Intercultural Dynamics, Peer Support, and Student Mental Health in Higher Education

The growing cultural diversity in higher education poses new challenges for students’ mental health and wellbeing. Differences in experiences, values, interpersonal dynamics, and sociocultural contexts can influence processes of adaptation, integration, and participation in university life. Added to this are academic demands, interpersonal relationships, isolation, discrimination, and other situations that can affect emotional wellbeing. In this context, peer support networks and coping strategies developed within student communities are important resources, although they remain largely unexplored from an intercultural perspective. The support offered by educators, supervisors, counselors, tutors, and professional services staff also shapes how students experience belonging and inclusion. Understanding these experiences can contribute to mental health and wellbeing promotion, prevention, and care strategies that are more relevant to the diversity of the student body.This collection aims to bring together research that helps us understand how intercultural dynamics, peer support networks, and coping strategies relate to the mental health and wellbeing of students in higher education. It seeks to highlight the experiences of students from diverse cultural backgrounds and to analyze the individual, collective, and community resources that foster adaptation, resilience, belonging, and emotional wellbeing. It also welcomes work on the role of educators, supervisors, counselors, tutors, and professional services staff, and on their relationships with students. Furthermore, the collection aims to promote evidence on culturally sensitive interventions and institutional practices that contribute to the promotion of mental health and wellbeing and the prevention of psychological distress in university settings. Particular emphasis is placed on studies that incorporate the perspectives and experiences of students themselves through qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, and participatory approaches.The collection invites submissions of studies related to:- Sociocultural adaptation, mental health, and wellbeing among university students from diverse backgrounds.- Peer support networks and cooperative coping strategies in higher education settings.- Culturally sensitive mental health and wellbeing interventions and institutional practices.- The role, influence, and relationships of educators, supervisors, counselors, tutors, and professional services staff in intercultural support and inclusion.- Cultural diversity, inclusion, belonging, social connectedness, and wellbeing among Indigenous, rural, and other historically underrepresented student groups.- Resilience, engagement, positive student development, and sociocultural resources associated with mental health and wellbeing.- Qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, and participatory approaches to understanding university students’ mental health and wellbeing experiences and needs.Original research, systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and other evidence syntheses, methodological studies, and case studies that contribute relevant evidence to the field will be considered. Topic editors: Duverly Incacutipa, Angela Rosario Esteves Villanueva, Florentino Pinto Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/86525/intercultural-dynamics-peer-support-and-student-mental-health-in-higher-education