Do We All Agree On Student Well-being?

When you explore any international school's mission, values, or learning outcomes, you'll likely encounter a reference to well-being. Whether in the form of belonging, balance, or purpose, the implicit or explicit link to student well-being is a prevalent theme in the guiding documents within international education organizations. This strategic focus on well-being is not unique to any institution but is part of a broader global trend. As McLellan and Steward (2014) observed, “Interest in wellbeing has mushroomed in the past couple of decades” (p. 307). This trend is a response to the growing recognition of a crisis of declining well-being in adolescents across nearly all educational contexts (Jones et al., 2022).

However, despite the seeming consensus surrounding the urgency of these patterns and the ethical obligation inherent in an educational organization’s duty of care, many international schools find themselves facing a complex challenge. At the core of this challenge lies the fundamental question, “What constitutes well-being, and how can we measure it?” Although the answer to this question may seem self-evident, “there is no agreed definition of the term” in the research literature or professional practice (McLellan & Steward, 2014, p. 307). To make the issue even more complex, the term well-being is often used synonymously with adjacent but distinct subconcepts such as flourishing, happiness, and life satisfaction (McLellan & Steward, 2014). 

This lack of conceptual clarity represents a significant limiting factor in school efforts to address this growing issue; if there is limited agreement on how to define well-being, then there is limited agreement or consensus on how it might be assessed. However, the challenge of defining and operationalizing well-being is broader than that of practitioners.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (2022) highlights twenty-seven different scales associated with well-being, several of which focus on different subdomains including flourishing, positive affective, life satisfaction, and optimism. To be clear, this non-exhaustive list is centered solely on well-being through a Positive Psychology lens. Which scale(s) might be most appropriate to measure and engage with well-being in our respective contexts? These questions are even more complex in the context of a diverse international school. For example, in many definitions, happiness represents a foundational element of well-being. The concept of happiness or subjective well-being might be viewed differently across cultural identities, particularly those that strongly reflect values of individualism or collectivism (Church et al., 2014).

As it happens, the best answer to this question might be deeply rooted in context. In any educational organization, consideration of context and systems is vital to change and improvement efforts (Bryk et al., 2015). The specific contours and demographics of the school community and desired student outcomes should play a vital role in which well-being conceptualization and measurement tools are most useful. For instance, what are the specific community needs or goals related to increased happiness (subjective well-being), increased optimism, or life satisfaction? How do these concepts align with the organization's broader mission or student outcomes? Another consideration might be the ways in which the various cultural identities within the community align with these concepts and definitions.  All these represent distinct, but worthy, aims for student well-being. However, they all also necessitate different targeted measurement tools and intervention strategies.

Perhaps the worst mistake that we might make as international educators is thinking of well-being solely in terms of outcomes. For example, if a school trumpets the addition of an expanded range of resources to support issues with student well-being, or decreasing rates of students accessing socioemotional support services, this is commendable. However, it also signals that the organization is focused on engaging with outcomes of declining well-being rather than causes. In essence, school leaders are most interested in improving positivist measurable outcomes rather than engaging with lived experiences. The underlying causes of declining adolescent well-being likely live within a broader system of environmental contexts (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2007).

As educators, we have an ethical imperative to address declining student well-being in our respective contexts. Beyond agreeing on defining and operationalizing the concept, we as international educators need to better understand the mess of well-being through the prism of organizational context, cultural identity, and dynamic lived experiences (Wink, 2011). Importantly, “transforming information about the home and community into effective classroom practice” (Banks et al., 2001, p. 198). The pathway to culturally responsive support for students must involve a highly contextualized consideration of the definition and measurement of well-being and elevate the voices of the diverse community perspectives and identities.

References

Banks, J. A., Cookson, P., Gay, G., Hawley, W. D., Jordan Irvine, J., Nieto, S., Ward Schofield, J., & Stephan, W. G. (2001). Diversity within unity: Essential principles for teaching and learning in a multicultural society. Kappan, 83(3), 196-203. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170108300309

Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. A. (2007). The bioecological model of human development. Handbook of Child Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470147658.chpsy0114

Bryk, A. S., Gomez, L. M., Grunow, A., & LeMahieu, P. G. (2015). Learning to improve: How America’s schools can get better at getting better (Kindle ed.). Harvard Education Press.

Church, A. T., Katigbak, M. S., Ibáñez-Reyes, J., de Jesús Vargas-Flores, J., Curtis, G. J., Tanaka-Matsumi, J., Cabrera, H. F., Mastor, K. A., Zhang, H., Shen, J., Locke, K. D., Alvarez, J. M., Ching, C. M., Ortiz, F. A., & Simon, J.-Y. R. (2014). Relating self-concept consistency to hedonic and eudaimonic well-being in eight cultures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 45(5), 695–712. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022114527347

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (2022). Repository of positive psychological well-being scales. Health & Happiness. Retrieved August 2, 2024, from https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/health-happiness/repository-of-positive-psychological-well-being-scales/

Jones, S. E., Ethier, K. A., Hertz, M., DeGue, S., Le, V. D., Thornton, J., Lim, C., Dittus, P. J., & Geda, S. (2022). Mental health, suicidality, and connectedness among high school students during the COVID-19 pandemic — adolescent behaviors and experiences survey, United States, January–June 2021. MMWR Supplements, 71(3), 16–21. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.su7103a3

McLellan, R., & Steward, S. (2014). Measuring children and young people's well-being in the school context. Cambridge Journal of Education, 45(3), 307–332. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764x.2014.889659

Wink, J. (2011). Critical pedagogy: Notes from the real world. Pearson.