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Grundschulpädagogische Forschung

Call for Papers: School well-being of primary school children: Theoretical and empirical perspectives and implications for school and teaching quality

Special issue of the Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft (ZfE)

Sabrina Förster, Juliane Schlesier, Michaela Gläser-Zikuda & Tanja Betz


Background and aims

School well-being is widely regarded as a key indicator of successful educational processes; the theme is discussed internationally as an important resource for learning, development, and participation (OECD, 2023; Schnell et al., 2025). The existing body of research conceptualises school well-being as a multidimensional, relatively stable (habitual) construct that encompasses cognitive appraisals, emotions, and social integration within the institutional context of schooling. The concept is closely related to students’ motivation, achievement, and mental health (Hascher, 2004; Hascher et al., 2018). Additionally, in primary school education, child-centred perspectives emphasise that children’s well-being in everyday school life is often closely tied to relationship quality, a sense of belonging, and experiences of competence and coping, thereby linking school well-being directly to many features of teaching and classroom interaction (Kellock, 2020; Klemp et al., 2025; Nentwig-Gesemann et al., 2025).

At the same time, recent international comparative evidence suggests that key indicators of child well-being and educational outcomes have shown unfavourable trends in several countries. On average, across the OECD, the share of 15-year-olds reporting low life satisfaction has increased across recent assessment cycles (OECD, 2023). In Germany, for example, the proportion rose from 17% in 2018 to 22% in 2022 (OECD, 2023). The UNICEF Innocenti Report Card 19 presents an international comparison of trends in indicators of child well-being (including life satisfaction) and education-related competence indicators. The report describes developments between 2018 and 2022 in an “unpredictable world”, shaped by global crises and broader transformation processes, including disruptions associated with COVID-19-related school closures (UNICEF Innocenti, 2025).

Although existing findings pertain primarily to the adolescent phase, they support a clear implication for primary education: primary school constitutes the first durable and formative school learning environment in which school-related emotions, a sense of belonging, perceptions of competence and achievement, as well as stress and coping patterns are cumulatively shaped – thus contributing to the starting conditions for subsequent developmental trajectories. Longitudinal evidence indicates that socio-emotional characteristics of schooling can be linked to achievement development during late primary school – with a stronger sense of school belonging in grades 4 and 5 predicting higher subsequent academic achievement (Sakellariou, 2025).

 

Against the backdrop of growing research interest and increasing practical relevance, several key research gaps remain regarding school well-being in primary education:

  • Much existing work focuses on secondary education and/or uses broad age cohorts without systematically examining primary-school-specific findings (Becker & Börnert-Ringleb, 2024; Hascher et al., 2018; Hoferichter & Schlesier, 2024; Marker et al., 2024).
  • Conceptualisations and model approaches reported in the literature are heterogeneous. There remains a need to clarify the dimensions that are theoretically meaningful to distinguish for primary school children, and how school well-being can be differentiated from related constructs (e.g., life satisfaction, enjoyment of school, socio-emotional school experiences, mental health) (Hascher, 2004; Hascher & Hagenauer, 2020; Hascher et al., 2018; Schlesier & Obermeier, 2025).
  • Cross-sectional designs continue to dominate the field. Although longitudinal approaches, multilevel analyses, and measurement-invariance testing are increasing, they are not yet consistently standard practice. Systematic reviews in primary education point to considerable variation in how school well-being is operationalised and measured. This variation limits comparability across studies and makes it harder to build a cumulative evidence base (Losada-Puente et al., 2024; Ömeroğulları & Gläser-Zikuda, 2022).
  • Primary school children’s perspectives on well-being and schooling are still examined less often than teacher- or other adult-centred approaches (Bennewitz, de Boer & Thiersch 2022). In other words, there is relatively little qualitative and interpretive research that systematically captures and analyses children’s own concerns and relevance structures within and beyond the classroom (e.g. Betz, 2022; Deinet et al., 2018; Kellock, 2020; Nentwig-Gesemann et al., 2025).
  • Links to teaching quality and school development often remain implicit. There is a need for more evidence-based accounts of which instructional and contextual features (e.g., relationship building, classroom climate, all-day schooling, transitions) foster the school well-being of primary school children – and how such insights can be translated into educational practice (Kellock, 2020; Klemp et al., 2025; Nentwig-Gesemann et al., 2025; Yli-Pietilä et al., 2024).

