EQoL - Teaching the Good Life. Theory, Policy and Practice in Education to Promote Quality of Life in the 21st Century
My life, I owe to my parents. My good life, I owe to my teacher.
Alexander the Great (356 BC – 323 BC), King of Macedon, student of Aristotle until the age of 16.
In recent decades, and particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a growing focus on subjects like quality of life, wellbeing, and happiness. Examples include top-down macro policies such as the OECD Better Life Initiative, the EU Quality of Life in Europe, and the UN World Happiness Report and Sustainable Development Goals; bottom-up social movements like FridaysForFuture; and local initiatives such as the "Smart City Vienna Framework Strategy 2019-2050: Vienna’s Strategy for Sustainable Development" (SCWR, 2019), fostering collaborations between local learning neighborhoods (Bildungsgrätzl) to promote an equitable and sustainable quality of life in Vienna.
The central question of this research project is: What is the impact of this significant trend on education, and what role can education play in it?