Peter van Olst

99 WCD as a (W(H)olistic Response 2 (6). ‘All of the countries included in this study valued WCD and incorporated WCD to at least some extent in their educational systems’ (Spier et al., 2017, p. 31). In 2019, the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) presented a conceptual framework of 11 themes describing WCD and measured its effects in Bhutan, Cambodia, Canada, Colombia, Colorado, Congo, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Finland, Gambia, Guatemala, Japan, Honduras, Mauritania, Nepal, Panama, Portugal, Russia, Senegal, South Korea and Vietnam (ACER, 2019). Similarly, in Portugal and Spain, the Universidade Católica Portuguesa and the Fundación Europea Sociedad y Educación presented research on the implementation of WCD through a leadership programme (Liderazgo para una Educación Integral/ WCD Leadership (LEI/WCDL), 2019). In the meantime, in the United States, the whole child terminology had gained a place in the final report with which the National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development (2018) sought to leave behind ‘two decades of education debates that produced deep passions and deeper divisions’ and make a ‘fresh start’ (p. 5). The title of this report, which was published by the Aspen Institute, referred directly to the aforementioned A Nation at Risk report, although it changed the tone dramatically: From A Nation of Risk to A Nation of Hope. In the Netherlands, in 2018, recognition of WCD led to the publication by the NIVOZ Foundation, a think tank for educational development, titled Good Education is Whole Child Education. The description of WCD it presented was as follows: A whole child development (WCD) framework values and promotes all dimensions of human development from early childhood to young adulthood, including physical, social, emotional, cognitive, spiritual and values-based learning. WCD embodies relational, bio-ecological principles of child development, highlighting the importance of relationships and contextual support, and the interconnectedness of social, emotional, cognitive and health factors. (NIVOZ Foundation, 2018, p. 5) Based on this study, a research consortium was established in 2020, with a leading role played by the NIVOZ Foundation and researchers from four different teacher training institutes in the Netherlands: Hogeschool van Amsterdam, Hogeschool Leiden, DCU and Windesheim. The initial theoretical findings of this consortium are included in the final row of the meta-ethnographical matrix (Appendix 1). The final conclusions of the research 6 This report starts to use WCD rather than WCE.

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