Affect, emotion regulation and flow experience in school and leisure: Contributions for a positive education

Abstract

[Excerpt] Adolescents spend a great amount of their daily life engaged in either school or leisure activities, making these ideal contexts to foster engagement and involvement to achieve personal and social goals. School and leisure tend to be perceived by adolescents from different perspectives according to the role each plays in their present and future lives (Freire, 2011; Freire, Tavares, Silva & Teixeira, in press). In general, subjective school experiences have been shown to be boring and meaningless for adolescents (Shernoff, Csikszentmihalyi, Schneider & Shernoff, 2003), although they (the adolescents) recognize the importance of these experiences in their future life goals. With respect to leisure experiences, studies have systematically shown that leisure activities are associated with higher levels of positive subjective experiences when compared with school activities in their present life but less important when considering future goals (Freire, Lima & Fonte, 2009; Shernoff et al., 2003; Shernoff, Knauth & Makris, 2000). Thus, and for different reasons, both school and leisure appear to be main life contexts for adolescents to learn about themselves, others and environments as well as how to become proactive individuals who act and engage within the contexts of the life cycle. Transforming life contexts into ones that provide enjoyment and achievement by creating conditions that facilitate the emergence of optimal states of subjective experience and functioning is a main concern for many researchers and professionals in the field (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Shernoff & Csikszentmihalyi, 2009). [...]