Search

Purpose Despite the lack of consensus regarding which life satisfaction domains should be included in the study of children’s subjective well-being (SWB), some domains are frequently considered, such as satisfaction with health. However, some others, such as satisfaction with food, are barely taken into account, despite the impact eating habits have on children’s health and well-being. We adopt a qualitative approach to explore the role food plays in children’s SWB, providing for a more in-depth analysis of children’s perceptions and evaluations on a still insufficiently known domain of life satisfaction. Method Sixteen discussion groups were held with 112 Spanish students (10–12 years old) from six schools. The transcripts were analy sed and themes reflecting the key concepts were defined using reflexive thematic analysis. Results Five themes emerged from the children’s discourses on the relationship between food and SWB: health, pleasure, emotions, commensality—i.e., eating together—and food-empowerment—thus offering new insights from children’s perspectives. Conclusion Almost all of the participants established a relationship between their SWB and their eating behaviour, meaning that, within the challenges facing public health, SWB must be taken into account when promoting healthy eating programmes for children. Also, group discussion is found to be a very powerful tool for exploring topics with subjective connotations among child populations.

Besides educational results, a comprehensive view of childhood should include children’s opinions on their well-being in school. The objective of this study is to determine whether school subjective well-being of children varies according to the school they attend, which would justify identifying related factors (school perceptions, individual affection, and socioeconomic composition). The 3,962 answers of children from Barcelona (Mage = 10.74) in 2017 to the International Survey of Children’s Well-being are analysed. The multilevel analysis shows that classmates play an essential role in school experience: in those schools where more children are very satisfied with their life as students, children have more confidence in receiving support from their classmates if they have a problem and feel less stressed. This has important implications for learning, coexistence, and participation. As the impact of social inequalities on school experience has not been identified, research focused on schools facing situations of social vulnerability is required.

This study aims to examine how parental child-rearing styles contribute to subjective well-being of three groups: bullying victims, bullying perpetrator-victims, and those uninvolved in bullying. These groups were categorized based on the children’s self-reported bullying incidents. This study used quantitative approach with cross-sectional design. The participants were 781 4th to 6th-grader students (51.98% boys, 48.02% girls), consists of 329 bullying victims, 197 were both bullying perpetrators and victims, and 255 were uninvolved in bullying. Parental child-rearing styles were measured using The Egna Minnen Beträffande Uppfostran for Children (EMBU-C), while subjective well-being was measured using the Children’s Worlds Subjective Well-Being Scale 5 items (CW-SWBS5). Data were analysed using structural equation modelling. The results revealed that the warmth of fathers and mothers made significant and direct contributions to the subjective well-being of children uninvolved in bullying, where the father’s warmth negatively contributed, while the mother’s warmth positively contributed. Similar results did not appear in the subjective well-being of victims or perpetrator-victims.

The International Survey of Children’s Well-Being (ISCWeB) uses a psychometric scale measuring the psychological well-being of children named the Children’s Worlds Psychological Well-Being Scale (CW-PSWBS). The CW-PSWBS has been used in 35 countries involved in the third wave of this international project, which includes a representative sample of West Java. This study aims to analyze the adaptation of the CW-PSWBS for use in Indonesia and validate the adapted Bahasa Indonesian version. A representative sample of 12-year-old students in West Java (N = 7,951; 49% boys; 51% girls) was obtained through cluster random sampling. The adaptation process involved several steps, including translation, a focus group discussion to test the legibility of the translated items, revising the translated items, piloting the revised-translated items, and back-translating. The next step involved testing the fit of the psychometric scale using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). A multi-group CFA was used to test the gender metric and scalar invariance of the scores. The results showed that the CW-PSWBS displays excellent fit and is a robust instrument for measuring psychological well-being in Indonesian children. Metric and scalar invariance were supported, meaning all statistics are comparable between genders, and different answering styles between boys and girls are not suspected.

COVID-19 has had a significant impact on human life, yet very limited studies have investigated the quality of life (QoL) of children and adolescents during the pandemic. This paper aims to present the reports of children and adolescents (N = 1,474; 10–18 years old) on their QoL during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. Data were collected using Google Forms and convenience sampling. The instruments measured the five domains of QoL: material, physical, social, emotional, and productive well-being. The data were analyzed descriptively using mean scores, crosstab, frequency, and ANOVA. The results show that the children and adolescents maintained their level of subjective well-being (SWB) and adapted to adverse situations during the lockdown. Boys and younger children displayed significantly higher mean scores than girls and older children. Children and adolescents reported boredom due to a lack of various physical activities, dissatisfaction with school closures, the things they learned at home, and their contact with friends. This study has implications in terms of providing advice to parents, teachers, children, and adolescents for promoting the QoL of children and adolescents during the pandemic.

The Indonesian research team participating in the Children’s Worlds international project has used a new context-free multi-item scale named CW-SWBS (Children’s Worlds Subjective Well-Being Scale). This psychometric instrument was previously never used in Indonesia. This study aimed to validate the adapted Indonesia language version for a representative sample of children who are elementary students in West Java province (N = 22,616), ranging from 8, 10, to 12-year-olds. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used to test the fit of the psychometric scale, and multi-group CFA was used to check the comparability between answers given by gender and school types. Result findings showed that the instrument displays excellent fit for measuring life satisfaction in Indonesian children using five items, instead of the six original items. Answers to the items of the CW-SWBS by gender and school types were demonstrated to be comparable, suggesting that there was no different answering style between individuals in these studied groups.

