Spiritual wellbeing in education

© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Marian de Souza and Anna Halafoff; individual chapters, the contributors. This book is composed of a collection of chapters which examine different per - spectives and understandings of the role of spirituality and wellbeing in education. Our first chapter intends to provide a scholarly overview of con temporary spir - itu ality, wellbeing and spirituality in education, to enable a greater understanding of how spiritual wellbeing may or may not be nurtured in both religious and secular school contexts. We draw on both international and local, in our case Australian examples, to illustrate our arguments. This chapter develops and presents one argu - ment of the concept of spiritual wellbeing as an important, and indeed, integral element in human life, that should not be ignored or divorced from educational practices if educators aim to teach and nurture students in their wholeness. Nonetheless, it also acknowledges that there are alternate views and secular contexts where the language and concept of spiritual wellbeing is not seen as appropriate and therefore, alternative approaches and terminology are also explored.