Happiness Education: Rationale, Aims, Methods, and the Evolution of the Study of Happiness

This chapter begins by depicting the current global context with multiple crises, which provides the rationale for this book. This chapter then describes the nature of the book and its primary goals. It is about the nature of happiness education viewed globally and multiculturally. The basic objective is to develop a deeper understanding of what contributes to students being happy in school. A second important goal is to examine whether happy students can also develop both important hard and soft skills. We are searching to discover from 11 diverse country cases valuable insights and understandings (verstehen approach) about the nature of happiness education and what contributes to happiness. In this study, we draw upon the wisdom derived from both our country case studies and diverse sources from antiquity, Indigenous peoples, the non-Western world, and modern rigorous science. There is an exhaustive review of the evolution of happiness studies from antiquity to the latest cutting-edge modern scientific studies, using an interdisciplinary approach. We then seek to reimagine a new paradigm of holistic education that fosters both happiness in schools and subsequently lives in which individuals flourish while living well and healthily, in other words, happiness and sustainable well-being for all.