Adolescents’ loneliness in European schools:
a multilevel exploration of school environment and individual factors
Loneliness has been recognised as a public health issue and has moved into a number of European countries’ policy agendas. Literature examining loneliness in young people (and especially in adolescents) is scarce, but it does show that at this age feelings of loneliness have been increasing in recent decades and are detrimental for both adolescents’ current and future well-being. In order to explain loneliness, current literature focuses generally on individual, rather than on broader, environmental characteristics. This study examines school associates of loneliness and compares their importance to those at the individual level because schools are the most important places in which adolescents are socially embedded. In addition, policy interventions on loneliness might be more feasible at the school than the individual level.
This is the first study to compare school level and individual level factors relating to youth loneliness in schools throughout Europe. Results emphasising the importance of school environment for explaining adolescents’ loneliness suggest that school level initiatives may be most appropriate in tackling loneliness when compared to wider and less contextualized national policies that focus on adolescents outside of school.
SCHNEPF Sylke;
BOLDRINI Michela;
ZSUZSA Blasko;
2023-12-01
BMC
JRC132453
1471-2458 (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC132453,
10.1186/s12889-023-16797-z (online),
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