Hardships of being a student in a performance society
Mental health among University students seems to be a particularly relevant issue in Italy right now. On March 1st a 27-year-old student took her life in Naples, likely because of difficulties encountered in her studies. Her family and friends reported she said she was about to graduate, while in fact she had not been able to pass her last exam.
However, the shocking the news is, it is not the first time people in Italy hear about young people committing suicide in situations of severe distress linked to problematic academic careers: the University system seems to be unbearable to many of them. Since the beginning of 2023 three students have already taken their lives and two of them left a note behind, both saying they felt their whole life was but a failure. Yet, this is not just a matter of suicide: behind this phenomenon there is [VR1] a whole population of young people in a situation of psychological distress.
Data collected by Istat in 2019 shows nearly 4,000 suicides per year: almost 500 committed by people under 34 years old and 200 by the under-24 demographic group, many of which are university students. Meanwhile, a research by VdNews conducted among 4760 Italian students, shows that 21.3% of the sample reported a mild psychological discomfort, which was moderate for 21.1% and serious for 36.1%.
Possible causes
It looks like an emergency, and it actually is. University students are now demanding to be allowed to slow down and take care of their well-being. Italy’s Minister of Education Anna Maria Bernini stood up as well, promising to provide universities with mental health support services. Although this is already a reality in most campuses, people are aware that a big change in the whole system, in society at first, may be necessary.
We interviewed Roberta Biolcati, teaching professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Bologna and SAP – Psychological Help Service – team member. She confirms that anxiety is indeed a relevant issue for students and the young population at large. But it is not the whole story: “Perfectionism lurks everywhere. In society, in families, in all of us, in me as well. It goes hand in hand with anxiety, nobody is serene in trying to achieve their life goals, their projects and so on”.
As a matter of fact, this phenomenon may have different hidden causes, all of which can be summarized by one word: pressure.
We can imagine a puzzle in which all pieces contributes in creating the final picture. There are many pieces in this puzzle, and they are all factors that cause a great psychological pressure on students. It is useful to make a distinction, however, between structural sources of pressure, family and personal matters, and cultural sources of pressure. Although they are quite often intertwined.
The structural sources are the current social and economic situation in Italy. Graduates from Italian universities face one of the worst rates of youth unemployment in Europe. If a graduate with honors struggles to find a job right after the end of their studies, let’s just imagine how frustrating it can be for a just a regular student, one with average grades.
But this is not just a matter of grades. Another component of this puzzle of pressure is time, which in terms of university also means ‘money’. Time is money. Thus, even just a few months without passing any exam could mean the loss of scholarships, hence higher tuition fees.
Family and personal matters are another great source of pressure and angst. We interviewed Daniela Ravaglia and Cristina Terrinoni, respectively a psychologist and a psychotherapist from the Augusta Pini Clinic in Bologna. Going to university, they explain, is for many the first time living away from their parents: “A young adult it thus faced with many things and all at once. It’s a particularly delicate phase of their life because they actually face their own strengths”. It is not difficult to imagine, then, how studying to achieve high and strict academic goals could result in the struggle to fulfil others’ expectations. In many cases students also lie about their academic careers, building up completely imaginary scenarios to hide a reality they cannot accept. Skuola.net reported that 35% of students lied at least once about their career. And these lies resulted in being linked to the sense of responsibility towards parents and family members in 28% of cases.
Surely, pressure can also derive from personal attitudes. Professor Biolcati remarked that, for instance: “Anxious and depressive disorders are the most marked aspects of the university population, because this age group lives a time of great challenges: young adults are faced with many new tasks, often engendering a feeling of precariousness”. Furthermore, social skills seem to be another relevant issue: “I believe that loneliness, social phobia, fear and anguish of the group – she continues -may all be relevant problems involved in this phenomenon. It is as if ‘the other’ has become an enemy, and not a resource. Competition should not the only mode of encountering the diverse: meeting others ought to be a source of growth, a chance to build a positive and enriching comparison”.
Italian governments for sure have not played a positive role in this story. In the last years endless budget cuts to education have reduced the availability of scholarships, not to mention the housing crisis in several college towns. We can consider Bologna as an example of the huge difficulties any student encounters in searching for a place to live at a reasonable price.
But the main issue we should take into account, the one from which everything originates, is a consumerist and capitalist model of education. If our society is deeply embedded in it, how could the academic system not be? Let us just think about the decision of the Prime Minister in office, Giorgia Meloni, who gave a new meaningful name to the Ministry of Education, that of Ministry of Education and Merit.
If studying becomes a performance, academia turns into a stage for “the best possible version of ourselves”. Universities, then, become a matter of business, agencies from which to buy services and content, regulated and defined by the needs of the global market of knowledge rather than by educational, cultural and scientific aims. Furthermore, the importance and legitimacy gained by international ranking agencies (Times Higher Education, Shanghai Ranking, World University Rankings) gives them the power to define criteria for assessing what is a good university and what is a good teacher. Behind this frame lies the idea of people, students in this case, as performers, and of knowledge as a product of the performance, a market commodity.
