Parental help with homework is a frequent parental activity at the start of children’s school career and it is often accompanied by a range of emotions. Previous studies have shown that parental emotions in homework-help situations may relate to children’s learning outcomes. However, little is known about how parental emotions during homework change over primary school. Therefore, we examined the trajectories of parental positive and negative emotions during Lithuanian primary school (Grades 2, 3, and 4) and investigated how they relate to children’s task persistence and academic performance in Grades 2 to 4. A total of 651 children (47% girls) and their parents in Lithuania participated in this study. Two latent growth mixture models were built to examine trajectories—one for positive and one for negative emotions. The differences in children’s task persistence and academic performance in those trajectories were explored by using the BCH approach in Mplus. First, the results identified five trajectories for positive emotion: average stable (42.3 %), below average stable (9.7%), increasing (2.8 %), highly positive decreasing (12.1 %), and positive decreasing (33.1 %). Also, four negative emotion trajectories were identified: stable (35.3 %), decreasing (31.2 %), increasing (25.9 %), and strongly increasing (7.6%). Second, trajectories of positive emotions did not differ in children’s task persistence or academic performance. Regarding negative emotion trajectories, children’s task persistence was higher in stable and decreasing trajectories compared to increasing and strongly increasing trajectories. Academic performance was higher in decreasing trajectory compared to stable, increasing, and strongly increasing. Overall, the results suggest that parental emotions in homework situations change and form distinct trajectories over primary school, and the trajectories of negative emotions in particular are associated with children’s learning outcomes.

Situated Expectancy-Value Theory (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020) highlights the role of situational variables in shaping students' motivational beliefs, yet empirical research—especially longitudinal—on how contextual factors like teacher behavior influence these beliefs remains limited. One key aspect of teacher behavior is psychologically controlling teaching, which imposes excessive pressure on students (Soenens et al., 2011) and may be used more in high-stakes courses such as mathematics. This pressure may lead to more negative emotions while learning math, contributing to greater emotional cost. Further, students may try to protect their self-worth from excessive pressure by reducing the perceived importance of success in math, lowering attainment value. This study explores the bidirectional interrelations over time between perceived psychologically controlling teaching, emotional cost and attainment value of learning mathematics during the first three semesters of high school. A cross-lagged panel analysis was conducted on 1,202 Lithuanian ninth-grade students (58.3% female, M = 14.88 years) from 24 high schools who participated in all three waves of a larger longitudinal study on math motivation. Self-report measures assessed attainment value (5 items), emotional cost (5 items), and psychologically controlling teaching (7 items). Results revealed a bidirectional relationship between perceived psychologically controlling teaching and emotional cost across the second and third time points, as well as between emotional cost and attainment value. Between the first and second time points, unidirectional relationships emerged: emotional cost predicted both psychologically controlling teaching and attainment value. Indirect path analysis showed that higher emotional cost led to increased psychological control, which, in turn, further heightened emotional cost. Additionally, higher emotional cost lowered attainment value, subsequently contributing to even greater emotional cost. These findings suggest that negative feelings attributed to mathematics may affect students' susceptibility to controlling teacher behavior, leading to a more negative perception of teaching and mathematics.

The increasing prevalence of adolescents’ internalizing symptoms are raising major concerns. Internalizing symptoms may disrupt everyday functioning and put adolescents at potential risk for later difficulties to effectively integrate into labor market. Therefore, the current study investigated the developmental patterns of Finnish adolescents’ (n = 4007; 54.7% girls; Mean age = 17.3[2.6] years) internalizing symptoms (i.e., somatic complaints, anxiety, depressive symptoms, social anxiety, and fear) in upper secondary education (Year 1 spring and Year 3 fall). In addition, the study investigated the role of perceived social support and risks for labor market marginalization. The potential risk for labor market marginalization in terms of qualifications from upper secondary education, received basic social assistance, use of antidepressants, and rehabilitative psychotherapy were obtained by register data. In addition, adolescents answered about their substance use. Perceived social support from parents, teachers, peers, and school welfare services, and adolescents’ internalizing symptoms were obtained by adolescents’ self-reports. The study found three developmental patterns in terms of adolescents’ individual internalizing symptoms: low to moderate increasing symptoms (71.6%), high decreasing depressive symptoms (5.2%), and moderate symptoms (23.2%). Adolescents who had low to moderate increasing symptoms perceived higher parent and peer support and had a lower potential risk for labor market marginalization than the remaining two groups. In addition, results showed that adolescents with either high decreasing depressive symptoms or moderate symptoms sought support from a school psychologist or school social worker more often than the adolescents with low to moderate increasing symptoms. Results showed that almost one third of adolescents in upper secondary education had moderate or high internalizing symptoms, which places them at potential risk for later labor market marginalization. The study emphasizes the importance of a supportive home and school environments to mitigate the prevalence of internalizing symptoms and potential labor market marginalization.

Tracking is one pathway through which inequalities in education are perpetuated. This is also true for the Romanian educational system, where tracking begins in upper-secondary education and is a highly selective process. Students with the best academic performance typically choose academic-oriented tracks within prestigious high schools, and underachieving students tend to end up in technological or vocational tracks. As part of the HORIZON project Longitudinal Educational Achievements: Reducing iNequalities (LEARN, project ID: 101132531), this study examined how academic and non-academic tracks fared in terms of students’ promotion rates and results at the Baccalaureate exam. For this purpose, we used secondary data from three prior longitudinal studies on Romanian high school students and computed class-level prospective results at the Baccalaureate exam based on publicly available country-level data. Preliminary results indicate that, for classes with an academic track, the highest class-level average for the Baccalaureate exam was 9.48, while the lowest was 6.88. For classes with a non-academic track, the highest class-level average for the Baccalaureate exam was 8.90, while the lowest was 5.33. Overall, more students from classes with an academic track participated and passed the first session of the Baccalaureate exam. This study has important implications given that only students who passed the Baccalaureate exam are eligible to continue into higher education, and, in Romania, students’ performance over the high school years and results at the Baccalaureate exam are often used as selection criteria for university admission. This means that differences, in terms of academic achievement, between academic and non-academic tracks have long-lasting effects on students’ career and occupational opportunities, which deepen pre-existing educational divides.