How to foster well-being in educational settings during challenging times?

In recent years educational debates within the scientific and broader community have been focused, besides on the academic success of pupils, acquisition of educational outcomes and effectiveness of the educational system, on enabling and developing the psychosocial well-being and contentment of participants in educational processes. Therefore, the topic of the 5th Days of Educational Sciences is dedicated to interdisciplinary research of the well-being of pupils, teachers, professors, expert associates, principals, deans, parents, and the factors that contribute to their well-being and contentment in the educational, and also the broader social setting.

The well-being of participants of the educational process refers to the psychological, social, emotional, cognitive and physical functioning and competences that need to be fostered and developed to achieve psychological and physical health and to lead a fulfilled and happy life. Educational institutions at all educational levels, from early and pre-school to tertiary and post-tertiary education, need to have an active role in ensuring the well-being of pupils, and also teachers, expert associates, principals and other participants of educational processes.

The research of well-being have gained particular importance in the time of the COVID-19 disease pandemic, due to which the Days of Educational Sciences were cancelled in 2020 and postponed until this year. The pandemic posed an enormous challenge for the educational system. Educational experience and work was marked by a rapid shift to various models of distance learning and teaching, and digitalization, which required a significant and fast adaptation of all participants in the system. Along with the pandemic, the earthquakes that struck parts of Croatia in the same period have further disrupted the work of educational institutions and influenced the feelings of safety and well-being of all the affected. In the meantime, we have faced numerous other challenges that include economic uncertainty, migrations and warfare. All the mentioned events have greatly marked the past period and influenced already established ways of functioning of all participants in the educational system.

The 5th Days of Educational Sciences are dedicated to empirical research of the well-being of pupils and educational practitioners, and of particular elements of the system that can have an impact on well-being, such as system management, curriculum, quality of learning and teaching, evaluation, working conditions, possibilities of professional development, ecological aspects, safety aspects, intercultural aspects and social inequalities in education (class, gender, ethnic, religious and other). In addition, we welcome empirical analyses of educational policies ensuring the development of well-being in educational settings, and the research-based suggestions for the improvement of the educational system and educational policies and practices that influence the well-being of all participants.

We invite scientists, researchers and other experts in the field of education to present their empirical work on the given topic, from various methodological perspectives, and multiple interdisciplinary and disciplinary positions, and contribute to the discussion on these important questions.