Hope for the future is key to combatting the rising rates of mental illness among Australian kids, and a new study has found a values-driven education – often found in faith-based schools – is a step in the right direction.
The new study by researchers from Charles Darwin University (CDU) and Curtin University analysed two Australian schools with Christian values embedded in their curriculum and how those values influenced a child’s emotional and mental wellbeing.
The participating students came from a variety of religious backgrounds, including a large group who identified as atheists. Co-author Dr Felicity McLure, a CDU Senior Lecturer in Education, said the number of adolescents accessing mental health services for depression had increased over the past decade.
“Hope for the future has been found to be a protective factor against depression and anxiety, and we wanted to understand whether any of the elements of church-based schooling were predictive of development in this area,” says McLure.
“Our research has shown that the development of a strong personal moral identity is linked with development of hope for the future.
“This is where the importance of learning what it means to act on the principles that students learn about from the Bible comes into play.”
The study found church-based schools’ focus on teachings such as “love your neighbour” – which centre on values like peer connectedness and service learning – played a positive role in strengthening students’ sense of hope.
McLure says these values should be taught when students are learning about the complex nature of global issues to give students’ the tools and support to understand how they can navigate those problems.
“Students need to be able to see themselves as having agency – feeling helpless in the face of these problems is a common source of hopelessness about the future.”
She told EducationDaily “we were interested in what factors within the school climate correlated with students’ hope for the future”.
“Originally, my colleague, Professor Jill Aldridge, and I realised that, while about 35 per cent of Australian students attend church-affiliated schools or Christian schools, the unique learning environment within such schools had not really been examined.
“According to the mission statements of such schools they aim to provide an inclusive and supportive environment for students, based upon the values and beliefs found in the Bible. We wanted to develop a questionnaire for students which asked them to give their perceptions of how frequently activities important to church schools were actually occurring – for instance, how much students’ perceived that they were given practical guidance about how to ‘love their neighbour’.
“At the same time, we were concerned about the significant increase in anxiety and depression reported amongst all Australian students. Since hope about the future and development of a moral identity are areas that church-based schools identify as important areas of focus, and since hope for the future in particular has been found to be a protective factor against depression and anxiety, we wanted to understand whether any of the elements of church-based schooling were predictive of development of these two outcomes.
McLure told EducationDaily “the school environment or climate is an important area in children’s lives that can be leveraged to make a difference in students’ emotional and mental wellbeing”.
“If we can identify which areas of the school climate have the most effect on development of moral identity and hope for the future, it might be possible to help schools to improve those aspects and make a difference in student wellbeing.”
Developing hope and moral identity
McLure says secular schools, as well as faith-based schools, could help students develop hope and moral identity by creating a comprehensive set of values that underpin every activity within the school.
“When there are clear values and reasons for upholding those values within a school, students will find it easier to align with those values and act upon them,” she says.
“One of those values should include the importance of peer support and connectedness.”
The study collected questionnaire data from students in two schools in different contexts and found that, “even though the schools were quite different, these common themes suggest that focusing on improving activities in schools that support peer connectedness and service learning could really help students have greater hope about their and the world’s futures”.
“Also, the influence of teachers as they discuss problems in this world and help students to see that they can be agents of change and inspire their students to apply teachings like ‘love your neighbour’ in practical ways is really important,” McLure told EducationDaily.
“There were strong positive correlations between the degree to which students felt that they were being shown how to enact the teachings within the school and the degree to which they developed a pro-social moral identity and hope for the future.
“So, the study doesn’t make value judgements about how well particular schools are loving their neighbour, but looks at what students think is happening in their school and how effectively they are being taught to be agents of positive change in their community and beyond.”
Understanding complex problems
McLure says helping students to “understand the complex nature of the problems that beset our world, like climate change, is very important”.
“At the same time, however, teachers need to be careful that they don’t just inform students of these problems, but that they give them tools and support in learning about what they personally can do to make changes.
“They need to be able to see themselves as having agency in those changes. Feeling helpless in the face of these problems is one source of hopelessness about the future.
She believes that practising development of “more practical, authentic service-learning projects for students is needed and could be one way in which students learn first-hand that they can make a difference”.
“At the moment, a lot of service-learning projects in schools are very ad hoc and superficial – things like a one-off visit to an aged care facility. While this is nice, it doesn’t really give students the sense that they are making a long-term difference.
“There is a real need for a well-considered and planned curriculum for service-learning which involves student input. We have applied for funding to develop such a program.”
McLure says that her collaborative study is “not suggesting that church-based learning is the only way to improve student mental health”.
“All schools, whether faith-based or not, can engage with authentic service learning which allows students to exercise agency in addressing some of the problems that they see around them.”
