ABSTRACT
Research has long supported the beneficial impacts of incorporating validated positive psychology interventions into educational environments. Models of positive education based upon the PERMA-H model, however, primarily continue to advance an inward-out model of wellbeing, wherein wellbeing is an individual-centric proposition. Using the concept of mirror flourishing proposed by Cooperrider and Fry (2012), this chapter proposes an outside-in model to promote wellbeing in education by further expanding the conceptualization and application of the PERMA-H model in education to include the collective-level. In other words, when individuals’ focus their energy on ‘doing good’ in the broader social context, connecting and leveraging their strengths in the service of collectively improving the world beyond the walls of their individual school building, they actually activate the PERMA-H mechanisms that support their individual wellbeing and flourishing. In the wake of the global economic, social, and psychological disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, there is no shortage of need for transformative wellbeing-focused work in the world. Recognizing that wellbeing can occur from the outside-in, through mirror flourishing, provides a pathway to expand the conceptualization of wellbeing education needed for today’s world.
