Context Matters

Reparation following adversity is less about individual strength than it is about the strength of the spaces between us.

I define ‘contextual wellbeing’ as a state of health, belonging and positive engagement in life that arises from membership of an equitable, inclusive and cohesive environment. When we have contextual wellbeing, the connections we have with our social context meet our key needs for belonging, engagement and autonomy.

These three key needs have repeatedly been found to be essential for the development of our self-determination. They form the basis of Professor Richard Ryan and Edward Deci’s world-renowned Self-Determination Theory?(SDT) which describes these needs as relatedness (belonging), competency (engagement) and autonomy. The theory purports that these three needs are essential drivers of autonomous motivation and self-determination in life. I believe that experiencing a?self-determined and autonomously motivated life is akin to experiencing ‘wellbeing in action’. Certainly, SDT has repeatedly identified these three needs as predictive of improved wellbeing across many cultures around the world.

When we have contextual wellbeing, we feel ‘whole’, as social beings and as individuals.

In fact, the irony of being an ‘individual’, is that it requires connection to ‘other people’ to exist as a concept or indeed, as an experience.?

When we have contextual wellbeing, we feel seen and heard by the social world in which we exist, and by which we define ourselves, and this means we experience a sense of our own value and our own voice. When we have voice and value, we experience life with meaning and purpose.

My 2018 book ‘Contextual Wellbeing – Creating Positive Schools from the Inside Out’?defines and explores contextual wellbeing in educational contexts. The book encourages educators and parents to consider wellbeing as a social phenomenon, rather than purely as an individual state. It is based on my firm belief?that wellbeing is an interplay between our best individual self and our best environment. As such, happiness and success are far more than individual pursuits, or even individual responsibilities. Contextual wellbeing develops from the ongoing creation of healthy connections to others and to the world around us.

I wrote the book as a call to challenge and change understandings of wellbeing and resilience in schools. I want to encourage schools to stop holding each child completely responsible for their individual wellbeing, and to instead understand that the school system plays an important role in supporting the needs, and consequently the wellbeing of all members of the community. We need to ask not ‘what is wrong’ with a troubled child, but rather, ‘how can we better support a troubled child’s needs?’

Moreover, I wrote the book as a wake-up call to increase equity in our schools. It is vital that we support the development of belonging, creativity, psychological safety and voice for all young people, not just in those who fit the system well. We need to ensure that everyone can experience growth and a sense of success that is independent of the growth and success of others. As such, we need to put aside ideas of success being a zero-sum game and focus on building collaborative school communities, rather than continually competitive ones.

I wrote Contextual Wellbeing to help young people in schools however, it is important to be aware the concepts apply to every situation in which we find ourselves. When life is good, in any given context, we experience contextual wellbeing through the meaningful connections we form. These connections are built with our ‘being’ part of a context and are actions within it. As such, contextual wellbeing is both about ‘being’ and about ‘doing’. When we build connections through our being and our doing, we become part of a life that is bigger than we are. This ultimately means the impermanence of our individual life is far easier to bear.

In fact, I believe that the key reason it is so important for us all to contribute to our communities is because we all face the certainty of our own deaths. If we can become a meaningful part of a community, then we can better deal with the inevitability of our death as an individual. As the community lives on, so too does the impact we had upon it.?

In my book, ‘Contextual Wellbeing’ I illustrate the social essence of our identity with reference to the Day of the Dead in Mexico. This is an important annual day for people to remember and celebrate the lives of those they have loved and lost. It is believed that death comes in three stages. First, we experience physical death; second, we are buried and third, we are forgotten. It is only when we are forgotten that we are truly considered to be dead. This understanding of death emphasises the importance of our identity beyond our physical form. We reside in every aspect of the context in which we live and die. Just as the boundaries of our physical form define us, so we are defined by the space around us.

As much as every aspect of our wellbeing resides in our individual form, so too it resides in the spaces between us, within the cultural norms of our environment and within those with whom we connect.

Dr Helen Street, January, 2022

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Contextual Wellbeing – Creating Positive Schools from the Inside Out by Dr Helen Street is published by Wise Solutions and can be purchased online at Amazon and other booksellers.

Professors Richard Ryan and Edward Deci’s Self-Determination Theory is the subject of well over a thousand research papers and reviews.

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