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Health Education Research Advance Access originally published online on August 18, 2008
Health Education Research 2008 23(6):931-940; doi:10.1093/her/cyn040
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Social and emotional training in Swedish schools for the promotion of mental health: an effectiveness study of 5 years of intervention

Birgitta Kimber1,*, Rolf Sandell2 and Sven Bremberg1

1 Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Social Medicine, Karolinska Institute, SE-17177 Stockholm, Sweden
2 Department of Behavioral Sciences, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden

* Correspondence to: B. Kimber. E-mail: b.kimber{at}telia.com

The school is an obvious arena for interventions designed to promote mental health among children. A set of educational techniques named social and emotional learning, which focuses on students' self-control, social competence, empathy, motivation and self-awareness, has shown promising results in the United States. This is a study of the application of a similar method in Sweden (referred to as social and emotional training) for school years 2000/2001 through to 2004/2005. It is an effectiveness rather than an efficacy study, largely administered by school personnel, which relates duration of the training (1–5 years) to a set of outcomes previously found to be associated with mental health. Positive and significant effects were found on five of seven variables: internalizing problems, externalizing problems, mastery (reflecting self-efficacy or hopelessness), self-image and self-esteem and contentment in school. Effect sizes were medium. Somewhat surprisingly, no relationship was found between the intervention and the promotion of social skills. Nor was there any detectable long-term impact on bullying. Controlling for student gender did not moderate any of the effects.

Received on October 15, 2007; accepted on June 11, 2008


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