The present study investigates the relationship between school students' part-time employment and their academic engagement and psychological well-being. High school students completed a questionnaire assessing the quantity and quality of their employment, cognitive and behavioural aspects of their academic engagement, and levels of stress they were experiencing. Employed students reported significantly greater stress in terms of less ability to cope with day-to-day events than did students who were not employed. Employed students also reported comparatively lower levels of attentiveness and cognitive engagement at school than students who were not employed. Gender effects also emerged: boys appeared to benefit more from employment than girls both in terms of lower levels of depression and higher self-concept when work conditions were positive. Implications for both individual counselling and whole-school welfare are discussed.

Health and well-being is underscored by how we deal with stress, that is coping. This paper provides an overview of the theory of coping, current conceptualisations, and ways of measuring the construct. It provides a frame-work within which we can understand human adaptation. Empirical data which contributes to our understanding of coping is presented. Implications for health and the development of resilience are addressed.

There is an increasing concern with the general health and well-being of youth in educational settings. This paper reviews eleven studies which focus on the relationship between adolescents' coping strategies and various aspects of their general and academic well-being. In each of these studies the measure used to assess students' coping responses was the Adolescent Coping Scale (Frydenberg & Lewis, 1993). In one study it was generally found that when it came to young people's depression the use of non-productive coping was a predictor over and above teacher reports of students' well-being. In several other studies it was found that more reported problems, low self-esteem and high perceived academic stress were associated with the use of non productive coping strategies. In a study of gifted young people it was found that those with rigid beliefs about themselves were also likely to use non-productive coping strategies. In the adult community, young women with anorexia nervosa resorted to non productive ways of coping as did university students who were experiencing academic stress. There appears to be general support for the notion that if successful coping is to be increased, it may be helpful to teach ways in which the use of non-productive strategies can be decreased.

The development of effective coping resources, including positive thinking and an increased sense of self-efficacy, is related to enhancing resilience and healthy development in young people. A universal school-based prevention program that adapted techniques cognitive therapists use for depressed children, and directly based on the work of Seligman (1995), was implemented over a six-week period to whole-class groups by classroom teachers within their regular school curricula. Learning was facilitated through the use of stories, cartoons, hypothetical examples, practice and role-plays. Fifty-eight Year 5 and 6 students from four schools in regional and rural Victoria completed pre- and post-program questionnaires on self-efficacy, coping and attributional style. Following program participation, children reported significant improvements in optimistic thinking and self-efficacy, as well as a reduction in the use of the non-productive coping strategies of worry, wishful thinking, not coping, and reliance on friends. These promising results provide evidence for the feasibility of implementing a low-cost, non-intrusive program that addresses the emotional well-being of all young people in school settings. The longer-term success and viability of any universal preventive programs may ultimately depend upon the extent to which such programs can be integrated into the mainstream curriculum practices of schools.

The guidance role in Queensland is undergoing change so it is important to update our knowledge of how the changes have affected the guidance role. An 18-item questionnaire was used to obtain details of characteristics and daily work of 155 guidance officers. The results show demographic information, guidance officer:student ratios, professional membership, qualifications and daily work. These results are discussed and implications for guidance officers' work and training explored.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a non-intrusive and brief screening measure for identifying young people at risk for depression. Coping and depression questionnaires were completed by a sample of 115 Year 9 students from two post-primary schools in Melbourne, Australia. The study replicated the frequently reported findings in the literature of positive associations between an avoidant, emotion-focused, or non-productive coping style, together with inverse associations with an active or productive coping style, and depressive syndromes. When results were analysed based on a median split of coping style scores, adolescents who utilised more non-productive coping strategies together with fewer productive coping strategies reported significantly higher levels of depressive syndromes than any of the other categories. The findings not only suggest that a brief measure of coping may be appropriate in the early identification of students who may be at risk for depression, but also have implications for the design of future preventive and early intervention programs.

