Resources
Explore a wide range of valuable resources on GCED to deepen your understanding and enhance your research, advocacy, teaching, and learning.
3 Results found
A New Social Contract for Education: Advancing a Paradigm of Relational Interconnectedness Year of publication: 2023 Author: Elena Toukan Corporate author: UNESCO This paper looks at recent calls for โa new social contract for educationโ through the lens of a relational ontology for humanity and a living planet. Through a critical view of social contract theory, the paper looks at how this call can be an entry point to a deeper paradigmatic shift in framing questions of justice, social organization, and education itself. It proposes a shift from a rules-based transactional model to a relationship-based model grounded in understanding and appreciation of interdependence and interconnectedness. In order to shape more just and sustainable futures for humanity and the planet, a new social contract for education will need to transcend atomistic, transactional, and adversarial social dynamics and instead be organized around relational interconnectedness. 
Happiness Education for Primary and Middle School Students under the Guidance of Education Ecological Ideas Year of publication: 2012 Author: Chen Yudan This paper discusses the issue of happiness education in primary and secondary education from the perspective of Educational Ecology, and provides suggestions for improvemet. 
Why the World Needs Happy Schools: Global Report on Happiness In and For Learning Year of publication: 2024 Corporate author: UNESCO Seeing a teacher smile. Hearing students laugh. Feeling a hug from a friend. Smelling fresh air. Tasting a nutritious school meal. These five senses can stimulate happiness at school and improve the learning experiences, outcomes and well-being of students. Through the โHappy Schoolsโ initiative, UNESCO is placing happiness at the core of the transformation of education. It encourages education systems to recognize happiness as both a means to and a goal of quality learning. The initiative is informed by a growing evidence base linking happiness with better learning, teaching, well-being and overall system resilience. This report presents the UNESCO global Happy Schools framework consisting of 4 pillars โ people, process, place and principles โ and 12 high-level criteria to guide the transformation of learning. It offers a holistic model for embedding happiness into education policies and cultivating it in schools through systemic changes. The report illustrates how the โHappy Schoolsโ initiative aims to create top-down and bottom-up transformation, encouraging governments to recognize happiness as a core objective of education. It supports the scaling of promising practices of joyful learning from the school to the policy level.