Contenu du sommaire : Lectures

Analysing young people in health surveys
Studies on adolescent health are instruments that allow us to both evaluate how healthy young people are and to guide preventative public policy. They contribute to the construction of representations of adolescence articulated both with a culture of risk and a perspective based on health promotion. Based on the analysis of different HBSC reports concerning the health of high school students aged between 11 and 15 years old, this article shows that at the turn of the 21st century, healthcare concerns relating to obesity, media dictates about body image stereotypes, suicide, and depressive symptoms among young people were guides for the detection of unprecedented risks. New figures of adolescence are emerging through the extension of risk indicators and the evolution of interpretative models of health. The result is an image of adolescence subject to many different vulnerabilities.

The “normal” age for the first experience of sexual intercourse
According to the HBSC study (conducted with 5875 young people between 8th and 10th grade), most adolescents consider 16 to be the average age for the first experience of sexual intercourse in France. However, in 10th grade (around 16 years old) only a quarter of these same students say they have already had sexual relations. Sexual initiation remains inscribed in different norms for boys and for girls, with the latter being more subject to social, familial and cultural constraints than the former. The intense daily use of social networks clearly contributes to structuring the image of early adolescent sexuality that does not necessarily correspond to the actual practices of young people, nor to the social representation that they share directly with their friends.

Understanding the mental health of high school students: a question of indicators
This article describes the state of mental health among adolescents in France, based on the data from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study for 2014. Based on current life satisfaction (the Cantril Self Anchoring Striving scale) and the ability to project oneself in the future (the Anticipated Cantril Scale) an indicator of mental health was constructed based on three categories (well-being, psychological ill-being and an intermediate state). Our analysis compares this aggregate indicator with different physical and psychological symptoms measured in the study, to try and better characterise the mental health states of adolescence.

How do disabled students perceive high school?
Since the February 11 2005 Act on equal rights and opportunities, participation and citizenship for disabled people, as well as the enrolment of disabled students in mainstream schools, has continued to increase. This article looks at the concept of the inclusive school, as a place where all students feel accepted, whatever their conditions or difficulties. The authors examine and discuss the school climate as it is perceived by disabled students enrolled both in mainstream classes and in special classes (ULIS), as well as the students' motivation for school. The data provides a critical and more nuanced perspective on the results of this inclusion.

Bullying and being bullied: different expressions of unhappiness
Bullying among peers has only been a subject of concern in France over the last decade, even though it has been documented in Scandinavian countries since the 1980s. Yet this phenomenon is not rare: 12.4% of high school students questioned in the HBSC study in 2014 said they had been victims of bullying at school; by SMS, comments on social networks, or by photos. Being a victim of bullying is associated with the alteration of mental health for high school students in terms of internalisation (i.e. the somatization of well-being). However, the mental health of the bullies is no different from that of high school students who are not involved, all other things being equal.

Screen practices among high school students
New technologies (computers, smartphones, tablets and video games) have been added to the television as a source of screen-time. They increasingly allow adolescents to be connected to the internet, giving them access to a range of contents in any situation and almost without interruption. This article aims to better quantify the time that high school students spend with different kinds of screens and to question the possible associations between the duration of exposure and certain practices or behaviour.

Between family and friends
This article presents the data from the 2014 HBSC study relating to social support, as seen by high school students, according to their sociodemographic profile. It explores the relationship between perceived social support and certain indicators or determinants of adolescent health (mental health, violence and psychoactive substance use). Seven high school students out of ten consider that they have strong social support from their family and friends. These two aspects of social support are unequally distributed according to gender, family structure and economic situation, and evolve differently between 6th grade and 9th grade. The comparison of these two sources of social support show a clear predominance of perceived family support on mental health, violence, and experimentation with psychoactive substances during adolescence.