COORDINATOR
Irene García Moya, PhD in Psychology, is a Full Professor in the Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology at the University of Seville. She is the current leader of the line of research on school stress and wellbeing in educational settings linked to project EASE, which includes the project “School stress in secondary school students in Spain. A mixed study aimed at developing action keys in the family and school context” (PID2019-105463RA- I00) and the project “Identifying key aspects for reducing school stress in secondary-school boys and girls and for promoting their educational wellbeing (PID2023-146179OB-I00). Her research interests also include the importance of student-teacher relationships for adolescent wellbeing, and she has led several projects focusing on student-teacher connectedness, funded by the European Commission and La Caixa Foundation. She has also authored the monographic book The importance of connectedness in student-teacher relationships. Insights from the Teacher Connectedness Project. In addition, since 2010, she has been a member of the Spanish team of the international study Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC), and she has been one of the coordinators of the international group of experts on the school context in the aforementioned project, which has allowed her to analyze school satisfaction and school stress from an international perspective. She combines her research activity with her teaching work on prospective teachers’ training in the Degree in Primary Education and MAES master degree at the University of Seville.
This symposium focuses on a fundamental challenge for current educational psychology, that of its contribution to the reduction of school stress and the promotion of wellbeing in the educational field. To this end, presentations will delve into factors that we consider fundamental to achieve this objective. Thus, the first presentation will focus on the role of family relationships and how different family factors may buffer or accentuate school stress in adolescence. The second presentation will focus on understanding gender differences in stress, by summarizing findings from several studies that contribute to identifying potential underlying factors that should be taken into account in intervention design in this area. The third presentation will address non-consensual sexting in adolescents and its impact on anxiety, stress, depression and quality of life, including gender differences. Finally, the fourth presentation will focus on wellbeing and protection coordinators, presenting preliminary results of interviews conducted with professionals who are currently performing wellbeing and protection coordination functions in educational centres in our country, in order to learn more about the main needs detected, as well as the areas in which they would benefit from greater support. In addition to presenting findings from current research on the aforementioned topics, this symposium will provide an opportunity for joint reflection on key aspects and types of support that may be prioritized for promoting wellbeing in educational centres, including what advances and pending challenges have been brought about by the creation of the wellbeing and protection coordination role.