Data from 30 nations on the relationship between educational performance in reading, mathematical, and scientific literacy as assessed in the PISA survey and the health performance indicators of the World Health report are analyzed. Health level was unrelated to any of the three educational performance variables, but disability-related life expectancy was significantly related to reading literacy and educational attainment. Specifically, mathematical and reading literacy were related to such health care indicators as goal level, goal distribution, fairness, and overall goals. In addition, correlational analysis was conducted between socioeconomic variables and educational attainment for these nations; GDP and economic growth were very weakly related to educational performance. On the other hand, inflation and the human development index (HDI) were significantly related to all three literacy scores. HDI and economic growth emerged as the strongest predictors of health performance rating of a nation. Finally, the association between subjective well-being (happiness) and educational performance was explored. Happiness was consistently related to the three literacy scores, the magnitude of the association being highest for reading literacy. The implications of these findings for educational and health programs were discussed.

Abstract. The parents from 415 child-mother-father triads (average age of children: 10.6 years of age) in their first year of secondary school education in the new German Federal States (former East Germany) estimated their own general and specific intelligence scores and that of their children. Analyses of variance yielded gender-specific variations in parents' self- and child-ratings. Males rated themselves more favorably than females did except for the aspect of emotional intelligence where the opposite pattern was observed. Ratings of children's intelligence only differed with respect to analytical and practical intelligence, where sons were rated higher than daughters. Moreover, child-ratings varied depending on school track (general secondary vs. grammar) with all parental estimates of grammar school students exceeding those given for general (secondary) school students. Regression analyses suggest that parental estimates of children's intelligence are strongly influenced by parents' self-ratings of intelligence.

Although there is an enormous amount of literature demonstrating socio-psychological determinants of suicide and self-injurious behaviour among adults or clinical samples of children and adolescents, there is a scarcity of studies focussing on non-clinical adolescent samples. The current study examined associations between self-reported data on self-image, physical and psychological health and suicidal cognitions, self-injurious behaviour and suicidal intent in a large representative sample of German high-school students. Almost 1000 German adolescents (aged 14-18 years) were administered a comprehensive series of questionnaires aimed at assessing anxiety-depression, trait addiction, smoking and drinking behaviour, physical ill-health reports and self-perception of self-image, parental acceptance and educational attainment. Several statements were incorporated to assess self-injury and suicidal ideation. An attempt was made to identify risk and offer preventative factors of adolescent suicide. Suicidal ideation is significantly more endorsed among female than male adolescents: twice as many female adolescents tend to have wishes about being dead or have contemplated suicide than males. Girls also tended to have implemented significantly more self-destructive behaviour than boys. Over one-third of the variance observed in subjective reported suicidal ideation was explained by the socio-psychological variables. The common general significant predictor was anxiety-depression, and for males the specific somatic factor was general colds. In contrast, females displayed several specific significant determinants of suicidal ideation, including educational threat and the somatic variable, circulatory ailments. Conversely, tiredness, social problems and maternal rejection were statistically significant predictors of suicidal ideation but again the direction of impact was opposite to what was anticipated.

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A group of children and adolescents aged between 11 and 17 years were administered four questionnaires, Offer's Self-Image Questionnaire (OSIQ), Kovacs' Children Depression Inventory (CDI), Spielberger's Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and an inventory of items to assess Parental and Educational Attitudes (IPEA). Step-wise multiple regression revealed that trait anxiety was the most potent predictor of trait depression, together with emotionality, low self-confidence, inferior family relationships (parental tension), mental illhealth and impulsivity. Linear discriminant analysis was conducted to determine which Self-image scales were useful determinants of depression in two extreme depression scoring groups. Personality attributes rather than attitudinal dimensions appeared most highly related to depression, and this was not moderated by ethnicity. Adolescents scoring high on the depression scale further differed in their attitudes towards parents, siblings and school. They were more likely to complain about their relationship to their parents (low family involvement and cohesiveness), and to display low achievement motivation and obediency. A 2 x 2 ANOVA-using groups of anxiety/stable and external/internal respondents generated on the basis of their scores on the DIKJ and AS1 Offer scale-showed that although a main effect was found for anxiety (highly anxious respondents were likely to be more depressed) and externality (externals are more susceptible to depression than internals), a significant anxiety x externality interaction term was found: it was the combination of low self-confidence or externality and trait anxiety which seems to determine trait depression.