The project made a significant contribution to the European Conference of Educational Research (ECER) 2026, held in Tampere, Finland, by organising a well-attended symposium titled "Unpacking the Paradoxes of the Curriculisation of Wellbeing" (19 August 2026). Chaired by Venka Simovska, the session brought together international researchers to critically examine the growing trend of embedding wellbeing as a formal curricular imperative across educational systems.

Simovska also presented the paper "Unequal Possibilities for Being and Doing Well within School Landscapes," based on the work together with Ida Emdrup. The symposium included two other presentations: "The Dispositif of Wellbeing and Curriculum in Australian Education Policy, 2000–2025" by Rachel Flenley and Julie McLeod (University of Melbourne), and "The Public Faces of School Wellbeing: Analysis of School Webpages in England and Denmark" by Nis Langer Primdahl (DPU, Aarhus University), Ros McLellan (University of Cambridge), and Venka Simovska.

Rather than accepting the curriculisation of wellbeing as an unquestioned good, the symposium treated it as an open empirical question. Drawing on research from Australia, Denmark, and England, the presentations offered a theoretically grounded, multi-level, and cross-national perspective on wellbeing as curriculum.

The discussion, opened by Julie McLeod from Melbourne University, centred on three key paradoxes:

• Universal aspirations vs. differential effects:  Well-intended wellbeing policies may unintentionally generate new forms of exclusion and classification.
• Normative force vs. individual responsibility: Wellbeing operates as a powerful normative force that reshapes educational subjectivities, often locating responsibility for structural inequalities into individual students and schools.
• Standardisation vs. problematisation: Despite its normalising effects, wellbeing remains a site of negotiation, contestation, and redefinition.

The symposium highlighted the need for critical, context-sensitive approaches to wellbeing in education, challenging simplistic conceptualisations and calling for more reflexive practices.