This special issue of the Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft therefore aims to bring together theoretical and empirical contributions that sharpen the concept of school well-being among primary school children, provide empirically differentiated accounts, employ methodologically robust approaches to assessment, and derive implications for school and teaching quality. Contributions from German-speaking countries are explicitly welcome; international perspectives are also invited, provided that the reference to primary education is clearly articulated.

 

Main questions

Submissions may address, among further topics, the following questions:

  • Concept and theory: Which dimensions of school well-being are theoretically viable in primary school (e.g., affective, cognitive, social, physical), and how can boundaries between related constructs be specified?
  • Models and processes: Which theoretical models explain school well-being in primary school (e.g., via belonging, relationship quality, perceived opportunities for participation and autonomy, basic psychological needs) – and allow us to understand what well-being “is” for pupils; and how do such models and processes relate to motivation, achievement, experiences of stress, and a sense of belonging?
  • Empirical evidence: What robust evidence exists on predictors, developmental trajectories, and consequences of school well-being in primary education (including subgroups, inequality, and risk/protective factors)?
  • Measurement and methodology: How can school well-being among primary school children be assessed in age-appropriate, reliable, and valid ways (e.g., child-friendly scales, mixed-methods designs, multilevel models, measurement invariance, participatory approaches, child-centred approaches)?
  • Implications for school and teaching quality: What evidence-based implications follow for lesson design, classroom management, feedback and relationship cultures, support/diagnostics, collaboration with parents, all-day schooling arrangements, and the design of transitions?

We particularly welcome:

  1. Theoretical and (systematic) review papers that synthesise concepts, dimensions, and models of school well-being in primary school children, articulate these at the primary education level (including differentiation from related constructs), and position them comparatively.
  2. Empirical contributions (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods) that prioritise children’s perspectives (e.g., child-friendly self-reports, interviews, observations, diaries/experience sampling, participatory designs). Such studies may examine experiences, meanings, developmental trajectories and/or underlying processes, as well as contextual conditions of school well-being in primary school, for example in relation to:
    • teaching and interaction quality (e.g., relationship building, classroom climate, feedback culture);
    • transitions (early childhood education → primary school; primary school → lower secondary school);
    • inequality, risk and protective factors, and subgroups (e.g., inclusion);
    • all-day schools, including full-day arrangements for education and care.
    • Both hypothesis-testing and exploratory or interpretive-reconstructive approaches are welcome. Crucially, submissions should move beyond description to advance explanation and understanding, and to contribute to theory-guided conceptual clarification, as well as the development of theory and new models.
  3. Practice- and transfer-oriented contributions that demonstrate, on an evidence-informed basis, how primary school children’s school well-being can be supported through teaching, support/diagnostics, consulting, all-day-schooling and school development. Possible examples of such studies include design-based research; design and evaluation studies; qualitative processes and impact analyses of enabling conditions; studies on implementation quality, reach and transferability of interventions; as well as instructional approaches, professional learning opportunities, and materials/interventions.

 

Procedure: Semi-open call and extended summary

The special issue will combine invited contributions with open-call submissions. Open-call submissions will be managed by the guest editors through a two-step screening and review process:

Step 1: Submission of abstract and extended summary (deadline: April 1st, 2026)

Please submit by email to ZfEWell-beingPrimary[at]uni-wuppertal.de (subject line: title of the special issue) and include all authors’ names, institutional affiliations, and the corresponding author’s email address.

  1. Structured abstract (max. 250 words) using the headings: Background, Aim(s), Sample(s), Method(s), Results, Conclusions (adapted as appropriate for theoretical papers and reviews).
  2. Extended summary (600–1000 words) detailing the aim(s), theoretical framework, material/design/method, key (expected) findings, and the scientific as well as educational significance of the work.

Step 2: Invitation to submit full manuscripts (from June/July 2026)

Selected submissions will be invited to submit a full manuscript (deadline: from November 1st to November 30th 2026). ZfE operates a double-blind peer review process. Following acceptance, articles may be published online first, until the special issue is published in full, which is scheduled for early 2028.

 

Formal requirements (ZfE)

Detailed guidance on manuscript preparation is available from the ZfE website.

