101 WCD as a (W(H)olistic Response 2 in terms of where they appear in each study but comparative to each other in the horizontal rows of the matrix. Hence, they provide insight in what the studies understand by the whole child of the whole person. To begin with the penultimate question (What trends or elements in the realm of education are criticised in the study?), it is clear from almost all of the studies that they criticise the ‘overwhelming focus on academic achievement’, as the first study states. Several studies directly attribute this ‘too narrow definition of students’ success’ to the educational policy enshrined within the NCLB Act. The focus has become too narrowly directed towards cognitive results that indicate academic, measurable growth, as obtained via standardised test and exam results, meaning that other elements of wellbeing in the child are overlooked. What is actually meant by this is found as an answer to the second question. Children and young students are to be approached more broadly. Almost all of the studies pay attention to their physical wellbeing. Their academic wellbeing or cognitive growth is envisioned as important in every study, although every study also wants to pay attention in relation to education on emotional and social wellbeing. The explicit connection made by the Aspen Institute (2018) with social and emotional learning (SEL) is not adopted by the other studies, but the importance of wellbeing in these areas very clearly is; however, it sometimes focuses on the term engagement. Morality and ethical wellbeing are mentioned in the early studies from 2005— that is, in the contributions to the special edition of Educational Leadership— but they gain more force when the Porticus Foundation’s support is added, and they are even divided into two areas of attention: a moral dimension and a spiritual dimension. Relatively new is the artistic or creative dimension, although it was mentioned in a way in 2005 with ‘imaginatively responsive’ and it is questionable whether the creative dimension has to be considered separately from the emotional, spiritual, cognitive and social dimensions. Regarding the first indicator (goals), all of the studies call for a more comprehensive approach to the student in education. Some studies describe this approach as explicitly holistic; others avoid the term (8). A more individual concept is coined by the ASCD with ‘Whole Child’, which then comes under the influence of the Porticus Foundation’s ‘Whole Child Development’. The studies from 2012 onwards look for a more clear conceptual framework of what is to be understood by the concept of WCD to consider how it should be put into practice. The same image arises from the last indicator (the semantics employed in the studies), which shows that ‘Whole Child’ has, since the beginning of the 8 Due to the close connection that exists between holism as an adjective and spirituality in the broadest sense of the word, which Section 4 will elaborate on.
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