Session Information
08 SES 06, Health, Sexualtiy Education and HPS - Policy framings
Paper Session
Contribution
Robert F. Kennedy once said that a country's gross domestic product (GDP) measures “everything except that, which makes life worthwhile”. Indeed, GDP measures mainly market transactions and it ignores social costs, environmental impacts and income inequality (Costanza et al., 2014).
Since the early nineties there has been a paradigm shift in human development theory, and a slow but steady increase of attention towards the interconnections between social, political and economic features (Nussbaum & Sen, 1993). This, among other factors, has brought about a concomitant increased interest on wellbeing and quality of life, and several institutions and scholars have started to develop new indicators to measure them. Among the most important we can cite EU’s Quality of Life in Europe, OECD’s Better Life Initiative (OECD, 2013), Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission (Stiglitz, Sen, & Fitoussi, 2009), Quality of Life’s approach (Nussbaum & Sen, 1993), Subjective Wellbeing (Kahneman, Diener, & Schwarz, 2003), Post-2015 Development Agenda (UN Economic and Social Council) and UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN, 2015).
The ongoing debate on the nature of concepts such as wellbeing, quality of life, happiness, flourishing etc. and their impact on our society is nowadays huge and very intricate. The grounding question of my paper is about the educational aspects of this debate including the necessary critics and possible proposals for future developments.
In this paper, I will present the ongoing debate, focussing on the following points: 1) the Eudaimonic conception of wellbeing, which is ontologically educational; indeed, while contemporary scholars of different areas seems to discover the relevance of quality of life only in recent times, for Western pedagogy it has always been at the core of its work and reflection.
2) Modern indexes for measuring the quality of life and wellbeing are attempting to measure subjective wellbeing. Are we facing an objectivation of subjectivity? And in which terms does this preserve or undermine the nature of subjectivity?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Costanza, R., Kubiszewski, I., Giovannini, E., Lovins, H., McGlade, J., Pickett, K. E., Wilkinson, R. (2014). Development: Time to leave GDP behind. Nature, 505(7483), 283–285. doi:10.1038/505283a European Union, Quality of life in Europe - facts and views. doi:10.2785/59737. Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-statistical-books/-/KS-05-14-073 Francesconi, D. & Tarozzi, M. (2012). Embodied Education: A Convergence of Phenomenological Pedagogy and Embodiment. In Studia phaenomenologica, 12: 263-88. Kahneman, D., Diener, E., & Schwarz, N. (Eds.). (2003). Well-Being: Foundations of Hedonic Psychology. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Publications. Nussbaum, M., & Sen, A. (Eds.). (1993). The Quality of Life. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0198287976.001.0001/acprof-9780198287971 OECD. (2013). How’s Life? 2013. OECD Publishing. Retrieved from http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/economics/how-s-life-2013_9789264201392-en#page1 Stiglitz, J., Sen, A., & Fitoussi, J.-P. (2009). The measurement of economic performance and social progress revisited. Reflections and Overview. Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, Paris. Retrieved from http://www.ofce.sciences-po.fr/pdf/dtravail/WP2009-33.pdf UN Economic and Social Council. (n.d.). Retrieved November 7, 2014, from http://www.un.org/en/ecosoc/about/mdg.shtml WHO | The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. (n.d.). Retrieved November 7, 2014, from http://www.who.int/healthpromotion/conferences/previous/ottawa/en/
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