  • Language: German or English.
  • Length: Original articles max. 50,000 characters (including spaces)
  • Abstract and keywords: Abstract in German and English (max. 1,200 characters each) and 3-5 key words in both languages.
  • Submission: via the ZfE Editorial Manager; anonymised manuscript; formatting according to ZfE guidelines (Springer APA Style, etc.)

 

References

Bennewitz, H., de Boer, H., & Thiersch, S. (Hrsg.), Handbuch der Forschung zu Schülerinnen und Schülern. Waxmann.

Betz, T. (2022). Kindheitsforschung meets Schülerinnen- und Schülerforschung. In H. Bennewitz, H. de Boer & S. Thiersch (Hrsg.), Handbuch der Forschung zu Schülerinnen und Schülern (S. 33–44). Waxmann.

Deinet, U. & Muscutt, C. (2025). Die Sicht der Kinder auf Schule und Sozialraum. Beltz Juventa.

Hascher, T. (2004). Wohlbefinden in der Schule. Waxmann.

Hascher, T., Morinaj, J., & Waber, J. (2018). Schulisches Wohlbefinden: Einführung in Konzept und Forschungsstand. In K. Rathmann & K. Hurrelmann (Hrsg.), Leistung und Wohlbefinden in der Schule: Herausforderung Inklusion (S. 66–82). Beltz Juventa.

Hoferichter, F., & Schlesier, J. (2024). Striving to learn and feeling well? The effects of students’ achievement goal-orientation on their psychological and physical well-being over one school year. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft, 28(2), 397-418. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11618-024-01270-3

Kellock, A. (2020). Children’s well-being in the primary school: A capability approach and community psychology perspective. Childhood, 27(2), 220–237. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568220902516

Klemp, G., Urton, K., Krull, J., Bosch, J., & Wilbert, J. (2025). What does well-being at school mean to primary school students? Children’s understanding of basic psychological needs. International Journal of Educational Research Open, 8, Article 100442. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedro.2025.100442

Losada-Puente, L., Fraguela-Vale, R., & Facal, A. (2024). Measuring school well-being in primary education: A systematic review. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 16(5), 545–559.

Nentwig-Gesemann, I., Walther, B., & Lake, L. (2025). Lernen aus der Perspektive von Kindern: Resonanzerfahrungen des Lernens in ganztägigen Grundschulen. Bertelsmann Stiftung. https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/de/publikationen/publikation/did/lernen-aus-der-perspektive-von-kindern-all

Niemack, J. (2019). Schutzfaktoren bei Kindern vor dem Übergang in die weiterführende Schule: Eine qualitative Studie. Diskurs Kindheits- und Jugendforschung, 14(1), 73–94. https://doi.org/10.3224/diskurs.v14i1.05

OECD (2023). PISA 2022 results (Volume I & II): Country notes—Germany. OECD.

Ömeroğulları, M., & Gläser-Zikuda, M. (2022). Relationships between school enjoyment, social integration, and achievement at the beginning of primary school: Does family background matter? European Journal of Psychology and Educational Research, 5(2), 127–143. https://doi.org/10.12973/ejper.5.2.127

Ömeroğulları, M., & Obermeier, R. (2022). Schulisches Wohlbefinden am Übergang in die Sekundarstufe: Vertiefende Analysen zu bildungsbenachteiligten Schüler:innen. Journal for Educational Research Online, 14(2), 25–54. https://doi.org/10.31244/jero.2022.02.02

Sakellariou, C. (2025). Reciprocal longitudinal effects between sense of school belonging and academic achievement: Quasi-experimental estimates using United States primary school data. Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1502327. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1478320

Schlesier, J., & Obermeier, R. (2025). Individual and contextual determinants of primary and early secondary school students’ school well-being: A discriminant analysis and cross-lagged panel model approach. Child Indicators Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-025-10239-5

Schnell, J., Saxer, K., Mori, J., & Hascher, T. (2025). Feeling well and doing well. The mediating role of school engagement in the relationship between student well-being and academic achievement. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 40, 48. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-025-00947-5

UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight. (2025). Innocenti Report Card 19: Child well-being in an unpredictable world. UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti.

Yli-Pietilä, R., Soini, T., Pietarinen, J., & Pyhältö, K. (2024). How is students’ well-being related to their class teacher’s work engagement and work ability in lower secondary school? European Journal of Psychology of Education, 39, 2341–2361. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-023-0781-7