Moreover, the media continuously push a rhetoric of record-breaking academic performances. The Italian press strongly fuels this narrative as newspapers are full of prodigy graduates always breaking a new record, achieving more and more ambitious goals, and, inevitably, sacrificing everything in the name of “success”.
Just to mention one, we remember the case of Carlotta Rossignoli, who at the early age of 23 graduated in medicine while being a model, an influencer, a pianist and, naturally, also a great athlete. She boasted having a poor social life, sleeping as little as possible, setting strict deadlines for herself, even if that meant studying all night long. Let’s also keep in mind the case of a young woman giving birth while graduating on a video call: something quite disturbing but celebrated and glorified by the media.
As if students were metaphysical creatures, performance society expects them to be constantly performing, productive and of course infallible. The human, emotional, psychological implications of this model are completely ignored but they do emerge in dramatical ways. We are not only talking about suicides, but also about psychological suffering.
Fallibility, which is a human feature, is simply not contemplated. Non-achieving is simply failing to demonstrate your value as a person. That is why the dozens of people who decided to end their life, in their last desperate messages talk about failure. This is a society of binary and polarizing concepts: success or failure. And the successful are the only meaningful people.
With Dr. Ravaglia’s words: “You have to make use of expectations in such a way that the load is not too heavy. Because not everyone has the ability to withstand such a burden”. Everyone must have the right to fail, the right of setting balanced expectations, which are always personal. Everyone should have the strength and courage to conduct an internal investigation, one on our own limitations and strengths.
Possible solutions
In this article, we highlighted pervasive issues like competitiveness, exclusivity, and careerism. They all characterize our educational system, and they often perpetuate inhuman standards based on unattainable models. Consequently, finding solutions to this pressing matter is now more urgent than ever.
Pressure and performance culture are a problem that affects various aspects of our complex society. Different solutions are needed, and these may be at the same time structural, representational, and healthcare related.
First, we must address the structural problem that involves society as a whole. Professor Biolcati outlines a few solutions: “I believe we should create more social spaces for dialogue and sharing, because the cure can only be to let people be together. Also, people should become more emotionally competent, able to master and govern their emotions and communicate in order to help themselves”. Moreover, as we saw, young people are not the only ones who are directly involved: “It may seem a paradox, but adults need more help than the young. By making these people stronger, we would give indirect support to the young, who physiologically require support from adults, from their role models”.
Moreover, the preliminary idea that people have a given time limit to graduate needs be changed, as this concept causes great anxiety in students who are afraid of not concluding their academic career on time. We should also rethink educational methods that promote competition based only on grades, numerical evaluation of their performance.
Secondly, introducing effective psychological help and support is necessary. In doctor Terrinoni’s opinion we must take into account that: “University years are still a phase of important personal training and therefore it is essential to grasp certain signs of disease. Families and teachers pay attention to you and care for you until you turn 18; but the risk is that after that age threshold, you are considered an adult who must handle it all by him/herself. The risk is to underestimate how lonely and difficult this stage of life can be”.
Moreover, the idea that psychological well-being is a luxury must change. Although there are many psychological support services available in universities (as in the University of Bologna) a coherent and structured national strategy has yet to be put in place. The lack of dedicated funding and precise monitoring means that these services may only help a few individuals. But what we must really do is to tackle the problem as a whole. Professor Biolcati clearly states that: “SAP-like services are not the definitive solution. They are just a solution. We must address the systemic side of this question rather than allocating funds on emergency solutions. We cannot create a world of a myriad clients, each with their tailor-made psychotherapist: it would be the definitive failure of our society”.
In 2022 the Italian government led by Mario Draghi introduced a “Psychological Bonus”, a measure providing those in need of psychological assistance with an annual contribution of up to 600 euros. The aim of this law is to assist those who require psychotherapy but are unable to afford it due to financial constraints. Of the requests received, over 60% were from citizens under the age of 35. Unfortunately, the collected resources were insufficient, as the amount of requests has been ten times higher than expected. Mental health emergency was clearly underestimated by the National Health System.
References
- «Ministra Bernini, il supporto psicologico agli studenti è un’emergenza. Intervenga ora» – L’Espresso (repubblica.it)
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- https://www.wired.it/article/universita-suicidi-disagio-studenti-napoli-milano-palermo/
- La competizione nociva nella società della performance (ildigitale.it)
- La Società della Performance: della vita come prodotto – DINAMOpress
- Ministero del merito? I prof bocciano il nuovo nome: “La scuola non è un gioco a quiz, in aula si cresce insieme e ognuno ha i suoi talenti” – Il Fatto Quotidiano
- Studenti suicidi schiacciati dal peso della performance: «Ma eccellere non è prendere 30 agli esami» – L’Espresso (repubblica.it)
- Università: uno studente su tre mente ai genitori sugli esami dati- Corriere.it
- Vedere le tracce – Estratto da “La Società della Performance” (macrolibrarsi.it)
A cura di Serena Convertino, Arianna Daicampi, Tania Montanari, Ambra Paglione.