Social support experiences by pupils in finnish secondary school

Abstract

The study explores the schoolwork social support experiences of teachers, peers and parents. The data were collected from 1529 Finnish seventh-grade (age 13–14 years) pupils using The Students’ Learning Agency inventory (SLA). The results indicate that social support is a dynamic system in which adult support is an important resource for pupils’ schoolwork, regardless of the pupils’ gender and sosio-economic status of the school. In particular, support from teachers increased the likelihood of support sharing between peers. However, there were differences in this teachers’ effect on peer support in terms of gender; the connection was weaker for girls than for boys. Hence, teacher support appeared to affect boys’ peer relations more than girls’.

Keywords

• social support
• schoolwork
• teacher-pupil interaction
• peer interaction