Wellbeing in schools is at the centre of global education debates (OECD, 2021), yet its implementation remains contested (Spratt, 2017; Wright & McLeod, 2015). Schools are expected to address rising levels of stress, anxiety, and disconnection among students and teachers, while also responding to social inequalities, the pressures of digital culture, and increased workloads (Sandmeier, et al, 2022). However, dominant wellbeing frameworks often emphasize individual resilience over systemic change, failing to acknowledge the ways in which power, privilege, and structural disadvantage shape students’ and teachers’ wellbeing (O’Toole & Simovska, 2022). This special issue responds to the urgent need for a more integrated and contextually relevant approach—one that positions wellbeing within broader conversations about equity, democracy, and sustainability. It examines how wellbeing policies align (or conflict) with other educational priorities, how schools can cultivate environments that genuinely support all students, and how educators can navigate the tensions between policy imperatives and everyday realities.

Students today navigate a complex, volatile and uncertain world, where success depends not only on academic achievement but also on wellbeing, social connectedness, and emotional competence. Schools play a crucial role in equipping learners with the skills to engage with challenges and shape a better future. However, school wellbeing policies and practices often focus on surface-level interventions, neglecting deeper systemic factors.

This special issue examines how wellbeing is conceptualized, enacted, and experienced in schools, with a focus on equity, student voice, and challenges of embedding wellbeing into school practices. It aims to explore the tensions between policy ideals and lived realities, interrogate the risks of one-size-fits-all approaches, and examine potentially transformative practices that support both personal and collective flourishing. By bringing together diverse perspectives, this issue seeks to advance more inclusive, context-sensitive, and sustainable approaches to wellbeing—ensuring that schools are spaces where all students and educators can truly thrive.

This special issue examines the gaps between theory, policy, and practice in the field of school wellbeing and highlights the connections to issues of social justice, citizenship, and collective responsibility. While much research has focused on wellbeing as an individual outcome, this issue explores alternative frameworks that emphasize relational, ecological, and systemic perspectives.

Contributors will analyse both barriers and enablers to the sustainable implementation of wellbeing in schools, examine the role of student voice in shaping wellbeing initiatives, and critically assess the implications of wellbeing policies for teacher and school leaders’ workload and professional autonomy. By foregrounding the lived experiences of students and educators, this issue seeks to move beyond tokenistic approaches and offer more meaningful, context-sensitive strategies for fostering wellbeing in schools.

List of Topic Areas

• The intersections between wellbeing and equity
• Student voice and agency in wellbeing
• Teacher wellbeing and sustainable work practices, as a precursor for student wellbeing
• The barriers and facilitators of enacting wellbeing policies in schools
• Wellbeing and broader educational goals, including citizenship, democracy, sustainability

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here.
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see here.
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”.
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines

Submissions Open: 10 March 2025
Submissions Close: 30 June 2025

Guest Editors

Catriona O’Toole, Associate Professor in Psychology of Education, Maynooth University Department of Education, Co Kildare, Ireland. [email protected]

Anita Sandmeier, Schwyz University of Teacher Education, Switzerland. [email protected]