Youth's identity and happiness: a research with adolescents to promote wellbeing at school

This research, inspired by the refusal of living of some adolescents, wanted to analyze the subject of happiness in the world of youngsters. Specifically the target was to understand what is "happiness" for young people and what can promote it. The test prepared for this purpose was on three questions of whose the second and the third "open". The questions were: a) how much are you happy out of ten? b)what are the first three words you associate to the idea of happiness c)for me happiness is... . The test was anonymus but with the indication of gender, age, class attended. The subjects were 136 students of a Liceo Scientifico from the first to the fifth classroom from 14 to 19 years old. The results evidences that students are generally happy, but less happy the students of the fifth class. The second question, instead, reveals that happiness is not related with the owning of things or any specific activity, but linked with affects, emotions and feelings. The third question that asked to express through a phrase, a verse of a poem, the words of a song, a title of a film, a pleasant activity or an art masterpiece produced a series of materials that have been used for formative purpose.