Although providing support to underachievers has always been an important domain of activities of school counselors in school, there are almost no studies in our country that focus on the opinion of school counselors on the problem of underachievement. The aim of our research was to get acquainted with the meanings that school counselors ascribe to underachievement. The points of our interest were how school counselors define this phenomenon, how they describe an underachiever and what their experiences in working with these students are. The research sample was convenient and included 34 school counselors from 24 secondary schools in Serbia. We used a semi-structured interview, and qualitative thematic analysis was performed on the collected material. Research findings indicate that the majority of school counselors define underachievement as the lack of ability or readiness of individuals to respond to the demands set by school. When describing an underachiever a number of school counselors speak only about his/her behaviour, while a small number also mention the mechanisms underlying such behaviour. When it comes to their experience in working with underachievers, a considerable number of school counselors pointed to the complexity and delicacy of their own role in the process of selection of adequate support strategies. The obtained findings, among other things, suggest that it is necessary that school counselors re-examine those personal beliefs about underachieve?ment which can be a serious impediment to solving this problem. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 47008: Unapredjivanje kvaliteta i dostupnosti obrazovanja u procesima modernizacije Srbije i br. 179034: Od podsticanja inicijative, saradnje i stvaralastva u obrazovanju do novih uloga i identiteta u drustvu]

In the 21st century, in the era of growing infantilism, one of the important tasks of modern psychology and pedagogy is to solve the problem of educating and developing the responsibility of adolescents and young people. There are various hypotheses about the emergence of infantilism and irresponsibility and their manifestations in childhood and adulthood. The strength of society is the strength of individuals who make it up; therefore, in modern science it is important to identify the causes of social infantilism and introduce technologies for its prevention and correction. On the basis of a theoretical analysis, the authors consider the dominant symptoms of infantilism (irresponsibility, mental discomfort, loneliness, sexual behavior disorders, narcissism and gender chauvinism) as well as their manifestations in different age periods. According to the authors, the main reasons for the development of infantilism in adolescents and young people are as follows: (1) the lack of collective education and the low influence of teachers, psychologists and the educational environment as a whole on the personality development; (2) the pronounced style of pedagogy of freedom, provoking the development of egoism; (3) the delegation of responsibility for education exclusively to the family in the absence of psychological and pedagogical support for family relations; (4) the deformed model of family relations against the background of falling birth rates, shifting gender roles and family values. To prevent and correct infantilism among adolescents and young people, specialists in the field of modern education need to carry out systematic diagnostic work with families and pay close attention to the introduction of practical technologies for the prevention of irresponsible behavior among younger schoolchildren and adolescents. In addition, it is necessary to introduce psychological and pedagogical education of the younger generation on the issues of personal self-development, self-education and self-fulfilment.

Life satisfaction is closely related to emotional, behavioural, social, and environmental youth functioning. Starting from the hypothesis that positive youth development (PYD) qualities such as aspects of eudaimonic well-being lead to higher youth life satisfaction (the hedonic aspect of well-being), we explored predictions of Serbian youth life satisfaction based on the Five Cs on a sample of 215 Belgrade secondary school students (34.9% male students). The research results show that: the youth were mostly satisfied with their friends, their living environment, themselves, and their families, and least satisfied with their school; the Five Cs variables explain the highest percentage of variance in youth satisfaction with the family, and the lowest for satisfaction with the living environment; higher impacts on domain-specific life satisfaction were observed for connection (self-satisfaction, satisfaction with the family and school), confidence (satisfaction with the family and school), and caring (satisfaction with the living environment, school and friends), while competence only predicted self-safisfaction. Providing support for PYD promotion leads to greater satisfaction with different aspects of youth development ecology.

The authors present the results of the 3rd International Forum on Commitment to Mental Health, which was organized and held by the Department of Psychology and Pedagogy of the Faculty of Philology of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) in cooperation with the National Health League, ManpowerGroup and Clever Consulting LLC (Moscow, October 5-7, 2022). The work of the forum lasted three days and its program was interesting in different formats of interaction: (1) On October 5, 2022, the following events took place online: Round Table on Commitment to Mental Health Issues: Social, Psychological and Medical Aspects, Corporate Section on Best Practices: Managing Psychological Well-Being at the Organizational Level and Section on Practical Guidelines: How to Maintain and Strengthen Psychological Health (online broadcast was organized on the website: https://mentalhealthforum.ru/); (2) On October 6, 2022, RUDN University hosted the International Scientific and Practical Conference in a hybrid format at which 194 presentations were offered including: a plenary session, seven panel session, poster session and the Mental Health Film Festival; (3) On October 7, 2022, the International Charitable Sports and Psychological Festival was held (which included a concert, art therapy master classes and outdoor sports activities). The International Forum brought together more than 1000 participants, including psychologists, teachers, medical workers, teachers, graduate students and students from 25 regions of Russia and 14 countries.

There is a predominant belief in literature and school practice that high school achievement is an important precondition for optimal professional development and success in life, as well as that school failure is a problem that should be dealt with preventively. The goal of this paper is to shed light on the problem of school underachievement from the perspective of students who are positioned as underachievers in educational discourse. The following questions are especially important: whether underachievers recognize the importance of high school achievement for success in life, as well as which constructs are the core and which the peripheral ones in their construct system. Research participants were 60 students from the third grade of secondary school who failed three or more subjects during the school year or at the end of classification periods. Interview and Implications Grid were applied in the research. The results indicate that the most important life priorities of students are the following: acceptance by friends, school completion, school success, love and happiness. It was established that the construct acceptance by friends as opposed to rejection by friends is the core construct for success in life in the construct system of underachievers. The paper points out to the importance of appreciation of personal meanings of school achievement and initiation of dialogue between teachers and students in preventing and overcoming school underachievement