Mental Health and Learning Among Students with Marginalized Sociodemographic Identities

Taking a little hiatus from my running posts to share this guest blog I wrote over the past couple weeks on some of my PhD research, highlighting the relationship between mental health and learning among postsecondary students with marginalized identities, as well as promising institutional actions to promote wellbeing for equity deserving communities. Give it a read, and I’ll be back with some related content on running as a tool to manage stress and anxiety later this week.

By: Frederick (Rick) Ezekiel, PhD, Director of Equitable Learning, Health and Wellness, Centennial College, Toronto, Canada

SUMMARY

Postsecondary educators have been increasingly focused on supporting positive student mental health over the past decades. Postsecondary institutions are uniquely positioned to support a demographic of students who experience the greatest risk of first onset of mental illness as a result of the developmental trajectory of many common mental illnesses (within the 16-24 age window; Jones, 2013). Additionally, poor mental health and toxic stress have a detrimental impact on learning and academic performance. My research seeks to understand disparities in mental health outcomes among students with marginalized sociodemographic identities in Canada, and the relationship between mental health and learning with marginalized communities. Through this work, I identified that marginalized sociodemographic groups experience languishing mental health at rates 1.6 – 3.4 times that of their peers. Additionally, much of the difference in academic performance…

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