Session Information
08 SES 05, Children and Young People's Well-being
Paper Session
Contribution
In Kazakhstan, there has been an alarming increase in teenage suicide (“Suicide rate spikes,” 2015), especially among boys. These incidents have been occurring throughout the country, with secondary school students. Some reasons are speculated about the cause, such as pressures from testing (“Test or Stress? Please mark” 2010; “Academic Alert” 2014), increasing competitiveness for joining the top universities, as well as limited career choices, especially in remote areas. An area of educational research in Kazakhstan, which deserves special attention is the general well-being of students and the structure of support in place to address students’ emotional and psychological well-being. As the most recent OECD Report on School Resources in Kazakhstan states, “indicators on the health and well-being status of the Kazakh population suggest that significant challenges remain in terms of human development. Life expectancy remains low in comparison with countries with a similar level of income” (OECD, 2015: 32)
Within Kazakhstani schools, the structure to support student wellbeing includes, apart from the principal and the teachers, the vice-principal of pastoral cares, the curators (who are also teachers in most cases), the social care worker, and at least one full time school psychologist. The country’s education system is currently going through major reforms and is becoming increasingly globalised (OECD Report ‘Secondary Education in Kazakhstan’, 2014), generating new sources of stress for students of both highly competitive schools, such as the network of Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools (NIS) and mainstream schools, some of which, especially in rural area, are lagging behind due to various factors .
The recognition of the profession of school psychologists in Kazakhstan remains generally relatively low. The state is trying to raise the social status of a school teacher as well as education-related professions such as a school psychologist. Though a position of school psychologist has been officially registered in the school staffing structure during Soviet times back in 1987, school psychology appears to be an emergent profession in the post-Soviet Kazakhstan’s context. Recently the local community has witnessed public argument on the clarity of professional duties and competencies of school psychologist with the lamentations this specialty (News ‘School Psychologists’ Professional Duties Have Been Missed’, 2007).
There is not yet any national association of school psychologists and the conditions in which they operate are the poorest among all school staff members who are in direct contact with the students. On the other hand, there is a growing, however still limited, awareness on the part of principal, teachers, and parents of the need for students to consult the school psychologist in time of emotional or psychological distress. This study focuses specifically on the role of school psychologists in supporting and monitoring the wellbeing of high school students in their later years and the stigma still prevailing around such issues relating to mental illness in Kazakhstan.
Using constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006), presented within the study are preliminary results of fieldwork conducted in the southern, northern and western part of the country, in both rural and urban zones. The locations were chosen according to specific known problems that their inhabitants are facing on a daily basis, such as pollution (Zetterström, 1999), poverty (Jensen, Mazhhitova, & Zetterström, 1997), environmental hazard (Cockerham, Hinote, Abbott, & Haerpfer, 2004), remotedness and high crime rate. This study is guided by the following research questions: (1) how do school psychologists conceptualize wellbeing in their daily work with students? and (2) how do school psychologists understand their role(s)?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Suicide rate spiked for children in Kazakhstan, statistics. (2015, Jun 7). Retrieved from https://www.interfax.kz/?lang=eng&int_id=expert_opinions&news_id=429 Charmaz, Kathy. (2006). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis London: Sage. Cockerham, W. C., Hinote, B. P., Abbott, P., & Haerpfer, C. (2004). Health lifestyles in Central Asia: the case of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Social Science & Medicine. 59(7): 1409- 1421. Cheney, G., Schlösser, A, Nash, P., & Glover L. (2013). Targeted group-based interventions in schools to promote emotional well-being: A systematic review. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 13: 548-556. Christopher, J. C. (1999). Situating psychological well-being: Exploring the cultural roots of its theory and research. Journal of Counseling & Development. 77(2): 141-152. Jensen, S., Mazhitova, Z., & Zetterström, R. (1997). Environmental pollution and child health in the Aral Sea region in Kazakhstan. Science of the Total Environment. 206(2): 187-193 Linley, P. A., Maltby, J., Wood, A. M., Osborne, G., Hurling, R. (2009). Measuring happiness: The higher order factor structure of subjective and psychological well-being measures. Personality and Individual Differences. 47(8): 878-884. Law on Education (2007). Astana: Kazakhstan. Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan. McLellan, R. & Steward, S. (2014). Measuring children and young people’s wellbeing in the school context. Cambridge Journal of Education: 1-26. OECD/The World Bank (2015), OECD Reviews of School Resources: Kazakhstan 2015, OECD Publishing, Paris. OECD (2014) Reviews of National Policies for Education: Secondary Education in Kazakhstan. OECD Publishing, Paris. UNICEF. (2007). Development of indicators for the evaluation of schools positive attitudes towards children. Report. Astana: Kazakhstan. Zakon.kz News (2014) ‘Academic Alert’. Retrieved from: http://www.zakon.kz/4624720-bolshojj-stress-neset-v-sebe-sdacha.html Zakon.kz News (2010) ‘Test or Stress: please mark’. Retrieved from: http://www.zakon.kz/163401-test-ili-stress-nuzhnoe-podcherknut..html Zakon.Kz News (2007) ‘School Psychologists’ Professional Duties Have Been Missed’. Kazakhstan. Retrieved from: http://www.zakon.kz/83826-dlja-pedagogov-psikhologov-zabyli.html Zetterström, R. (1999). Child health and environmental pollution in the Aral Sea region in Kazakhstan. Acta Paediatrica. 88(429): 49-54.
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