Nowadays, we notice a growing interest in the study of children’s well-being. As evidenced by its latest report, the French organization for economical development (OCDE) places the well-being of children as an essential topic on an international level and as a priority for all OCDE countries’ public authorities. Furthermore, for several years now the interest of psychology researchers and researchers in psychoeducation has converged more specifically towards children’s well-being at school. In fact, school is considered as having an essential place in students’ life. They spend one-third of their lives there and the quality of their experience within school combined to the interactions that are associated to it, are key figures in the development of children’s social skills as well as learning proficiencies (Saunerons 2013).
Regarding this topic, international literature emphasizes that studies about children’s well-being perception, especially in school, have now become primordial targets of educational systems. The aim is to provide all student’s specific needs using evaluations as tools and therefore placing children and teenagers as operators of their own development and success. The goal here is to favor their fulfillment or their well-being. More precisely, when it comes to the matter of predictive factors in school’s quality of life, all studies show that these factors are individual (age, sexe, academic level, etc.) and that they are at the heart of the variations regarding perceived well-being’s evaluation. In this way, a majority of anterior studies have essentially been directed towards the understanding and the explanation of these individual factors. But students’ well-being is also linked to other dimensions that can be the target of future interventions. In fact, these dimensions have been left aside for a while but we believe that they can have an impact in the development and improvement of student’s well-being. Furthermore, on an international level, studies have more often been carried outbased on secondary education students. There are few studies regarding primary schoolchildren and even less at the beginning of primary school. All together, studies about associated or predictive factors of school well-being have only been carried out on an international level. Besides, very few studies have been conducted in France.
Except for the studies of Guimard and his collaborators in 2015 and 2017, no work regarding perceived well-being in school has been conducted in the French context. In line with these studies, I was driven to undertake a research which first goal was to evaluate French primary schoolchildren and secondary students using a multidimensional approach. The particularity of this study was to consider students from the beginning of primary education and to report inter-individual differences among young french students in terms of predictors. The first purpose of my research was to analyse the link between global life-satisfaction and school-life satisfaction. The second was to identify well-being dimensions that were the most linked to school-satisfaction and eventually, establish dimensions that are most likely to predict school-satisfaction. My entire work was focused on two levels : 1. Global level (primary and secondary school) ; 2. Distinct levels (primary schools versus secondary school).
In a nutshell, this research work included all the data extracted from previous studies regarding french students well-being (Guimard, et al., 2014 Guimard, et al. 2015, Guimard et al., 2017) with the specificity of including schoolchildren right from reception class. This research had for intention to establish predictors of global satisfaction in school, distinguishing children in primary school from secondary students. This study aimed to investigate various predictors of French students’ school satisfaction and to establish a link towards their life satisfaction in general. This study was based on a representative selection of 1 171 students (719 schoolchildren and 452 high school students) within the region of Nantes, from first grade to 8th grade, in public schools, situated or not situated in priority education zones, and in private educational facilities. On the one hand, the results showed that the student’s global life satisfaction is markedly linked to their school satisfaction. On the other hand, it appeared that the relationship to the teachers as well as satisfaction for their school activities, feeling of security and satisfaction in class, are clearly more correlated to the satisfaction of school life for the primary schoolchildren than for the secondary school pupils. Finally, satisfaction predictors vary depending on the educational facilities that are concerned. Nevertheless, in any kind of school facility, a predictor appears as dominating : satisfaction towards school activities. These results confirm that learning environments and experiences in class are important in terms of perception of school’s quality of life.
Bibliographie
Guimard, P., Bacro F., Ferrière, S., Florin, A., & Gaudonville, T. (2015). Le bien-être des élèves à l’école et au collège : validation d’une échelle d’évaluation multidimensionnelle, analyses descriptives et différentielles, rapport n° 2015-88-89, appel à projet « L’égalité des chances à l’École », MENESR-DEPP, Commissariat général à l’égalité des territoires, et le Défenseur des droits.
Guimard, P., Bacro, F., Ferrière, S., Florin, A. & Gaudonville, T. (2017). Evaluation du bien- être perçu des élèves : étude longitudinale à l’école élémentaire et au collège. Recherche complémentaire (BE-Scol2). Rapport terminal de recherche à la DEPP. Convention n°028 Université de Nantes – DEPP.
Guimard, P., Bacro, F., & Florin, A. (2014). « Évaluer la satisfaction scolaire et le bien-être des élèves à l’école et au collège » in Guimard, P., Sellenet,C., L’évaluation des besoins des enfants et leur qualité de vie. Regards croisés France-Canada, Paris, L’Harmattan, p. 87-112.
Sauneron S., 2013, « Favoriser le bien-être des élèves, condition de la réussite éducative », Note d’analyse, n° 313, Centre d’analyse stratégique.
