Contemporary cross-cultural research on flourishing and development has been limited by a focus on Western populations and typically Western priorities, and by attention to only a few indicators of flourishing, such as life satisfaction, life expectancy, or GDP per capita. This paper highlights some significant challenges for robust cross-national and cross-cultural research on the domains and drivers of flourishing. Using data from the recently proposed Global Comparison Framework and the Gallup World Poll, we explore the within- and between-country heterogeneity of flourishing and its determinants across the 22 countries which are the subject of the Global Flourishing Study. Sources of heterogeneity considered include potential tradeoffs among domains of flourishing; the effects of cultural differences on the conceptualization and actualization of flourishing; and the cultural specificity of core analytical concepts, including “life evaluation” and “nation.”

In this paper we put forward various conceptual and empirical proposals for assessing the flourishing of an academic institution and its role in student formation. We consider the breath and variation of various university and college mission and vision statements and their implications for student formation and for what might be considered as reasonable bounds for the scope of an educational institution’s contributions to student flourishing. We comment upon and argue for the importance of student and character formation even to attain a university’s more cognitive and epistemic goals and ends. We discuss the core purposes of the university beyond student formation and also broader notions of what it means for a college or university to flourish as an academic community. We propose various assessments that might be of use in evaluating such academic flourishing. Finally, we point towards some practical resources that can be used to potentially strengthen student formation and the flourishing of academic institutions and the need for further curation, evaluation, and implementation of such resources to better promote academic flourishing.

Given the well-founded critiques of academia as Western-centric, there are increasing efforts to conduct research that is more cross-cultural and global. These dynamics apply to all aspects of life, including human flourishing, as exemplified by the new Global Flourishing Study (GFS), a longitudinal panel study investigating the predictors and components of flourishing across over 200,000 participants from 22 geographically and culturally diverse countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong [S.A.R of China, with mainland China also included from 2024 onwards], Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Tanzania, Turkey, UK, and US). The research is not only comprehensive in its global reach but also its conceptual coverage of flourishing, involving 109 distinct questions (comprising a one-off intake survey of 43 items and an annual survey of 71 items, with five items shared by both). This paper elucidates the questionnaire development process, giving a transparent and open accounting of its multi-phase construction. By describing this process in detail, this article not only elucidates the nature of the GFS but also serves as a useful resource in the survey development literature more broadly (e.g., for scholars undertaking similar endeavours).

The social sciences are still young, and their interaction with older siblings such as philosophy and theology is still necessarily tentative. This paper outlines three ways in which humanistic disciplines such as philosophy and theology might inform the social sciences and three in which the social sciences might inform the humanities in turn, proceeding in each case by way of brief “case studies” to exemplify the relation. This typology is illustrative rather than exhaustive, but each of its halves nonetheless roughly tracks the development of a research project in the social sciences and humanities, respectively. In the first direction, (1) the humanities can help the social sciences identify new directions and scope for their inquiry; (2) provide conceptual clarity for constructs that the social sciences elect to study; and (3) enrich & clarify the interpretation of empirical results. Moving in the opposite direction, the social sciences can help (4) furnish new data for humanistic reflection; (5) confirm (or challenge) claims from the humanities; and (6) develop and assess interventions for achieving the goods highlighted by humanistic inquiry.

The Global Flourishing Study is a longitudinal panel study of over 200,000 participants in 22 geographically and culturally diverse countries, spanning all six populated continents, with nationally representative sampling, and intended annual longitudinal panel data collection for five years on numerous aspects of flourishing and its determinants. A description of the study, design, survey development, sampling procedures, and participant characteristics is provided. We report relations between a composite flourishing index and numerous demographic characteristics including age, gender, education, marital status, employment, religious affiliation and service attendance, immigration status, and race/ethnicity. We also report results of multivariate regression analyses on how flourishing is associated with numerous aspects of childhood experiences assessed retrospectively. Analyses are presented both through pooled meta-analysis, and individually by country, and discussion is given as to how the demographic and childhood relationships vary by country and which patterns appear to be universal versus culturally-specific. Brief comment is also given on the results of a whole series of papers in the Global Flourishing Study Special Collection, employing similar analyses, but with more specific aspects of well-being. The Global Flourishing Study expands our knowledge of the distribution and determinants of well-being and provides foundational knowledge for the promotion of societal flourishing.