08. Health and Wellbeing Education
Paper
Conceptualizations of Wellbeing in Schools: Insights from a Literature Review
Venka Simovska, Nis Langer Primdahl
Aarhus University, Denmark
Presenting Author: Simovska, Venka;
Primdahl, Nis Langer
While the idea that schools play a significant part in sustaining and promoting student wellbeing has a long history, the formulation of wellbeing as a specific and explicit goal of schooling is a relatively recent phenomenon (Carlsson, 2022; McLellan et al., 2022; Weare & Gray, 2003). A recent systematic review focusing on bibliometric and network analysis of the literature on wellbeing in school contexts during the period 1978–2018 points to a typical pattern of an emerging discipline, with an initial 15-year inception period followed by a 10-year consolidation period and then a decade of rapid exponential growth in the quantity of research (Hernández-Torrano, 2020).
The notion of school-based wellbeing is typically construed as ‘being well’, or as having an optimal psychological experience and functioning, positively associated with students’ motivation, learning and academic achievement (Adler 2017; Bücker et al. 2018; Suldo et al. 2011). A decade ago, Huebner and colleagues (2014) synthesised the evidence of the key school factors connected with students’ wellbeing and concluded that interpersonal interactions, students’ sense of security, opportunities for participation, and various organizational practices all contribute to wellbeing. Typically, the emphasis of research has been on examining the effects of wellbeing programmes on students’ academic outcomes or mental health (e.g. Barry et al. 2017; Daniele et al. 2022).
In contrast, in this systematic narrative literature review, we aimed to portray the broader spectrum of theoretical and empirical perspectives and ongoing debates related to wellbeing in primary and lower secondary schools (students aged 6-16 years). The review focused on the following questions: How is wellbeing in primary and lower secondary schools framed (conceptually) and addressed (methodologically) in the literature? What factors and dynamics within the school environment affect students’ school wellbeing? What characterises interventions /programmes/initiatives aimed at promoting students’ wellbeing at school? What are the perspectives on wellbeing of teachers and students?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedWe conducted systematic search in international and Scandinavian research databases. The international databases included ERIC, PsychInfo and Scopus. The Nordic databases included Bibliotek.dk, Libris and Bibsys (Oria).The search terms were as follows (in English and translated/adapted into Danish, Norwegian and Swedish:
Wellbeing* OR well-being* OR "quality of life*" OR thrive* OR "mental health*") AND lv("secondary education" OR "elementary education" OR "grade 2" OR "primary education" OR "grade 3" OR "grade 4" OR "grade 5" OR "grade 1" OR "grade 10" OR "intermediate grades" OR "grade 6" OR "grade 7" OR "middle schools" OR "grade 8" OR "junior high schools" OR "grade 9") AND PEER.
The inclusion criteria were as follows: Publication year 2012-2022; Language: English, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian; Peer-reviewed; 'Grey literature' (Danish); Book chapters (available online); Wellbeing interventions targeted at students aged 5-16 years; Analyses of the concept of wellbeing in a school context; Methods for promoting wellbeing in school; The importance of the school environment for student wellbeing; Teacher perspectives on wellbeing; Student perspectives on wellbeing.
We excluded the studies that did not fulfil the inclusion criteria. Furthermore, we excluded the studies where the school simply functions as a location for the research; Studies that aim to validate wellbeing scales and other measurement instruments; Studies that focus exclusively on particular groups or themes (e.g. ADHD diagnoses, migrants or refugees, minorities, LGBTEQ+, trauma, sport and physical activity, school gardens, COVID, special needs); Studies that primarily deal with the well-being of teachers or other professionals; External stakeholders' perspectives on school wellbeing; Clinical studies of mental health.
