Review article

Should Happiness Be Taught in School?

Majda Rijavec ; Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb

Abstract

Within positive psychology, the concept of well-being (happiness) represents the main criteria for positive functioning and is generally considered the goal in life to be promoted. Research in this field is providing very strong evidence that happiness brings highly desirable life benefits, such as better health and longer life, successful relationships and better work performance. The most important reasons for teaching happiness in school are high prevalence of depression among young people worldwide, the small rise in life satisfaction in the last half a century, low students’ satisfaction with school in many countries, and the synergy between learning and positive emotion. A number of studies suggest that school-based positive psychology programmes are effective in improving positive traits and well-being, even though reliability of these findings is still questioned.  The Model for Positive Education is presented in this paper as a possible area of future research. This is applied framework of implementing positive psychology as a whole-school approach targeting six well-being domains, including positive emotions, positive engagement, positive accomplishment, positive purpose, positive relationships, and positive health, with a focus on character strengths. 

Keywords

happiness; positive education; positive psychology; school; well-being

Hrčak ID:

137680

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/137680

Publication date:

25.2.2015.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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