Social Development and Social Change Lab

We’re excited to announce that Jeanine Grütter will serve as a Consulting Editor for the Journal of Research on Adolescence starting in 2025.

On November 20, Kino Abaton in Zurich hosted the premiere of “Die Buschbanditen”, a collaborative film project inspired by Katja Alves’ children’s novel. Four school classes brought the story to life by creating their own unique short films, imagining how the narrative could continue. Over the course of a week, students wrote scripts, directed scenes, and acted in their films, all with guidance from professional filmmakers.

The novel “Die Buschbanditen” was created as part of The Friendship Project“ an intervention developed by our lab to promote social participation and inclusion in the classroom. We are delighted to see The Friendship Project inspire young minds and come to life in such a creative and meaningful way!

02.05. - 04.05.2024 - From May 2nd to May 4th 2024, Jeanine Grütter and Bernadette Denk participated in the workshop “Behavioral Dynamics in Social Interactions” in Krakow, Poland. The workshop included keynotes, hands-on workshop sessions, and group discussions to establish cooperation. A poster session provided us with the opportunity to share and discuss findings from the Social Development and Social Change Project.

The workshop set out to highlight the social and interactive components of human behavior within a dynamical systems theoretical framework. We discussed the quantification of behavior during interactions, e.g. caregiver-infant interactions. Interpersonal coordination, cooperation, and biobehavioral synchrony were in focus as well.

Jeanine Grütter presented a poster titled “Affective and action synchrony in children’s dynamic peer interaction”, investigating preliminary data on mutual smiling in the Social Development and Social Change Project. The authors investigated mutual smiling between children (ages 10 to 12) in the context of an emotionally evocative story and following discussion on the topic of social exclusion. They found that children did engage in mutual smiling, however, there were inter-individual differences.

Bernadette Denk presented a poster about “Heart rate synchrony and dyadic relationships in children”. Here, the authors investigated whether children synchronize their heart rate during the same task as in Jeanine Grütter’s poster. However, they did not find synchrony beyond chance in their limited sample analysis, nor an association between synchrony and friendship.

02.05.2024 – The study investigates whether inclusive classroom norms predict children's reasoning and expectations about the inclusion of peers with learning difficulties from different perspectives. 

It was shown that children expected less inclusion from their friends or from an unfamiliar story protagonist. In addition, individuals who perceived higher inclusive norms than the classroom average were less concerned that the inclusion of the child with learning difficulties would threaten the successful functioning of the group. 

In order to promote the inclusion of children with learning difficulties, school psychologists can promote classmates’ perceptions of inclusive norms and pay attention to individual differences in norm perception.

Related Publications:

• Barth, C. & Grütter, J. (2024). Inclusive Classroom Norms and Children’s Expectations of Inclusion of Peers With Learning Difficulties in Their Social World. Journal of School Psychology, 104, 101312.

15.12.2023 – The study focusses on the cooperation between parents and teachers for the learning and social participation of children with special educational needs (SEN). The study shows that  parents consider the learning support of their child with SEN as high, if they are actively involved in the planning and support of their child’s learning by the teacher.

Related Publications:

• Tschopp, C., Grütter, J., & Buholzer, A. (2023) Lernunterstüzung von Kindern mit sonderpädagogischem Förderbedarf aus Sicht von Eltern und Lehrperson. Psychologie in Erziehung und Unterricht, 70, 242-256.

14.12.2023 – Since 16 years, Jeanine Grütter has been voluntarily working for a non-governmental organization that aims to reduce societal and educational inequalities through the means of inclusive education in Nepal. In October, she conducted a training with multiple schools on how teachers can promote resilience among adolescence and how psycho-education could be implemented in the curriculum of secondary education. 

06.12.2022 - As part of the Jacobs Foundations Fellowship, Jeanine Grütter wants to develop new empirical methods to gain insights into how classroom dynamics change at different stages of development and how these can be shaped by adaptive teaching methods. She is also investigating the use of virtual reality to promote perspective-taking and is planning a diagnostic tool for teachers to better understand social relationships among children. The knowledge gained will be used to improve an interactive learning programme for positive group interaction and the prevention of social exclusion among children. 

