This study examined indicators of mental health, as well as strengths and difficulties, as reported by same-age boarding and non-boarding students spanning four time points over a 2-year period as they transitioned from primary to boarding school in Western Australia (i.e., at the end of Grade 7, beginning of Grade 8, end of Grade 8, and end of Grade 9). It presents data taken from a larger longitudinal quantitative study, which included 76 male and 74 female boarding students while they were in Grades 7 to 9. Findings indicate that boarding students and non-boarding students reported significant increases in depression, anxiety, as well as emotional symptoms and hyperactivity over time, and reported significant decreases in prosocial behaviour. However, examining the boarder × time interaction, boarding students reported significantly higher levels of anxiety and stress at the end of Grade 8 compared to non-boarding students. No significant difference over time was found in depressive symptomatology between boarding and non-boarding students, whereas at the beginning of Grade 8 and end of Grade 9, boarding students reported significantly higher emotional symptoms than non-boarding students. These findings are discussed in terms of the boarding school context and possible considerations for prevention and practice are presented.

Recent media and policy focus in remote Aboriginal education has turned to boarding schools. The general rhetoric is that boarding schools will allow Indigenous Australian students to have access to quality education and to learn to ‘walk in two worlds’. However, to date, there has been very little exploration of the lived experiences of Indigenous boarding schools, either from broader political and sociological perspectives, or from the schools themselves. Furthermore, understanding of how the residential side of boarding constructs the use of time and presents educational and social development opportunities is lacking. This paper aims to begin to address this, by presenting the goals and intended outcomes of a residential program for remote central Australian Aboriginal students. Through analysis of 17 semistructured interviews with residence staff, this paper identifies the two overarching goals of the program, as well as the more specific learning outcomes from which the program expects its students to benefit. The research presented is preliminary data that forms part of a broader PhD study of postboarding school expectations and outcomes for remote Aboriginal students, their families, and their communities.

Although the involvement of common childhood infections in the aetiology of acute appendicitis has long been conjectured, supporting evidence is largely restricted to a disparate set of clinical case reports. A systematic population-based analysis of the implied comorbid associations is lacking in the literature. Drawing on a classic epidemiological dataset, assembled by the School Epidemics Committee of the United Kingdom's Medical Research Council (MRC) in the 1930s, this paper presents a historical analysis of the association between termly outbreaks of each of six common childhood infections (chickenpox, measles, mumps, rubella, scarlet fever and whooping cough) and operated cases of acute appendicitis in 27 English public boarding schools. When controlled for the potential confounding effects of school, year and season, multivariate negative binomial regression revealed a positive association between the level of appendicitis activity and the recorded rate of mumps (β=0·15, 95% CI 0·07–0·24, P<0·001). Non-significant associations were identified between appendicitis and the other sample infectious diseases. Subject to data caveats, our findings suggest that further studies are required to determine whether the comorbid association between mumps and appendicitis is causal.

This article examines how a nonprofit organization prepares low-income students of diverse racial backgrounds to enter elite private high schools in the fall of the ninth grade. Combining ethnographic fieldwork completed during the program with follow-up interviews with ten students after their first semester at boarding school, this article addresses how students interact with and integrate into wealthy, predominantly White schools in an attempt to gain social mobility. Looking at how students interpret their surroundings, the article argues that students are trained to view themselves as “diversifiers” in order to successfully adapt to their new schools. In this role, students perceive themselves as especially serious and motivated students, and their elite peers as naïve, and find satisfaction in teaching others how to interact with people from different class and racial backgrounds. The paper concludes by considering the ramifications of the diversifier concept on efforts to diversify elite institutions and proposes further possible research sites where the concept may be applicable.

Iron deficiency (ID) is the most prevalent micronutrient deficiency in the world, particularly in developing countries. Blood samples and a qualitative FFQ on Fe- and vitamin C-rich foods were obtained in 180 adolescent girls aged 12 to 17 years living in two boarding schools from south Benin. ID, defined as serum ferritin either <20μg/l or 20–50μg/l, plus two of the following parameters: serum Fe<11μmol/l, total iron-binding capacity>73μmol/l or transferrin saturation<20%, was found in 32% of subjects. Anaemia (Hb<120g/l) was found in 51% of adolescents, while 24% suffered from iron-deficiency anaemia (IDA) (ID and Hb<20g/l). After adjusting for confounding factors (age, mother's and father's occupation, household size) in a logistic regression equation, subjects having a low meat consumption (beef, mutton, pork) (<4 times/week) were more than twice as likely to suffer from ID (OR=2·43; 95% CI 1·72, 3·35; P=0·04). Adolescents consuming less fruits (<4 times/week) also had a higher likelihood of suffering from ID (OR=1·53; 95% CI 1·31, 2·80; P=0·03). Finally, subjects whose meat consumption was low were twice as likely to suffer from IDA (OR=2·24; 95% CI 1·01, 4·96; P=0·04). The prevalence of ID represents an important health problem in these Beninese adolescent girls. A higher consumption of Fe-rich foods and of promoters of Fe absorption (meat factor and vitamin C) is recommended to prevent ID deficiency in these subjects.