Student wellbeing at a university in post-apartheid South Africa: a comparison with a British university sample using the GP-CORE measure

Abstract

This article provides GP-CORE norms for a South African university sample, which are compared to published data obtained from a United Kingdom university sample. The measure appears to be both reliable and valid for this multilingual and multicultural South African sample. The profiles of the psychological distress reported by white South African undergraduate students and UK undergraduate students are similar, while black South African students reported higher levels of distress than both their white counterparts and the UK students. It is argued that this is a result of the persistent inequalities entrenched during apartheid. Within the South African sample, undergraduate students reported greater psychological distress than postgraduate students.