How can education better support the mental health & wellbeing of young
people? Research in the 1970s that addressed this question has since proven
seminal to the development of two co-existing fields of research that continue
to offer mutually informative insights: Developmental Psychopathology (DP) and
Educational Effectiveness Research (EER). DP and EER share the common agenda
of understanding factors that relate to individuals’ learning and development: DP
focuses on the individual learning and developing in context, EER investigates the
educational systems, structures, and processes that shape how individuals learn
and develop.
Given the complementarity of DP and EER, it is somewhat surprising that they have
rarely joined forces and synthesised knowledge to develop a fuller understanding of
the roles educational contexts play in the mental health and wellbeing of students.
This Research Topic aims to stimulate such collaboration.