This study aimed to analyze and compare students’ school burnout levels in Switzerland and Italy. Previous research has confirmed that female and older students in particular are highly exposed to burnout risk. Nevertheless, few studies have observed this phenomenon through a cross-national comparison. Data on burnout were collected from a sample of 840 adolescents (Italian students = 497; Swiss students = 343) (Mage = 14.98; SD = 1.06; Female = 50%). Burnout was measured using the School Burnout Inventory, and cross-cultural measurement invariance was tested. The results showed that this burnout measure was equivalent between the Italian and Swiss samples. A multivariate analysis of variance was next conducted to investigate the effects of age, gender, and nationality. Results partially confirmed our hypotheses, showing the effect of age but not of gender in explaining burnout differences among students, and between and within-group variance. In particular, the burnout risk was found to be higher in late adolescence (age 16 to 18, M_exhaution = 2.73; M_cynicism = 2.99; M_Inadequacy = 3.14) than in mid-adolescence (age 13 to 15 M_exhaution = 2.95; M_cynicism = 3.43; M_Inadequacy = 3.54). Furthermore, Italian adolescents were more exhausted and cynical (M_exhaution = 2.99; M_cynicism = 3.26) than their Swiss peers (M_exhaution = 2.52; M_cynicism = 2.93) when controlling for age and gender. Findings suggest further investigation of the role played by educational and cultural values may be warranted.

Family socioeconomic status (SES) has a significant influence on children’s academic success and is related to parents’ attitudes toward education. Moreover, according to the expectancy-value theory, parental expectations are linked to their children’s perceptions of school, which, in turn, influences the way their children invest themselves in education. In this study, we aimed to test a part of the theorical expectancy-value family socialization model that links family SES and parental expectations and explore their influences on children’s mathematics self-concept and achievement. This study was conducted in the Chilean context, which is characterized by strong neoliberal educational policies that induce a strong relationship between family economic resources and children’s educational trajectories. We utilized a longitudinal design, and our study sample (N = 157,814 Chilean students) came from a national assessment that was conducted from 2007 to 2013 when students were in their 4th, 8th, and 10th grades. Our results showed that, while controlling for children’s previous mathematics achievement, their final mathematics achievement was influenced by children’s mathematics self-concept, the family socioeconomic and educational context, and parental expectations regarding their children’s academic achievement. Our findings also highlighted that Chilean parents base their expectations on parents’ capacity to support their children’s education as much as on their children’s previous academic achievement.

Boredom is an emotion that often arises in an educational context. Past research suggests that boredom depends on specific cognitive appraisals, such as how people can control the task and how much they value it. Research further suggests that boredom is related to negative academic outcomes such as lower grades and a higher risk of dropping out. Here, we tested a mediation model on 324 pre-service teachers during the first lockdown of 2020 in Switzerland to assess (1) how control and value predicted boredom, and (2) how boredom was related to the intention to persist at university. We hypothesized that (1) the more participants felt lacking in control and low in value, the higher their boredom and (2) the more intense their boredom, the lower their intention to persist. We further hypothesized that both control and value would be positively related to the intention to persist, and this link may be mediated by boredom. Our results provide partial support for our mediation model as we found a significant indirect link between control and intention to persist through boredom. More specifically, the more participants lost control over their studies, the more they felt bored, which in turn was negatively related to their intention to persist.

The aim of this study is to propose a French validation of the Teacher Emotion Scale (TES-FR), a self-reported measure of teacher’s emotions (anxiety, anger, and joy). We collected data on two independent samples of teachers (pre- and in service). In Study 1 ( N = 668), exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a three-factor solution representing the three emotions of the TES-FR. In addition, correlation and network analyses revealed that the TES-FR scores were related to teachers’ perceived competence, the importance is they allow to teach, and their interest in the profession. In Study 2 ( N = 249), we performed a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), which was followed by a structural equation model (SEM) testing how teachers’ perceptions regarding (1) students’ engagement, (2) instruction clarity, and (3) classroom management predicted their emotions. This article supports the three-factor structure proposed in the original version of the TES ( Frenzel et al., 2016 ) and further highlights a good internal consistency and external validity of the TES-FR in preservice and in-service teachers.

Social support plays a crucial role in students' academic and emotional experiences, offering reassurance and guidance from different sources. Very few studies have separated the sources and types of support to analyze their respective influences. The purpose of this study is to identify the most frequently perceived types of support (i.e., emotional, informational, instrumental and appraisal) from different sources (i.e., parents, teachers and classmates), and to analyze which types of support are associated with academic self-perceived competence and classroom emotions. This study examine the perceived social support of 666 primary school students using the Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (CASSS, Malecki & Demaray, 2002). The results show that students primarily perceived emotional and informational support from parents, informational support from teachers, and emotional and instrumental support from their classmates. Multilevel regression analyses reveal that classmate support is associated with all outcome variables, whereas parental support predicts self-perceived competence and anxiety. Teacher instrumental support predicts only joy and boredom. These findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between sources and types of support when examining their relationships with student outcomes.