Factors Determining Children and Young People’s Well-being at School

The article addresses the issue of children and young people’s well-being at school. The issue has been known as topical for already some time. In recent decades, in order to be able to determine the true nature and essence of the phenomenon of well-being, the necessity to find the ways for identification of children and young people’s self-assessment of well-being at school has become very important. There are many challenges related to conducting new longitudinal studies on children and young people’s well-being. The phenomenon of well-being at school cannot be seen only in the context of local situation; it is deeply contextual. Its essence is also determined by the content and values that have emerged in the development of wider global or regional relations and attitudes. Therefore, for the formation of a broader perspective of the article, such phenomena as sustainability and unsustainability were used. This made it possible to refer to the trends of sustainability and unsustainability that had long been highlighted in the studies of global development and education. The analysis of the phenomenon of well-being at school is offered based on the research results within EU FP7 project “Measuring Youth Well Being” (MYWeB) that took a balanced approach to assessing the feasibility of a European Longitudinal Study for Children and Young People through prioritising both scientific and policy imperatives and was carried out in cooperation with eleven European countries. The aim of the article in accordance with one of the specific tasks of the project is to find out the meaning and significance that children and young people allocate to well-being. The article discusses one of the most relevant domains of wellbeing - school, and how it relates to happiness, life-satisfaction and psychological wellbeing of children and young people. The article outlines the results of fieldwork undertaken in project consortium countries (Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, and the United Kingdom) with the goal to understand the subjective experiences of children and young people from different age groups, regions and socio-economic backgrounds. The results of the research confirmed that educational spaces could take a more significant role in promoting well-being of children and young people; in its turn, the education system must rebalance academic learning and emotional well-being.