Wellbeing in Education

Our cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary research defines wellbeing for learning and teaching as a multidimensional ‘complete state model of mental health’, where wellbeing is understood as a continuum and more than the absence of illness and includes strengths-based and culturally responsive perspectives.

Researcher focus

Bridging the wellbeing for learning theory-policy-practice gap.
Developing professional practice for teacher wellbeing and initial teacher education.
Examining and measuring student and teacher wellbeing.
Integrating wellbeing and learning in school in the Humanities.
Laying new foundations for international wellbeing education theory.
New directions of wellbeing education.
Theorising wellbeing education during COVID-19 recovery.
Whole-school wellbeing approaches.

Lead researcher

Assoc. Prof Mathew White

Research projects

An Evidence-Informed Framework for Recognition of Prior Learning in Initial Teacher Education. Consortia of eight universities led by the University of Sydney, this report adopts a multi-phase methodology; this project integrates current research, document analysis, stakeholder surveys, and social labs intended for the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), State and Territory regulatory bodies, universities, and other ITE providers.

Go8 National Research Network on Wellbeing Education in Teacher Education. Led by the University of Adelaide in collaboration with six researchers from the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney focusing.

Improving Wellbeing Through Humanities Education. A joint University of Adelaide School of Education research project with the School of Humanities and J. M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice.