Well-being at school

Well-being is a multidimensional construct, and refers to a set of objective (economic, cultural, environmental, physical) and subjective (psychological, emotional, affective, socio-relational) conditions that the individual experiences, and several studies have confirmed the existence of a close positive relationship between class climate and well-being and between well-being and learning (Govorova et al., 2020). From the perspective of an action-research path, this research was carried out on 553 children attending the third, fourth and fifth grades of some primary schools in north-eastern Italy, and explored the conditions that make children feel good or bad at school, especially in the relationship with classmates and teachers. The relationships that bring well-being are first and foremost affective, and concern sharing one's time and space with friends, but also social and cognitive. The well-being of children is not a selfish well-being, because they are also attentive to what happens to their classmates, and if one of them manifests difficulties, they work to help him or her overcome the difficult moment and, implicitly, to re-establish a good emotional climate in the classroom. In the relationship with the teacher, what produces greater well-being is the possibility that the children carry out activities that they enjoy, but also the recognition and appreciation for what the children do. Finally, a fundamental role is assigned to the teacher in intervening when pupils behave badly, in order to bring back a good climate in the classroom and promote everyone's well-being.