Irene García Moya

University of Sevilla

Social and affective aspects of school life. A view from the diversity of the student body

Participants: Antonia Jiménez-Iglesias1; Carmen Paniagua1; Marta Díez López1

1University of Seville

Symposium Summary

The relational and affective features of school life are key elements not only for academic performance but also for personal well-being and development, aspects that have not always received the attention they deserve in the study of the school context. Following this line of research, which we consider to be a priority, this invited symposium focuses on the social and affective aspects of school life, dealing with contents such as the subjective assessment of school life, relations with teachers, relations with peers and family-school collaboration. To this end, we will count on contributions from different research projects (Teacher Connectedness Project, Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Study and TAE Project), which will make it possible to approach these contents from complementary perspectives and with a view to the diversity of the student body. Specifically, the communications integrated in this symposium will allow us to learn about the school experiences of a diverse student body, on the one hand, in terms of their family circumstances (from the adopted student body to students from non-conventional families) and, on the other hand, from the point of view of their evolutionary development, since together with communications focused on adolescent students, we will have a work that will address the importance of the educational environment in emerging adulthood. The final aim will be to discuss the common and differential aspects associated with the elements of diversity explored, as well as to reflect on the importance of school experiences for the well-being of students at different educational stages.

Short CV

PhD in Psychology, she works as a Ramón y Cajal Researcher in the Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology at the University of Seville. She is part of the research group "Developmental and educational processes in family and school contexts" and her research career has revolved around the study of the family and school as key contexts for positive development and well-being during adolescence.

Her main line of research currently focuses on the importance of student-teacher relationships for adolescent well-being, being the PI for the Teacher Connectedness Project. She initiated this line of research thanks to her Marie Curie European project "Well-being among European youth: The contribution of student-teacher relationships in the secondary-school population" and continued with the project "The assessment of student-teacher connectedness and its relationship with adolescent wellbeing", one of the only two in social sciences funded by the Fundación La Caixa Junior Leader-Retaining 2018 programme. In addition, since 2010, she has been a member of the research team in Spain for the international study Health Behaviour in School-aged Children and has been chosen as one of the co-directors of the group of experts in the study of the school context of the international network of this study, a position she has held since 2018 and which has allowed her to address aspects such as school satisfaction and stress from an international perspective. She is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Hertfordshire (England, United Kingdom).

As a result of her intense research activity, she has published numerous articles in high impact journals and has actively participated in national and international conferences, an activity that she combines with her teaching work in the training of future teachers in the degree courses of Primary Education and University Master in Teaching of Compulsory Secondary Education and Baccalaureate, Vocational Training and Language Teaching (MAES).

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