Il ben-essere a scuola come nuova frontiera educativa

Well-being at school. A new educational challenge Basic education has two main goals: to promote high quality learning outcomes and pupils’ personal growth and well-being. The interrelated nature of learning and well-being is here referred by examining the kind of situations that pupils, teacher, parents, school administrator and psychologist find correlated to students’ well-being during primary and secondary school. This contribution represent the Italian part of a large international project being conducted in countries around the world, under the leadership of Dr. Bonnie Nastasi of Tulane University, USA. The purpose of this international project is to develop definitions of students well-being and healthy schools, based on perspectives of key stakeholders (student, teacher, school, community) within participating countries. The project represents a first step in understanding health of students from a social-cultural perspective and subsequently developing programs to promote well-being of students through individual and ecological change. In order to avoid imposing Western-based notions of mental health, collaborators will conduct formative research to gather data from key stakeholders within participating countries about conceptions of well-being for individuals (children and adolescents) and school and community contexts. The following depiction reflects an ecological and developmental framework for conceptualizing psychological well-being. The goal of this project is to depict the individual and social-cultural factors that influence well-being within specific countries, communities, or cultural groups. This model served as the basis for conducting similar work as we attempted to understand well-being from a culture-specific perspective, within a framework that reflected the person-ecology synergism. Similar to the long-term goals of this project, this earlier work provided the formative research for developing a culture-specific model of students well-being and subsequently developing culture-specific assessment tools and school-based health promotion programming. The research questions are regarding: - What is psychological well-being? - What is a psychologically healthy environment (home, school, community, society)? - What factors influence psychological well-being of children and adolescents? - What are the roles of schools, families, communities, and societies in promoting psychological well-being? - What are effective ways to promote development psychological well-being of children and adolescents in schools? This study involved sixty-four students—primary and secondary grade levels (8 groups of 6-8 each: 4 primary; 4 secondary). Data collection involved two sessions with each small group of six to eight students, the first session concerned a focus group discussion consisted of general questions like: what is expected of children/adolescents your age in school? What is expected of friends your age? What are children/adolescents your age expected to contribute to your community, society, country? Describe a good/ not good parent, describe a good/ not good teacher; questions about emotions and questions about the sources of distress. The second session concerned a Ecomap activity. The purpose of this activity was to talk about the people and events important for the students. For example, in their home, school, community and to do a drawing about their relationships with these people and events. This study also involved thirty-two parents of primary and secondary grade level students (4 groups of 6-8 each: 2 primary; 2 secondary). Data collection activity consisted in one session of focus groups with small groups of parents who have children in primary grades (ages 6-11) and secondary grades (ages 12-17). The purpose of this activity was identifying ideas about children’s well-being, parents expectations for their children, ideas about child rearing, and how parents think schools and families can help to promote children’s well-being. Thirty-two teachers of primary and secondary grade levels were involved (4 groups of 6-8 each: 2 primary; 2 secondary). This session concerned a focus group discussion on teachers ideas about children’s well-being, their expectations for their students, their ideas about disciplining students, and how teacher think schools and families can help to promote children’s well-being. Finally, this research involved five school administrators and five psychologists. This session concerned an individual interviews about issues related to promoting the psychological well-being of children and adolescents. Results show the positive influence of a good relationship with teachers and parents (as a support and presence of positive communication), is acting on the capability to the psycho-social adaptation of child and adolescents. Such information may in fact result in lines as design active collaboration between school administrators, teachers, students and families in building school environment, which stimulate the freedom of expression and mutual respect. In this environment the student may discuss and feel accepted by adults capable of responding to the questions and to the students problems. The research data are also interest for the possibility to use it for create the conditions for educational project in school, aimed at promoting more and more adequate well-being of the students