ABSTRACT

Although children spend the majority of their time outside of the home in school, students’ happiness at school is often a neglected factor in the educational system. This increasingly sole attention to academic achievement is a likely byproduct of the current era of accountability. Nevertheless, research has demonstrated that a significant portion of students’ global satisfaction with life is affected by their experiences in and satisfaction with school (Baker, Dilly, Aupperlee, & Patil, 2003). Noddings (2003) argues, “Happiness and education are, properly, intimately related: Happiness should be an aim of education, and a good education should contribute significantly to personal and collective happiness” (p. 1). In addition to the psychological implications of school satisfaction, it has been reasoned that students learn best when they are happy because they “seize their educational opportunities with delight, and they will contribute to the happiness of others” (Noddings, 2003, p. 261). Accordingly, this chapter summarizes the predictors and outcomes of students’ positive appraisals of their schooling and concludes with implications for future research and practice.