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IntroductionThe purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between homeroom teachers' experience and students' mental well‐being, in addition to examining the underlying mechanisms that can explain the relationship.MethodsSecondary data from the Gyeonggi Education Panel Study was used. The analysis included 3002 fourth graders and 3090 first‐year middle school students in Gyeonggi province in South Korea, and the quasi‐random assignment of students into classrooms in South Korea was used. The level of students' mental well‐being was used as an outcome, and homeroom teachers' experience was used as an independent variable. Students' perception of their homeroom teachers' teaching skills and teachers' self‐perceived capacity for understanding students' behaviors were used for mechanism analyses.ResultsStudents assigned to homeroom teachers with less than 5 years of experience had lower mental well‐being than those assigned to more experienced homeroom teachers. Mechanism analyses revealed that teachers who had more than 5 years of experience were more confident about understanding their students than those who had less than 5 years of experience.ConclusionsHomeroom teachers' experience is highly associated with students' mental well‐being. To promote students' mental well‐being, deeper understanding of the relationship between teachers' experience and students' mental well‐being is necessary.

A school starting age policy may generate disparities in the age at which students enter school, and in the relative age for grade among children born in similar periods. I analyze the impacts of being young‐for‐grade on students' risky health behaviors. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design which exploits the school entry system in South Korea, I find that being younger in the class leads students to begin drinking alcohol earlier. In addition, it increases the likelihood of drinking over the past 30 days. Being young‐for‐grade also impacts the probability of having sexual intercourse during one's high school years. My main findings are driven by both girls and boys. The robustness of my results is supported by several alternative specifications.

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