Associations between early school wellbeing and mental health in England, mainland China and Hong Kong

Children’s positive feelings about their school experience plays a key role in early socio-emotional and academic development, yet research with young children has been constrained by the limited availability of developmentally appropriate self-report measures of school wellbeing. Capitalising on the How I Feel About My School (HIFAMS) measure, the present multi-informant study examined early school wellbeing in 1,060 children (M age = 5.19 years, SD = 0.59; 47.7% girls) across three culturally and educationally distinct contexts: England, Hong Kong, and mainland China. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, the cross-site measurement invariance of child- and parent-reported school wellbeing scores was examined. Results demonstrated partial scalar invariance across all three sites for both child- and parent-reported school wellbeing, indicating that the assessment of school wellbeing was comparable across geographic contexts. Latent mean comparisons revealed no significant site differences in either child- or parent-rated school wellbeing. Associations between child and parent ratings of school wellbeing were small but consistent across sites. Parent-rated but not child-rated school wellbeing was consistently negatively associated with parent-rated mental health across all sites. Together, these findings provide robust evidence that young children’s self-reported school wellbeing can be meaningfully compared across diverse geographic contexts and highlight the importance of incorporating children’s own perspectives when assessing early school experiences.