Social anxiety is a debilitating problem affecting many life domains, however the aetiology of this anxiety remains unclear. Aside from biological models, learning and, more recently, information transfer have been implicated in the onset of social anxiety. These last are of particular concern to those working with children or adolescents. The primary aim of this study is to investigate the role of early parental style as a casual factor in social anxiety and then to assess the impact of social anxiety on emotional wellbeing, quality of life and relation-ships, and the use of coping strategies. Ninety-five 18-19 year old first year university students (75 females, 19 males) completed the Parental Bonding Instrument (relevant to their first 16 years), the Austin Quality of Life Scale, Personal Assessment of Intimacy in Relationships Scale - Revised, UCLA Loneliness Scale, EAS Temperament Scale, Ways of Coping Checklist-Revised, and a measure of social anxiety suitable for nonclinical samples. Childhood perceptions of reduced care and overprotection from fathers predicted social anxiety (R216 per cent) but maternal style did not. Social anxiety was related to less use of solution oriented coping; greater use of affective-based coping strategies; poorer emotional well-being, quality of relationships and quality of life; and higher levels of loneliness. The importance of the role of the family when working with young adolescents and children is discussed as is the suggestion that early information transfer from peers, siblings, and more importantly teachers are also assessed as predictors of social anxiety. While the present study revealed no association between gender and social anxiety on information transfer, it is suggested that future studies examine separate cohorts of young males and females.

The study was a qualitative analysis of secondary students' perceptions towards their school disciplinary absence, the wider context in which it occurred, and its impact on their behaviors and re-entry to school. Findings showed that suspensions had mixed effects on the students. Many of the students including those wanting to improve their behavior, reported no change or worsening behaviors on return to school. Those who reported improved behaviors and greater self-control had, in most cases, received support or participated in alternative programs during and after their suspension. Students identified factors that impacted on the success or otherwise of their returning to school and improving their behaviors. Suspension experiences varied considerably indicating their individual meaning for students and the need for individual approaches to address their needs. A teacher reference group reflected many students' perceptions. Implications for the use of suspensions and reducing the number of school disciplinary absences were discussed.

The present study explores the link between perceived control (locus of causation and perceived competence), self-reported coping style (productive and nonproductive coping), and depressed mood amongst a sample of high school students. Internal locus beliefs positively predicted productive coping and negatively predicted non-productive coping. Perceived competence positively predicted productive coping and negatively predicted depressed mood. Non-productive coping positively predicted depressed mood. Findings are discussed with a focus on the implications for counselling professionals in promoting adolescent resilience to depression..

In this paper it is argued that the normative biological, social and emotional events and processes of sexual maturation in adolescence can be interpreted as stressors. The nature of these stressors varies in terms of the amount of change required to adjust to the event or process, its unexpectedness, suddenness, negativity and uncontrollableness. Young people's capacity to cope with their sexual development, and the strategies they employ, will depend on the perceived nature of the stressor, the personal characteristics and inner resources of the adolescent, and the level of accessible social support. Personal characteristics discussed include optimism and a positive outlook, hardiness, communication and social skills, restraint/ conscientiousness and sense of control. Environmental supports discussed include family, peers, school, and organised religion.

Career development is a lifelong process influenced by a range of factors including gender. The process of career development is accounted for in several ways including models which describe stages through which individuals pass. Career education programs in schools attend to the career development of young people in secondary schools more often than in primary schools. The present study examined the occupational aspirations of Year 6 children in terms of developmental stages and the influence of gender. Data were collected before and after the children participated in a short term career education program. Comparisons were made of the pre-and post-test data.

According to cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST), individuals process information through two conceptual systems, an experiential system and a rational system, each operating by its own rules of inference. The study aimed to investigate adolescent scholastic and coping ability using the recently developed self-report measure of individual differences in intuitive-experiential and analytical-rational thinking, based on the cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST; Epstein, Pacini, Denes-Raj & Heier, 1996). The sample involved 134 adolescent boys from an independent boys' school in Sydney, Australia. As a within-group correlational study, the data were analysed using factor analysis, correlational analysis, multiple regressions and canonical correlation analysis. The analysis was carried out using the SPSS system (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). The results suggest that while factor analysis had established the independence of the analytical-rational and intuitive-experiential functions among an Australian male adolescent sample, only the analytical-rational function was found to be significantly correlated with both adolescent scholastic and coping ability. No substantial correlations were found between these two measures and the intuitive-experiential function. The findings support the notion that students with high intelligence and effective coping favoured using the rational function. These findings may in part reflect, as suggested by Epstein, Pacini et al., (1996) the developmental aspects of the two modes of information processing among younger participants. Implications for effective student learning and coping are discussed.

