Abstract
This article proposes an integrative policy approach to defining and promoting wellbeing through the joint lenses of positive psychology and environmental sustainability. The study suggests that while both positive education and environmental education address various aspects of wellbeing, a common definition is still absent. The study proposes a framework for advancing a mutual concept of wellbeing: “sustainable wellbeing”, integrating aspects of individual wellbeing and the wellbeing of the environment. Sustainable wellbeing is achieved when improving individual wellbeing is correlated with improving the wellbeing of other members of society and the natural environment. It suggests a framework for integrating the benefits of positive education and environmental education into a coherent approach for exploring, discussing, and experiencing sustainable wellbeing. The paper mainly develops, explores, and demonstrates ten rules for implementing sustainable wellbeing literacy in schools, based on cognitive behavioral therapy and positive psychology insights. It contributes to the development and understanding of wellbeing, highlights the benefits of parallel developments of two distinct educational fields, and offers practical guidelines for implementing educational programs. Furthermore, the paper contributes to developing 21st century educational systems and further develops the emerging field of positive sustainability.
Highlights
What do we want for our planet and its inhabitants? This timeless philosophical and ethical question has been at the core of modern public policy, at all levels, for many decades [1]
Considering the shared aspiration of positive education and environmental education disciplines to promote wellbeing, the proposed integrative conceptualization of the positive sustainability education framework can derive from best practices in the two separate fields
This paper reviewed how both positive education and environmental sustainability education approaches have promoted wellbeing
Summary
What do we want for our planet and its inhabitants? This timeless philosophical and ethical question has been at the core of modern public policy, at all levels, for many decades [1]. The search for alternatives to the conventional 20th-century utilization of gross domestic product (GDP) as a major indicator of wellbeing focusing on economic growth led to the realization that the quality of human life is intertwined with the quality of the environment [4,5,6]. We propose an integrative policy approach to defining and promoting both human and environmental wellbeing, through the joint lenses of positive psychology and environmental sustainability. Our paper ends by proposing a holistic sustainable wellbeing model that integrates positive psychology and environmental sustainability using cognitive-behavioral therapy principles and offering a new language of sustainable wellbeing literacy [25] to approach thoughts, emotions, and behavior This much-needed joint model may offer cost-effective means for 21st-century education systems to simultaneously enhance students’ personal wellbeing while promoting responsible global citizens to care for the planet’s future
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