In this paper, we engage with the emerging literature that studies the support for populism by means of attitudes among the public at large. More specifically, our paper has two objectives. First, we extend recent research by Akkerman et al. by showing that their measure performs rather well in a context that differs from the one it was originally formulated in. Data from Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, N = 1,577) also demonstrate that the support for populism can be empirically distinguished from feelings of lack of external political efficacy. Second, this is one of the first studies that assess who supports populism and why they do so. We show that populism is embedded in deep feelings of discontent, not only with politics but also with societal life in general. Moreover, we demonstrate that populism is strongest supported by stigmatized groups who face difficulties in finding a positive social identity. In the conclusion, we discuss the implications of our findings.

BackgroundTo investigate how social support relates to mental health problems for Belgian late adolescents and young adults 15–25 years of age. Additionally, we examine changes in mental health problems between 2008 and 2013 and investigate gender differences.MethodsMultivariate analysis of variance was used to investigate (1) psychological distress, (2) anxiety and (3) depression among 713 boys and 720 girls taken from two successive waves (2008 and 2013) of a representative sample of the Belgian population (Belgian Health Interview survey). Psychological distress was measured by the General Health Questionnaire, anxiety and depression by the Symptom Check-List-90-Revised.ResultsGender differences were found for psychological distress, anxiety and depression with girls reporting significantly higher scores than boys. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed that adolescents who are dissatisfied with their social contacts and experience poor social support reported more psychological distress, anxiety and depression. In addition, young adult boys (20–25 years of age) were more likely to experience psychological distress when compared to late adolescent boys (15–19 years of age). Finally, the prevalence of anxiety and depression increased substantially between 2008 and 2013 for girls and to a lesser extent for boys.ConclusionsEspecially girls and young people with poor social support experience mental health problems more frequently than boys and those with strong social support. Improving social support among young people may serve as a protective buffer to mental health problems.

Truancy is known to: Hamper academic achievement, predict a range of school-related problems and cause early school leaving. Hence, the development and implementation of measures to tackle truancy are considered as important strategies to prevent early school leaving in Europe. Despite this, there is almost no comparative research which studies variation in truancy rates. This article relies on PISA 2012 data from 24 European countries to empirically answer two questions: (1) To what degree do truancy rates vary cross-nationally? and (2) Do these differences in truancy rates relate to characteristics of the educational system? We found that between-country truancy rates varied more than differences in early school leaving.Moreover, even after taking into account control variables such as economic development and youth unemployment rates, the ways in which educational systems select and group pupils are closely related to truancy rates. | 415

In order to use attendance monitoring within an integrative strategy for preventing, assessing and addressing cases of youth with school absenteeism, we need to know whether the attendance data collected by schools cover all students with (emerging) school attendance problems (SAPs). The current article addresses this issue by comparing administrative attendance data collected by schools with self-reported attendance data from the same group of students (age 15–16) in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium (N = 4344). We seek to answer the following question: does an estimation of unauthorized absenteeism based on attendance data as collected by schools through electronic registration differ from self-reported unauthorized absenteeism and, if so, are the differences between administrative and self-reported unauthorized absenteeism systematic? Our results revealed a weak association between self-reported unauthorized school absenteeism and registered unauthorized school absenteeism. Boys, students in technical and vocational tracks and students who speak a foreign language at home, with a less-educated mother and who receive a school allowance, received more registered unauthorized absences than they reported themselves. In addition, pupils with school refusal and who were often authorized absent from school received more registered unauthorized absences compared to their self-reported unauthorized school absenteeism. In the discussion, we elaborate on the implications of our findings.

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