Happiness360

The Geography of Happiness is a project involving 11 UK Geography teachers which was funded by the Geographical Association (GA) and a Royal Geographical Society (RGS-IBG) Innovative Teaching Grant. The project itself was the original concept of Dan Raven-Ellison (Head of Geography and consultant for BBC Education) and was conceived following a meeting by a group of geographers after attending a video editing course in London back in February 2006. The aim of the project has been to explore differences in levels of happiness across Europe through visits to European capitals to interview locals with respect to their level of 'happiness' i.e. in relation to how satisfied they are with their life. The group of 12 geographers has worked as 6 pairs, visiting 6 European countries (mainly the capitals), with filming for the project taking place in Latvia, Rome, Sweden, Madrid, Amsterdam and Dublin.

Filming for the project took place during the summer holidays and on Friday 25th August, a team of 6 members of the group met at 21CC (the BBC's Digital Learning Centre in West London) to edit the videos and draw together the key findings of the project. The interviews have been edited down to draw together the responses for each of the five questions that were asked.

Mark Easton goes on a journey to understand what lasting happiness is.  The six-part series looks at the newest research, the latest policy proposals, and the most cutting-edge thinkers from around the world.  [from BBC News] 

Watch researchers discuss their findings and recent developments in the field of happiness.  Current selections include speeches by Dr. Daniel Gilbert and Professor Bruno S. Frey.

Listen to various audio recordings of happiness researchers worldwide.  Currently available is an interiew with Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, professor of Psychology at Harvard.  Dr. Ben-Shahar talks about the field of Positive Psychology and his popular course on happiness.

Created and produced by George Ortega, THE HAPPINESS SHOW premiered May 1st. 2003, on White Plains, New York, Cable Channel 76. The episodes have also been shown by cable TV stations in San Francisco, C.A. and Herkimer County, N.Y., and continue to be cablecast in most of Fairfield County, C.T.

The OECD and the Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning (CRELL) at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) recently hosted a workshop on "Measuring Well-Being and Societal Progress," with the objective of producing recommendations for a framework of indicators to guide policy-makers in the pursuit of well-being.

The second and third days of the workshop focused mainly on the challenges involved in constructing comprehensive measures of well-being, and on the specific role of education in this measure. The workshop explored the structure of a framework for well-being and how to identify a set of key indicators for guiding structural policies towards the well-being of nations.