The Resilience Project: Evaluating a western well-being curriculum in Bangkok through the lens of capabilities.

Abstract

 Due to the ever-changing nature of education and the impact of Covid-19 still being measured, how a school promotes and develops pupil well-being is of particular interest to educational research. Although the term ‘well-being’ is poorly defined within educational research (Amerijckx, G. and Humblet, P.C. 2014) it has the potential to highlight inequality, diversity, and agency within children’s lives (Camfield et al. 2010). When considering the context of international education, Neoliberalism is a prominent feature, where education is perceived as an economic good and training and support are sold as a retail commodity (Ball 2012). This article explores these concepts, by evaluating the effectiveness of The Resilience Approach, which is a western well-being curriculum developed in Australia. The setting of this research is in a high-performing private international school in Bangkok. Therefore, this research provides a unique opportunity to explore a variety of themes including potential cultural conflicts between Thai and western traditions, as well as addressing the notion of privilege when considering perspectives of well-being in education. The research involved interviewing teaching staff and stakeholders within The Resilience Approach. The data was analysed through reflexive thematic analysis and the findings were then discussed through the lens of Hart’s (2013) Sen-Bourdieu analytical framework (SBAF).  The findings indicate that specific cultural norms within Thailand, such as saving face, may contradict the values taught within The Resilience project. Tensions between the learners’ privilege and understanding concepts such as gratitude and empathy were also highlighted. The study concludes that it is due to these challenges, that this curriculum may be best suited in embedding values such as gratitude and empathy.