The work performed during the project consisted mainly in data collection, quali-quantitative data analysis, and theoretical elaboration of empirical results. The work was divided in three work-packages, of which the Work Package 1 was dedicated to “General Scientific Training and Candidate Commitments”. This work package dealt with the beginning and end of the project setting and therefore with organizational, managerial and training issues. Work package 2 dealt with “Policies and Theories”. This work package focused on the theoretical background of the QoL discourse and the most prominent QoL initiatives and policies. Work Package 3 was dedicated to “Best practices”. This work package focused on best practices in Italy, Denmark, and Europe.
Main results are:
• Historical placing of QoL movement: QoL movement is a visible and an unprecedented mark of the ongoing transition in macro human systems from industrial to post-industrial development model.
• QoL offers a new narrative mainly based on overcoming a purely economic approach to human development (the so-called “Beyond GDP”). However, from our analysis it emerges clearly that the QoL movement (and indexes) are still largely based on economic assumptions and language. A translation of QoL movement into education systems’ policies should pay attention to this issue to avoid economic colonization of education sector.
• As for now, the QoL movement has no formal, large, and direct initiatives in the education sector. Initiatives in this direction are envisaged and the academic reflection is ongoing. The SQoL model developed for this project is a first contribution in this direction. Indirect and national/local initiatives have been started recently (e.g. in Italy).
• The OECD Pisa Initiative, one of the larger student assessment initiative in the world, has recently inaugurated Pisa Wellbeing Initiative in order to measure students’ wellbeing on a large-scale. Such initiative only partially refers to the paradigm of the QoL movement. However, the study of the dynamics of Pisa Wellbeing policies reveals a transition from the Positive Psychology and cognitive neuroscience discourses as main references to the sustainable wellbeing and QoL narrative.
• The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the sustainable development movement are converging towards the QoL movement on a common narrative (e.g. sustainable wellbeing; sustainable quality of life) and this could have massive repercussions on education systems. The conjunctions of the two areas are under investigation at Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development- ASviS in Rome (secondment institution).
• ASviS probably represents today the best example in Europe of an institutional agent capable to carry forward educational policies and practices directly derived from the QoL movement. The Danish education systems, instead, at the moment is still mainly based on the health-related conception of wellbeing.
• Historical, conceptual, and methodological maps of QoL movement reveal theoretical and terminological confusion due to the attempt to be inclusive of many different and sometimes contradictory discourses on wellbeing and quality of life (e. g. tautological definitions, lack of etymological analysis).
