Possibilities for enacting gratitude education in Nepalese schools

This study investigates the role of gratitude as perceived and conceptualised by Nepalese educators to establish the possibility of enacting gratitude education in Nepalese schools. Specifically, the study is interested in the relationship between representations of gratitude in schools – as conceptualised by Nepalese educators- and how gratitude education might be a foundational driving force for enhancing values and character education in Nepalese schools. This dissertation has three main goals: first, to conceptualise gratitude in education in Nepal by listening to the educators’ voices. A second goal is to construct a conceptual framework suggesting what constitutes gratitude from a Nepalese educator’s perspective, and how it might be fostered in Nepalese schools. The third goal is to elicit and analyse educators’ reflections on the implementation possibilities of the framework.
The research question asks: What characteristics of Nepalese educators’ gratitude conceptualisations will assist in designing a prototype gratitude education framework? To explore this question, the research consisted of two rounds of individual interviews and a focus group discussion with twenty-three Nepalese educators of different levels of age and experience from two schools were undertaken. One of the schools was a public school; the other was a private school. Both were situated in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital city. The construction of a gratitude education framework was facilitated by deploying Reeves’ (2006) education design-based research (EDR) model with its three phases (ideation and sense-making, design and construction and reflection on enactment possibilities). The first phase of EDR enabled the drafting of an early design prototype from the first phase of individual interviews based on educators’ initial gratitude conceptualisations. Next, the early design was shared with participants in the second phase of interviews, with the aim of seeking feedback on the design. During this process, participants’ feedback prompted modification to inform the construction of an intermediary gratitude prototype in the design and construction phase of EDR. The intermediary designs were further shared with participants in focus group discussions (FGD) to seek out their thoughts on implementation possibilities in Nepalese schools. Participants reflected upon the shared design to generate an emergent gratitude prototype in the reflection phase of EDR, which was consequently called a gratitude in education (GRinEd) framework for possible adaptation by other Nepalese schools.
The study reveals gratitude as a rich, complex and multi-faceted concept considered essential to the Nepalese school system. The framework encompasses purposes, goals, principles and approaches to gratitude and four core elements of gratitude: inclusive culture, altruistic values, character and integrity and life virtues.
While reflecting on the implementation possibilities of the framework, the participants universally welcomed the research as a helpful prompt to think about the enhancement of values education, moral education and character education in Nepal. The participants identified a number of possible barriers to the implementation of a gratitude framework. Although some challenges were raised, participants broadly welcomed the principles and overall vision of the framework.
This study represents a distinctive contribution to values education in Nepal in particular, and Nepalese education in general with its positing of a gratitude education framework. It is hoped that insights from this study could be significant while discussing education policies, developing and executing values-based curricula and broader whole-school practices in Nepalese schools.
Accordingly, it is also hoped that this study will be of interest to Nepalese policymakers, school leaders, educators, and researchers. It is also of relevance to the wider academic community interested in the field of gratitude education