The initial search resulted in 14836 papers, 11914 were screened after removing duplicates, 1966 were selected based on reading titles and abstracts, 319 were selected for full text reading, and finally, 159 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the narrative analysis and synthesis. Two researchers (the authors of this paper) validated the selection process, extraction and condensation of the data and the analysis. In addition, a practice advisory board provided feedback on the analysis.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsBased on the review we identified three central understandings of wellbeing at school:
a) Wellbeing as skill and competence
Wellbeing-promoting efforts in school that are based on this understanding can be social-emotional approaches (SEL), resilience-based approaches and approaches based on the regulation of emotions. The common element is that wellbeing is seen as a skill or competence that students can acquire or learn, and which can thus be made the subject of teaching and learning in school.
b) Wellbeing as positive feelings and relationships
Wellbeing initiatives based on this understanding emphasize wellbeing as joy of life, satisfaction, self-expression and mutual, strong relationships with others and the environment, including nature. Thus, wellbeing is understood as the ability to face and read difficult life situations, rather than as a competence or skill, and wellbeing can be cultivated as part of individual formation and development.
c) Wellbeing as a socio-ecological concept
Interventions based on this understanding operate from the premise that wellbeing arises from a complex interplay between the individual's sense of agency and purpose in life on the one hand and broader social, material, community-oriented, environmental or societal dynamics on the other. These can, for example, be interventions that work with holistic and whole-schools approaches.
In addition the review indicates that the teachers view wellbeing as an important part of their professional practice, rather than as a politically imposed strategy aimed at preventing poor wellbeing and promoting mental health. The students place emphasis on the importance of the school's physical and psychosocial environment, where both physical and mental safety are emphasized together with aesthetic surroundings, good school facilities, and mutual respect among the students and between students and the school's professionals.
ReferencesAdler (2017). Well-Being and Academic Achievement: Towards a New Evidence-Based Educational Paradigm. In White, M. A., Slemp, G. R., & Murray, A. S. (Eds.) Future Directions in Well-Being. (pp. 203-208) Cham: Springer.
Barry, M. M., Clarke, A. M., & Dowling, K. (2017). Promoting social and emotional well-being in schools. Health Education, 117(5), 434-451.
Bücker, S., Nuraydin, S., Simonsmeier, B. A., Schneider, M., & Luhmann, M. (2018). Subjective well-being and academic achievement: A meta-analysis. Journal of Research in Personality, 74, 83-94.
Carlsson, M. (2022) Reimagining Wellbeing in Neoliberal Times: School Wellbeing as an Adjunct to Academic Performance? In: McLellan, R., Faucher, C. & Simovska, V. (eds.) Wellbeing and Schooling: Cross Cultural and Cross Disciplinary Perspectives. Springer Nature 35-48.
Hernándes-Torrano, D. (2020). Mapping Global Research on Child Well-Being
in School Contexts: A Bibliometric and Network Analysis (1978–2018). Child Indicators Re-search 13: 863–884
Huebner, E.S., Hills, K.J., Jiang, X., Long, R.F., Kelly, R., Lyons, M.D. (2014). Schooling and Children’s Subjective Well-Being. In: Ben-Arieh, A., Casas, F., Frønes, I., Korbin, J. (eds) Handbook of Child Well-Being. Dordrecht: Springer.
Daniele K., Gambacorti Passerinia, M.B., Palmieria C., and Zannini L. (2022). Educational interventions to promote adolescents’ mental health: A scoping review. Health Education Journal, Volume: 81 issue: 5, 597-613.
Suldo, S. M., Thalji, A., & Ferron, J. (2011). Longitudinal academic outcomes predicted by early adolescents’ subjective well-being, psychopathology, and mental health status yielded from a dual factor model. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 6(1), 17-30.
McLellan, R., Faucher, C., & Simovska, V. (2022). Wellbeing and Schooling: Why Are Cross-Cultural and Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives Needed? In R. McLellan, C. Faucher, & V. Simovska (Eds.), Wellbeing and Schooling (Vol. 4, pp. 1–17). Springer International Publishing.
Weare, K., & Gray, G. (2003). What works in developing children’s emotional and social competence and wellbeing? DfES Publications.