26.11.2022 - As part of the conference ‘Evidence-based support with social-emotional learning’ at the HfH Zurich, Jeanine Grütter organised the workshop ‘Promoting social learning and positive relationships in heterogeneous school classes’. You can find more information about the event here. 

07.11.2022 - On 7 November, Jeanine Grütter presented relevant research findings on social dynamics in classroom communities as part of her talk on dealing with heterogeneity in school classes at the Gebhard Community School.

A few days later, she organised a workshop for school teachers in which content from the friendship project was discussed in greater depth. Further information on the talk can be found here. 

11.10.2022 - The article, written by Prof Dr Jeanine Grütter, presents the ‘Inclusion checklist’, which teachers can use to help ensure that all pupils can participate positively in lessons and in the social life of the classroom. You can access the full article here . 

12.07.2022 – The study conducted with children and adolescents examined the influence of school diversity and teachers' democratic beliefs on peer interactions in school.

605 children and adolescents (age: 9 to 18 years) were presented with a hypothetical scenario in which a protagonist and their friend are looking to complete their group with an additional student in order to solve a difficult math’s task. The participating students stated their expectations as to whether the protagonist from the story would rather choose a child with low or high socio-economic status and gave reasons for their considerations.

The study showed, that  students attending mixed SES schools were more likely to expect inclusion of a low SES character than were students attending high SES schools. With age, high SES participants attending mixed SES schools increasingly expected the inclusion of the low SES character. Moreover, teachers' democratic beliefs in high SES schools predicted inclusive expectations. Teacher beliefs and school diversity play a significant role for fostering students' inclusivity in educational contexts.

The study thus underscores the potential of inclusive schools with high socioeconomic diversity to reduce biases related to social status. When this is not possible, teachers with high democratic beliefs can make a difference.

Related Publications:

• Grütter, J., Dhakal, S., & Killen, M. (2022). Socioeconomic status biases among children and adolescents: The role of school diversity and teacher beliefs in Nepal. Child Development. 

16.05.2022 – The study analysed two cohorts of Swiss adolescents, representing two generations, to investigate whether the development of civic competences has changed from middle adolescence to early adulthood (15-18 years).

The cohort born in 1991 did not differ from the cohort born in 2000 (N = 930) when it came to whether adolescents were critical of social inequality. In addition, 15-year-olds in both cohorts rated social justice as an important social aim. However, when it came to feeling politically confident, adolescents of the younger generation ranked themselves lower than previous generations. In addition, the younger cohort showed a delayed development of everyday prosocial behaviour. Consequently, it would be important not only to practise recognising and evaluating social issues in school education, but also to encourage and support young people to participate politically and socially in society in order to make a difference. 

Related Publications:

• Grütter, Jeanine and Marlis Buchmann. 2022. Cohort differences in the development of civic engagement during adolescence. Child Development, 00, 1-19.

12.05.2022 – The study investigated the extent to which the COVID-19-related school closures posed a risk to the mental well-being of adolescents. The question of whether social support services act as a protective factor was also investigated.

This study investigated whether school closures and health-related uncertainties at the beginning of the pandemic were risk factors for the mental well-being of adolescents. Secondly, the question of whether perceived social support from teachers, parents and friends acted as protective factors for mental well-being was investigated. The results, based on 1,562 adolescents surveyed with an average age of 16 years, showed three resilience profiles with different levels of school and health-related concerns, perceived support and psychological well-being. These are to be understood as profiles with low (19%), medium (47%) and high (34%) adolescent resilience. Lower resilience went hand in hand with higher education-related worries, lower perceived support and lower psychological well-being.

Overall, the results indicate that one out of five pupils reported a high level of stress during the school closures, felt little support and also showed a low level of well-being and higher depressive symptoms. Education-related worries in particular represented a significant risk factor for young people's mental well-being. It was equally clear that perceived parental support in such a time of crisis can have a protective effect on the mental well-being of adolescents. However, as this source of support was not available to all adolescents, targeted support for adolescents with risk profiles is recommended as a supplement to school-based measures.

Related Publications:

• Brünecke, I., Citterio, P., Dändliker, L., Lochmatter, F., Buchmann, M., & Grütter, J. (2022). Adolescents’  coping with emotional and academic stressors related to COVID-19: The role of perceived teacher, friendship and parental support. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 1-20.