The buddy bench and beyond: Exploring complexity-informed approaches to wellbeing education

Abstract

Enhancing wellbeing in educational settings is a challenging endeavour as wellbeing education is inherently complex. This interdisciplinary conceptual paper aims to bridge the gap between psychological interventions and educational contexts by adopting a complexity lens to consider the puzzle of wellbeing in educational settings. We draw on the fields of positive psychology, educational theory, complexity thinking, and indigenous worldviews to conceptualise wellbeing education and illustrate the need to weave approaches together. Embracing a complexity lens, we offer ways of prompting emergent wellbeing change: incorporating diverse perspectives, trialling nudges, and attending to interactions across the system. We argue that complexity-informed approaches to wellbeing education have the potential to create emergent change in and across complex educational systems.