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Well-Being at School

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Book cover Well-Being, Positive Peer Relations and Bullying in School Settings

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Abstract

Typically in the past, research has equated the health and well-being of young people and adults with the absence of malfunctioning and disturbance, and one’s mental health was considered satisfactory if a mental health disorder was not diagnosed. However, a more positive approach involves an assessment of well-being by considering the presence of positive feelings toward one’s life and the level of functioning well in life (Keyes 2006). In this opening chapter the scene will be set for the text with a consideration of the concept of well-being touching upon issues of definition, measurement and assessment with a particular focus on the school setting.

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued

—Socrates

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Abbreviations

Eudaimonia:

Human functioning to an optimum level of happiness (anglicized word is eudemonia)

Hedonia:

The attainment of pleasure

Resilience:

The capacity to quickly recover from adversity

Social indicators:

Measures that describe the well-being of a community or individual, using terms such as social, economic, and psychological often combined to form an index

Subjective well-being:

One’s subjective evaluation of hedonia and eudaimonia

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  1. The School of Education, The Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    Phillip T. Slee & Grace Skrzypiec

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Slee, P.T., Skrzypiec, G. (2016). Well-Being at School. In: Well-Being, Positive Peer Relations and Bullying in School Settings. Positive Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43039-3_1

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