Browsing by Author "Eklund Suhonen, Mari"

Aims: The aim of this study was to find out the social support (SS) of the secondary school students and its connection to their psychological well-being and happiness. The focus of this study was on the students who have been frequently supported in the basic education. The earlier studies have indicated that students with learning disabilities have less SS; they become easier bullied and excluded from social communities. The happiness of a student with special needs is also lower than others, according to earlier studies. Methods: The data for the study were collected using questionnaires from 14 Finnish upper secondary schools in the spring of 2016. Both vocational schools and senior high schools were included. There were 1141 answers in total. The data were analyzed using SPSS. Results and conclusions: The levels of the psychological well-being and happiness of the upper secondary students are quite high. On average, they have a satisfying amount of friends. They receive more SS from their mother than their father. A romantic relationship is related to their happiness, but not to their psychological well-being. SS from the school worker is related to students’ happiness and psychological well-being. The students who had been frequently supported in the basic education do not differ in SS, happiness or psychological well-being from the students with no such support. Only the support from mother is stronger among frequently supported group. There is no connection between SS from the school worker and psychological well-being among supported group, neither between romantic relationship and happiness, conversely with non-supported students. The only main difference that a school success indicates among the supported group is higher levels of psychological well-being when it comes to a better succeed students. Generally, the students with the support background in the basic education do not differ much from their peers in SS.