08. Health and Wellbeing Education
Paper
Wellbeing and Wellbeing Competence as Central Teaching Goals
Søren Harnow Klausen1,2, Søren Engelsen3, Jessica Hemberg1, Pia Nyman-Kurkiala1
1Åbo Akademi University, Denmark; 2University of Southern Denmark; 3University College Lillebælt
Presenting Author: Klausen, Søren Harnow
This paper argues that the concern for students’ wellbeing should be seen as integral to the main objectives of teaching and education. Although student wellbeing has become an increasingly growing concern, and although it is often related to “whole-person” and “whole-school”-approaches, it is still treated mostly as a separate aspect of school life.Wellbeing is crucially important for students’ motivation and learning, across the curriculum, and achieving sufficient wellbeing is a fundamental life goal that calls for cross- and transcurricular teaching. Recent discussions of Bildung have tended to overlook or downplay the importance of subjective wellbeing, though the classical conception emphasizes that acquisition of skills and knowledge must be personally and emotionally satisfying; this is also supported by contemporary theories of flow, self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation. Drawing in part on recent research on the impact of the Covid 19-restrictions on students’ wellbeing, the paper also introduces the notion of wellbeing competence, distinguishing its different components and giving suggestions for how to foster it in the classroom.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe paper combines philosophical and psychological wellbeing theory, especially theories of wellbeing as value fulfilment and emotional balance (and theories of wellbeing competence), with empirical research on students' well- and ill-being and its relationship to school performance and wider life goals.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsApart from showing that the classical notion of Bildung embodies a concern for wellbeing, and making a general case for student wellbeing as a central, cross- and transcurricular teaching goal, and a integral part of all teaching activities, the paper also argues that stronger and more pervasive focus on student wellbeing need not be an additional, burdensome task for teachers, but can also help strengthening teachers wellbeing (which is also an important, and often neglected, concern).
ReferencesCarroll A., York A., Fynes-Clinton S., Sanders-O’Connor, E., Flynn, L., Bower, J. M., Forrest, K. & Ziaei, M. (2021). The downstream effects of teacher wellbeing programs: Improvements in teachers' stress, cognition and wellbeing benefit their students. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.689628
Engelsen, S. (2022). Wellbeing competence. Philosophies, 7(2), 42. https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7020042
European Commission (2021). A systemic, whole-school approach to mental health and wellbeing in schools in the EU – Executive summary. Publications Office of the European Union. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2766/20872
European Commission (2023). Wellbeing at school. https://education.ec.europa.eu/education-levels/school-education/wellbeing-at-school
Haybron, D. (2008). The Pursuit of unhappiness. Oxford University Press
Hemberg J, Östman L, Korzhina Y, Groundstroem H, Nyström L, Nyman-Kurkiala P. (2022a). Loneliness as experienced by adolescents and young adults: an explorative qualitative study. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 27(1), 362–384
Humboldt, W. v. (1967). Ideen zu einem Versuch, die Grenzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats zu Bestimmen. [Limits of state action]. Reclam.
Klausen, S. H. (2018). Ethics, knowledge, and a procedural approach to wellbeing. Inquiry, 66(1), 31–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2018.1529619
Klausen, S. H., Engelsen, S. & Christiansen, R. (2022). Health, disease and wellbeing. In E. Di Nucci, J.-Y. Lee & I. A. Wagner (Eds.), Handbook of bioethics (pp. 16-26). Rowman & Littlefield
Tiberius, V. (2008). The reflective life: Living wisely with our limits. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199202867.001.0001
Woolf, P. & Digby, J. (2021). Student wellbeing: An analysis of the evidence. Oxford Impact. https://oxfordimpact.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Student-wellbeing-impact-study-white-paper.pdf
08. Health and Wellbeing Education
Paper
WITDRAWN The ‘Gift’ of Mental Health Programmes to Schools: Charity, Philanthropy and Anti-politics
Darren Powell
University of Auckland, New Zealand
Presenting Author: Powell, Darren
Philanthropy and charity are increasingly positioned as efficient means to ‘solve’ a variety of public health and public education ‘crises’. This is a new type of neoliberal “social capitalism” (Ball, 2012, p. 66) where ‘new’ philanthropists (including individuals, ‘not-for-profits’, and corporations) collaborate and use business strategies to increasingly shape school-based solutions to public health imperatives. One such public health issue that has captured the interests of philanthrocapitalists is children’s mental health. This has resulted in a diverse range of mental health programmes and resources being implemented in schools across the globe, such as a mindfulness programme in New Zealand, resilience teaching resources in the United Kingdom, mental wellbeing tracking software in Australia, an app-based emotion education programme in Ireland, and numerous others forms of intervention and ‘education’.
