What Should We Do About Declining Student Well-being, and What If We Don't?

Over the past several days, I have written extensively about some of the challenges in addressing declining student well-being in diverse international school contexts: Do We All Agree on Well-being? and We May Be Ignoring A Crucial Component of Adolescent Well-being in International Schools. In both posts, I have articulated some of the fundamental challenges and shortcomings of international schools' response to this growing crisis. In this post, I hope to provide a framework for how we, as international educators and leaders, might be more successful and what the consequences of inaction or the status quo are.

Unlocking the Potential: How Can We Better Address Student Well-being in International Schools?

The first step in more successfully addressing the challenges of declining student well-being in the international context is to critically engage with the situated experiences of students (Wink, 2011). Given the wide range of cultural identities and experiences in international school contexts, it is vital to embrace the central tenets of a transformational philosophy of learning. Namely, with respect to determinants and indicators of well-being, the community owns the knowledge (Wink, 2011). In practical terms, this means that all community members may make substantive contributions to the learning process. Crucially, from a lens of equity, educational theorists Safir and Dugan (2021) assert that student voices must be at the center of all educational work. 

Although not explicitly rooted in equity and multiculturalism, these perspectives on the role of the community in problem-posing nicely complement the tenets of improvement science as outlined by Bryk et al. (2015). In their now seminal text, Bryk et al. (2015) articulate a framework for change efforts in education that relies on the Plan, Do, Study, Act cycle (PDSA). This cycle involves the Plan stage, which involves forming an improvement team that describes a problem and then outlines crucial underlying factors and causes that might be informed by not only the research literature but also extensive engagement with community member perspectives in line with the equity focus of Safir and Dugan (2021) and Wink’s (2011) critical pedagogy (Bryk et al., 2015). Given my previous posts, this might involve articulating a more nuanced and contextualized measurement or intervention for student well-being with the elevated voices of students central to the discussion. The remaining stages of Do, Study, and Act broadly align with Wink’s (2011) model of critical pedagogy.

Another essential element of Bryk et al.’s (2015) vision of school improvement efforts is the networked improvement community (NIC). An NIC is a working group that involves several classrooms, schools, or districts working together to pose a problem and the experience of the PDSA cycles within those specific contexts (Bryk et al., 2015). In the context of declining well-being in international schools, this could easily begin with several schools located in a particular geographic location. For instance, in Singapore, an island with a population of just under six million people, there are 65 international schools, with a notable portion scoring well above average on the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme exams (Tushara, 2024). 

These high-achieving environments are fertile ground for declining well-being and the challenges inherent in private international contexts. If even a tiny proportion of these schools formed a NIC, there would be an opportunity to quickly explore improvements in practice situated within the context of the school and Singapore. As it stands, private international schools frequently treat their pedagogical practice as propriety in an economically competitive landscape. The formation of NICs and transparent cooperation would help foreground a focus on effective student support and accelerate the testing and scaling of impactful practice.

What Are the Consequences of Inaction?

First, there is compelling evidence that even if a culture does not determine conceptions of well-being, elements of cultural identity and experience serve as crucial moderators of well-being outcomes (Lomas, 2015). As educators who believe deeply in the importance of cultural responsiveness and equity, we have an obligation to engage with these distinctive cultural moderators (Banks et al., 2001). A central goal of most international education institutions is to strive toward true multicultural awareness and inclusivity (Pedersen, 2000). We need to recognize and explore these cultural differences to be able to achieve that aim.

Additionally, if we do not take the opportunity to form and facilitate NIC that extends beyond individual classrooms or schools, testing and scaling of any approach to student well-being that considers cultural identity will be less responsive, slower to scale, and even in success siloed in its impact (Bryk et al., 2015). A NIC across several schools within a geographic area also offers the possibility of extending membership beyond the exclusive and expensive contexts of private international schools into the public sector. Declining well-being is not restricted to schools with prohibitive fees for many students. Effective support for student well-being should not be only accessible to those who may afford admission into these private institutions.

Finally, research across contexts suggests that declining well-being disproportionately impacts those students who are already most marginalized within the school population (Benner et al., 2018; Fox et al., 2020; Kokkonen et al., 2021). That includes not only cultural identity, but gender identity and neurodiversity as well. A discussion of well-being in the context of culture ideally broaches broader conversations rooted in equity and social justice across groups, and hopefully the foregrounding of pedagogical practice surrounding well-being as an urgent area of need and attention.

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 

Benner, A. D., Wang, Y., Shen, Y., Boyle, A. E., Polk, R., & Cheng, Y. P. (2018). Racial/ethnic discrimination and well-being during adolescence: A meta-analytic review. American Psychologist, 73(7), 855–883. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000204

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.

Fox, K. R., Choukas-Bradley, S., Salk, R. H., Marshal, M. P., & Thoma, B. C. (2020). Mental health among sexual and gender minority adolescents: Examining interactions with race and ethnicity. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 88(5), 402–415. https://doi.org/10.1037/ccp0000450

Kokkonen, P., Athanasopoulou, C., Leino-Kilpi, H., & Sakellari, E. (2021). Secondary school pupils’ mental wellbeing is associated with belonging to a perceived minority and experiencing discrimination. Children, 8(2), 71. https://doi.org/10.3390/children8020071

Lomas, T. (2015). Positive cross-cultural psychology: Exploring similarity and difference in constructions and experiences of wellbeing. International Journal of Wellbeing, 5(4), 60–77. https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v5i4.3

Pedersen, P. (2000). The rules of multiculturalism. In A handbook for developing multicultural awareness (3rd ed.; pp. 23-41). American Counseling Association. 

Safir, S., & Dugan, J. (2021). Street data: A next-generation model for equity, pedagogy, and school transformation. Corwin.

Tushara, E. (2024, January 4). IB results: Singapore continues to excel and surpass global average. The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/ib-results-singapore-continues-to-excel-and-surpass-global-average