from parents. Children and Youth Services Review. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0190740921001535
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Copyright (c) 2024 Angela Lu; Zach Bloom, Shannon O'Dwyer
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright holder(s) granted JSR a perpetual, non-exclusive license to distriute & display this article.
