Positive psychology emphasizes individual strengths such as happiness and well- being as the pillars of personal growth, self-fulfillment, flourishing, thriving, and health. Well-being is an important concept for different domains of life including school settings. Personal well-being at school is a key element to contributes to students’ healthy lifestyles and psychosocial and physical health. The development of behaviors, cognitive, emotional, and social skills that students acquire through-out their education life help them not only to cope with the stressors, pressures, and challenges in school but also adapt to new situations and manage their psychological well-being and physical health throughout their lives (Darling-Hammond et al., 2020). Although school life can be challenging, and students may struggle to deal with stressors in the school environment, school is one of the primary settings for well-being promotion among children, adolescents, and youth. In light of positive psychology principles, various strength-based programs have been recently developed to promote well-being and health in schools. However, there is a need to pay more attention to the well-being of children and students at schools. In this chapter, we present conceptual models of well-being in schools and pathways to promote and support the well-being of youth by taking into account educators’ and students’ considerations.
Theoretical Background of Well-Being
Well-being is an area of burgeoning interest by both researchers and practitioners and has been regarded as a key ingredient to build and maintain healthy and productive individuals and societies. Well-being is a term with different definitions in various contexts. Broadly, well-being refers to “the combination of feeling good and functioning well” (Huppert & Johnson, 2010). While some researchers defined well-being as a multidimensional construct that includes emotional, psychological, and social components (Keyes, 2002, 2005), others define it as a psychological construct that refers to positive relationships with others, engagement in daily activities, having the capacity to perform tasks and goals, and a belief that life is purposeful and meaningful (Diener et al., 2009). Typically, people with higher levels of well- being are more successful across many domains of life such as school, work, health, and relationships (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005), and they are better to cope with psychological and physiological stressors (Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998).
In the area of well-being, there are well-established theories of well-being that are supported by a large body of empirical evidence. To explain well-being, here we briefly present some of the well-being theories. Subjective well-being theory is one of the salient well-being theories (Diener, 1984; Diener et al., 1999). In this theory, subjective well-being includes affective and cognitive components of well-being, and these two components are separable yet related. The affective component of subjective well-being refers to the emotional/feeling dimension of subjective well- being, while the cognitive component represents satisfaction with life which is characterized as a subjective evaluation of the quality of one’s life overall. The predominance of positive affect over negative affect and positive evaluation of satisfaction with life leads to greater subjective well-being. This form of well-being focuses on emotional and cognitive states that are related to a hedonic view of well- being (Kahneman et al., 1999; Ryan & Deci, 2001). Research suggests that subjective well-being influences not only mental health but also physical health of individuals (Pressman & Cohen, 2005). For example, Yıldırım and Arslan (2020) examined the relationship between subjective well-being and psychological health and found that increasing people’s experiences of subjective well-being were associated with greater psychological health, resilience, and hope. A two-wave longitudinal study showed that subjective well-being is reciprocally related to academic engagement (Datu & King, 2018).
Another well-being theory is the Six-Factor Model of Psychological Well-Being (Ryff, 1989), which conceptualizes well-being based on eudemonic and humanistic perspectives (Waterman, 1993). This model of well-being classifies a wider set of well-being dimensions, including self-acceptance, autonomy, positive relations, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth (Ryff, 1989). According to this model, optimal and sustainable psychological functioning can be accomplished through a shift from momentary feelings and thinking to being true to one’s inner self and a sense of purpose and meaning in life. In a systematic review study, Lattie et al. (2019) reported that an increment in psychological well-being leads to decrements in mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. Another systematic review study reported a positive link between psychological well-being and educational, learning, and work performance (Lin et al., 2017).
The PERMA theory of well-being (Seligman, 2011; Seligman et al., 2009) pro-poses that to build flourishing that makes life most worth living, there are five build-ing blocks: positive emotions (P), engagement (E), relationships (R), meaning (M), and accomplishment (A) (abbreviated as the acronym PERMA). This theory suggests that well-being includes not only the absence of diseases but also the presence of psychological resources and strengths and well-being can be attained through the above-mentioned five fundamental pathways. There is various empirical evidence that supports the positive application of the PERMA model in school settings. For example, Wagner and Ruch (2015) reported that school-based well-being programs and activities that foster character strengths help to create a positive classroom and contribute to school achievement because well-being helps students to build their character strengths with perseverance, love for learning, hope, zest, and gratitude.
The School Well-Being Model (Konu et al., 2002; Konu & Lintonen, 2006) has also been introduced to provide a basis for assessing the well-being of students and a school as an entity. This model is a four-dimensional model that includes school conditions (having), means for self-fulfillment (being), social relationships (loving), and health status. School conditions is related to surroundings, services, healthcare, school subjects and organization, schedules and group sizes. Means for self- fulfilment refers to the likelihood for students to study in accordance with their abilities and resources. The social relationship represents group dynamics, school atmosphere, student–teacher relationship, peer relationship, and cooperation with homes (Arslan & Burke, 2021; Waters et al., 2021; Waters & Johnstone, 2022). Health status refers to students’ psychosomatic symptoms of diseases and illnesses. As seen, each dimension of school well-being comprises different aspects of a student’s life at school and is related to teaching, education, learning, and achievement (Konu et al., 2002; Konu & Lintonen, 2006). Student well-being is positively related to adaptive functioning, striving, feeling, and relating to others (Soutter et al., 2014).
The school environment is an important place for the development and sustain-ability of protective factors associated with students’ well-being. While a positive school environment contributes to protective mechanisms, a negative school environment diminishes risk mechanisms. Well-being at schools focuses on the strengths, resources, and capabilities of individuals helping them to cope with challenges and transmissions (Greenberg & Jennings, 2009; Yıldırım et al., 2021). Burgeoning scientific evidence provides support for the effectiveness of school-based well-being programs to promote students’ well-being.