In this paper I draw on Foucault’s (1991) notion of governmentality and Li’s (2007a) practices of assemblage to shed light how a number of organisations employ charity and philanthropy as a means to govern themselves and others. Specifically, I demonstrate how disparate organisations, including charities, local businesses, multinational corporations, social enterprises, government agencies, and philanthropic foundations, have been able to forge alignments through a shared interest in children’s mental health. This is a profitable process for those with the ‘will to improve’ (Li, 2007b), especially when these authorities are simultaneously able to (re)produce the notion of a mental health ‘crisis’ and propose their own solutions. However, even though these types of multi-sector partnerships are becoming commonplace in education and are seen to be a ‘win-win’ for multisector players, they may also be ‘dangerous’ for schools, public education, and democratic social change.
This paper demonstrates how the boundaries between multiple sectors continue to be re-drawn as new forms of governance, in particular philanthropic governance, re-shapes the provision of mental health programme in schools. This makes the work of charities and philanthropists highly visible (and acceptable, even desirable) in public education, while “surreptitiously embedding forms of privatization in education systems” (Srivastava & Baur, 2016, p. 434). As Bloom and Rhodes (2018) argue, “Philanthrocapitalism is about much more than the simple act of generosity it portrays itself as, instead involving the social inculcation of neoliberal values” (p. 192). The ‘gift’ of mental health programmes to schools represents new forms of ‘hidden’ and ‘creeping’ philanthropic privatisation in education (see Ball & Youdell, 2007; Powell, 2014) – yet another chapter in “the broader assault on public and critical education and the aspirations of a critical democracy” (Saltman, 2010, p. 13).
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedDrawing on data collected from a range of sources, including empirical investigation, academic commentary, government reports, media releases, and curricular materials, this theoretical paper conceptualises school-based mental health programmes and resources in line with Michel Foucault’s (1991) description of the nature and function of governmentality. The notion of governmentality enables us to view government as not the sole preserve of a repressive, coercive, controlling state, but rather a modern form of government that employs various techniques in order to work ‘at a distance’ on citizen’s conduct (Rose, 1999). Using governmentality as a theoretical lens, I cast children, as both current and future citizens of advanced neoliberal societies, as specific targets of this type of governmental intervention.
Foucault (1991, p. 102) argued that government is undertaken by an ‘ensemble’ of institution, authorities, and agents, using a range of technologies, strategies and discourses, in an attempt to ‘conduct the conduct’ of individuals towards definite, albeit unpredictable, ends (Dean, 2010). Following Li (2007a) and the work of other governmentality scholars (e.g. Miller & Rose, 2008), I employ the concept of the ‘governmental assemblage’ as an analytical device to explore philanthropic governance (Ball & Olmedo, 2011) and the (re)shaping of mental health programmes in schools.
