Wellbeing of Adolescents as a Requirement for Education in Late Modernity

Abstract

In late modernity, discourses of optimization and acceleration dominate. The current debate on wellbeing is directly linked to this, as a good wellbeing in late modernism with an open ethical horizon can be seen as a positive point of reference for education. A good wellbeing is a prerequisite for being convinced with self-efficacy that life is to a large extent self-directed. With regard to youth and education, the question arises as to how these processes and their consequences in youth life make themselves felt – above all because contemporary educational and social science interpretations do not paint an optimistic picture, but primarily consider risks and uncertainties as effects of the new structural conditions. The paper presents quantitative empirical findings of a secondary analysis with 5,520 respondents, 10 to 18 years old in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) and shows connections (cluster analysis) of good and bad wellbeing of adolescents, age, gender, lifestyle as well as self-satisfaction, moods, control over life and decisions in an empirical way.

Keywords

• wellbeing
• self-efficacy
• late modern societies