Cultural Friction and the Shaping of Well-Being Curriculum in International Schools: A Mixed-Methods Study

Abstract

This study examines how students experience cultural relevance and cultural friction in well-being education, and how teachers adapt their practice, within a culturally diverse international school. Although international schools bring together students from many national, cultural, and family backgrounds, the well-being curricula they deliver are largely shaped by Western educational assumptions that may not align with all students' values and lived experiences. Adopting a qualitative-dominant mixed-methods design, the study was conducted at Britannia International School (BIS), a British-curriculum A-Level school in China. Data were collected through a short Likert-scale questionnaire completed by seven Year 12 students and a semi-structured interview with the school's well-being teacher. Questionnaire responses were summarised using descriptive statistics, and the interview was analysed using Braun and Clarke's (2006) inductive thematic analysis. The findings indicate that students perceived the well-being content as moderately but unevenly culturally relevant, with comfort during sensitive discussion varying widely across the class. Cultural friction was situational rather than constant, emerging most clearly around sensitive topics such as mental health, identity, family roles, and trauma, and was shaped by differing cultural norms regarding emotional expression and privacy. Teacher adaptation focused less on changing the formal curriculum than on managing discussion, setting non-judgemental rules, and creating emotional safety. The study concludes that cultural diversity does not automatically make well-being teaching culturally balanced: cultural relevance must be actively built, friction identified, and teacher adaptation supported through practical training. These context-specific findings offer implications for teachers, school leaders, and curriculum designers.