To analyse this governmental assemblage, I also draw on Li’s (2007a) ‘practices of assemblage’: forging alignments, where I interrogate “the work of linking together the objectives of the various parties to an assemblage, both those who aspire to govern conduct and those whose conduct is to be conducted” (p. 265); rendering technical, which encompasses “extracting from the messiness of the social world, with all the processes that run through it, a set of relations that can be formulated as a diagram in which problem (a) plus intervention (b) will produce (c), a beneficial result” (p. 265); and, anti-politics. This latter practice is critical, and a key danger of philanthrocapitalism, where vital political questions are reimagined as simply “matters of technique” (p. 265). By critically examining how the governmental assemblage ‘works’ in the philanthropic provision of mental health programmes, I am able to demonstrate how interconnected notions of charity and philanthropy bring together an array of organisations and actors that are enabled to govern both the ‘problem’ of children’s mental health and market-based ‘solutions’.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsOne of the significant ‘dangers’ of philanthropy and charity in the shaping of mental health programmes in schools is that essentially political questions are reduced to ‘simple’ matters of technique as non-political solutions. Drawing on Ferguson (1984), Li (2007b) refers to this practice of assemblage as anti-politics, a practice that may work to enable authorities to “exclude the structure of political-economic relations from the diagnoses and prescriptions” (Li, 2007b, p. 7). In the case of philanthropic mental health interventions in schools, socio-political forces (such as the determinants of children’s mental health) are rendered technical. This further ensures that any failures of proposed philanthropic solutions can be re-imagined by teachers, principals, students, external providers, CEO’s, charitable trusts, and children as superficial issues, rather than fundamentally political ones (see Li, 2007b).
By rendering the problem of children’s mental health both anti-political and technical, authorities are able to close down challenges to dominant discourses of mental health; discussions about the place of charities (and their private ‘partners’) intervening in public education; and resistance against powerful determinants of children’s (ill)health, such as poverty, social inequities, consumerism, and capitalism, As James Davies argues, this is a "process by which suffering is conceptualized in ways that protect the current economy from criticism—namely, as rooted in individual rather than social causes, which means we must favor self over social reform’" (Garson, 2023, para. 12). Indeed, a main conclusion of this research is that the philanthrocapitalist efforts to ‘teach’ children about mental health acts as a new form of 'mental healthism' that is deployed to protect key authorities from critique. This disguises the social forces and processes that systematically promote ill-health ‘often for private advantage’ (Crawford, 1980, p. 368), and shifts the responsibility and blame for ill-health onto individuals, including children.
ReferencesBall, S. J. (2012). Global education inc.: new policy networks and the neoliberal imaginary. Routledge.
Ball, S. J., & Olmedo, A. (2011). Global social capitalism: Using enterprise to solve the problems of the world. Citizenship, Social and Economics Education, 10(2-3), 83-90. https://doi.org/10.2304/csee.2011.10.2.
Ball, S. J., & Youdell, D. (2007). Hidden privatisation in public education (preliminary report). Institute of Education.
Bloom, P., & Rhodes, C. (2018). CEO society: The corporate takeover of everyday life. Zed Books.
Crawford, R. (1980). Healthism and the medicalization of everyday life. International Journal of Health Services, 10, 365-388.
Dean, M. (2010). Governmentality: power and rule in modern society (2nd ed.). Sage.
Ferguson, J. (1994). The anti-politics machine: ‘development,’ depoliticization, and bureaucratic power in Lesotho. University of Minnesota Press.
Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality (pp. 87-104). Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Li, T. M. (2007a). Practices of assemblage and community forest management. Economy and Society, 36, 263-293. doi: 10.1080/03085140701254308
Li, T. M. (2007b). The will to improve: governmentality, development, and the practice of politics. Duke University Press.
Miller, P., & Rose, N. (2008). Governing the present. Polity.
Powell, D. (2014). Childhood obesity, corporate philanthropy and the creeping privatisation of health education. Critical Public Health, 24(2), 226-238. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2013.846465
Rose, N. (2000). Government and control. British Journal of Criminology, 40, 321-339
Saltman, K. J. (2010). The gift of education: Public education and venture philanthropy. Palgrave MacMillan.
Srivastava, P., & Baur, L. (2016). New global philanthropy and philanthropic governance in education in a post‐2015 world. In K. Mundy, A. Green, B. Lingard, & A. Verger (Eds.), Handbook of global education policy (pp. 433-448). John Wiley & Sons.
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