In an investigation of the problems and coping strategies of Australian high school students, comparisons were made between the responses of 1664 students enrolled in Years 8 to 12 in 1988,1620 students enrolled in the same year levels in 1993, and 178 high school teachers in 1993. The subjects completed the High School Stressors Scale (Burnett & Fanshawe, 1997) and the Adolescent Coping Strategies Scale (Burnett & Fanshawe, 1996). Data analyses using MANOVAs, ANOVAs, and t-tests revealed close similarities between the responses of the 1993 students and those of the 1988 students, but a considerable amount of incongruence between the responses of the students and those of the teachers. In particular, the teachers generally seemed to regard their students' problems as being more serious than was acknowledged by the students, and the teachers generally seemed to project a less positive view of adolescents' coping strategies than did the students. These discrepancies are discussed in terms of the different orientations that students and teachers bring to the student-teacher relationship. It is suggested that teachers and counsellors need to take cognisance of the differences between adolescents' perspectives and their own if they are going to be effective in assisting students to develop positive coping strategies and in creating more positive learning environments.

This paper overviews school psychology at the close of the 20th century, exploring the profession's location within public sector bureaucracies. The paper draws liberally from various literatures: the dynamics of globalisation and its impact on nation-states, perspectives on public sector organisational change, developments in school psychology, international perspectives from practicing school psychologists, and, a case example which illustrates the dynamic and problematic relationship between organisational reform and professional practice. The paper concludes with several themes around which practitioners are encouraged to reflect upon the profession, and their own practices, with the view to considering how best to develop pro-active responses in their own organisational and workplace circumstances.

This paper introduces to school personnel some important issues with regard to chronic illness in children and adolescents. Current approaches to understanding the adaptation of young people to chronic illness are introduced, and the present state of knowledge about its psychosocial impact is outlined. Specific effects on education are then discussed, followed by a consideration of the role of school personnel, particularly guidance officers and school counsellors, in ensuring that the needs of students with chronic illnesses are appropriately met.

This paper arose from a call for submissions by a working party of the British Psychological Society charged with the task of drawing up guidelines for the multidisciplinary management of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. We begin by considering the notion of ADHD as an ‘evolving concept.’ Multimodal interventions are generally recommended, and this necessitates multidisciplinary practice; however, such collaboration may be difficult because of differing beliefs about ADHD amongst the parties concerned. Some recent Australian documents on ADHD management are discussed, drawing out some issues relevant for multidisciplinary collaboration. These include the primacy of the medical model and the notion of functionality as contrasted with a dysfunctional view of problematic behaviours.

This study, conducted over a 20 week period, focused on a group of primary school teachers as they implemented a variety of intervention actions, within their class programs, directed towards supporting the reduction of high levels of communication apprehension (CA) among students. Six teachers and nine students, located across three primary schools, six class groups, and four year levels, participated in the study.

An action research paradigm incorporating a series of case studies was used to describe each teacher's journey as he/she responded to the diverse needs of individual students with high CA levels. The principal data collection methods used in this study included the Personal Report of Communication Fear (PRCF) scale, semistructured interviews, and dialogue journaling. The PRCF scale was used as a screening tool to identify students experiencing high levels of CA.

Semistructured interviews, conducted by the researcher at the beginning and conclusion of the action research process, provided valuable information relevant to each student. Dialogue journaling was the medium by which teachers engaged in written discourse with the researcher, discussing the growth, development, and progress of individual students. Entries in dialogue journals comprised a significant component of each teacher's case study.

Six case studies document the teacher's action research journey. These case studies recount the teacher's perceptions of their endeavours to minimise the problems that arise with primary school students experiencing high CA levels. In particular, they highlight the fact that teachers are faced with diverse problems and plan to resolve these in different ways.

This article describes two interventions for adolescents based on a multisystemic problem-solving approach. One intervention is a school reentry program for chronically ill adolescents, while the other is a violence prevention program for at-risk youth. Commonalties across the two programs include individualized interventions; an educationally oriented, skills based approach; systems consultation; peers as important change agents; and inclusion of parents, teachers, and community agents. The article discusses the importance of a multisystemic, problem solving approach to interventions. Next, the two individual prevention programs are described. Finally, implications for practice are reviewed for each of the programs.