Research on children’s quality of life and subjective well-being has advanced over the past decade largely as a result of developments in childhood theory, children’s rights legislation, and the shift toward positive social science. However, in line with the uncertainty regarding the conceptualization of subjective well-being, the structural configuration of children’s subjective well-being has not been considered in the literature. In the current study, we present and test a model of children’s subjective well-being, which includes global (context-free items assessing overall and general well-being, without reference to a specific aspect of life) and specific (domain-based items assessing a specific aspect of life) cognitive components, and positive and negative affect. We further test the fit structure of a hierarchical structural (second-order) model of children’s subjective well-being. Finally, we test the measurement invariance of the hierarchical model across age and gender. We use data from the third Wave of the Children’s Worlds Survey. The data source includes a sample of 92,782 participants selected from 35 countries (girls = 49.7%) in two age groups (10- and 12-years-old). We found a good fit for the four-factor confirmatory factor model of children’s subjective well-being. Correlations between the various latent factors were as anticipated—with positive correlations between the life satisfaction components and positive affect, and negative correlations with negative affect. We further found a good fit for the hierarchical structural model of children’s subjective well-being. Finally, we found the tenability of measurement invariance across age and gender. The study extends the generalizability of the hierarchical structural configuration of the subjective well-being to child samples, and provides a viable model to explore correlates and predictors of children’s subjective well-being using the full conceptual model. Finally, we propound the tenability of a quadripartite hierarchical conceptual model of children’s subjective well-being.

Subjective well-being is a broad category of phenomena that includes people’s emotional responses, domain satisfactions, and global judgments of life satisfaction. This research investigates how schoolchildren’s subjective well-being is affected by the different types of technology use, in personal contexts, and, concurrently, whether these effects are different when the use of technology is problematic. The central hypotheses are as follows: (1) the use of the Internet affects the subjective well-being of schoolchildren negatively only when this use is problematic and (2) the effect on subjective well-being is different according to the type of Internet use. To respond to the objectives of the research, a survey was applied to 15-year-old adolescents (2,579 cases), distributed in 330 public schools, beneficiaries of a government program for the delivery of personal computers and Internet for a year. The different uses of the Internet were measured using frequency scales by type of activity (social, recreational, and educational). Problematic use scale measured the perception of negative consequences of the intensity of Internet use on a daily basis. Subjective well-being was measured by the Personal Well-Being Index-School Children (PWI-SC). Subsequently, for analytical purposes, three simple mediation models were created, whose dependent variable was PWI-SC, while its independent variables were Internet use scales differentiated by purpose (social, recreational, and educational) and problematic use as a mediating variable, as well as attributes of the subjects and their social environment, which were incorporated as control variables. The main results show that only if Internet use is expressed as problematic does it negatively affect subjective well-being. On the contrary, when the use of the Internet is not problematic, the effect is positive and even greater than the simple effect (without mediation) between these two variables. This finding is relevant, since it allows us to provide evidence that suggests that, when studying the effect that the intensity of the Internet, firstly, one must consider the mediating effect exerted by the network’s problematic use and, secondly, that not all types of use have the same impact. Therefore, it is useful to enrich the discussion on subjective well-being and social integration of schoolchildren in the digital age.

The overarching aim of this study was to validate the Afrikaans version of Snyder’s (1997) Children’s Hope Scale in a sample of children from Cape Town, South Africa. Within this process, the study aimed to test the measurement invariance across the English and Afrikaans language versions. The study used a cross-sectional survey design, with a two-stage stratified random sample of 1022 children between the ages of 11- to 12-years-old. We selected the participants from 15 schools located in low and middle socio-economic status communities in the Cape Town Metropole. We used confirmatory factor analysis to analyse the data. The results indicated a good fit for the overall model using the pooled sample (X2 = 35.692; df = 7; p =.00; CFI =.984; RMSEA =.063; SRMR =.023). Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis further demonstrated the tenability of metric and scalar invariance. This indicates that the items on the scale has the same meaning across the two languages, and that the scores on the English and Afrikaans versions of the scale are comparable by correlations, regression coefficients, and means. The overall findings suggest that the Afrikaans translated version of the Children’s Hope Scale is an appropriate measure for use in the South African context.

Fattore, T., Mason, J. with Watson, E. (2016). Children’s understandings of well-being. Towards a child standpoint. Dordrecht: Springer, 280 páginas. ISBN: 978-94-024-0827-0.

This study aims to compare personal relationships satisfaction and subjective well-being of Brazilian and Spanish children and to verify if personal relationships are associated with subjective well-being for the sample. Participants are 6,747 children aged from 11 to 14 years old (M = 12.07, DP = 0.731), 1,020 being Brazilian and the others Spanish. From the total sample 50.7% were girls. Results pointed that the items of personal relationships are grouped into three components related to family, school and friends. Spanish children had higher means than Brazilians' in the items of personal relationships and in the subjective well-being scale. There is a significant association between personal relationships and subjective well-being, and the relationships with family, school and friends are predictors of children well-being in both countries. Family relationships are those with the highest contribution to the prediction of child well-being for both countries, followed by relationships at school and with friends. Personal relationships can be considered a predictor of child well-being with approximately 40% of explained variance for both countries.

The subjective well-being of children in residential care is a relevant issue given the practical implications for improving the lives of these children who live in contexts of vulnerability. The question addressed in this respect was: “How does this well-being change over the years”? Thus, the aim of this study was to compare the subjective well-being displayed by adolescents aged 11–14 in residential care in Catalonia (north-eastern Spain) in 2014 to that displayed by adolescents in residential care in 2020. To this end, 572 responses to a questionnaire adapted from the Children’s Worlds project (364 from 2014 and 208 from 2020) were analysed with respect to the life satisfaction items. In both 2014 and 2020, the questionnaires had the same wording, and data were disaggregated by gender. No significant differences in means were observed between most of the life satisfaction items in 2014 and 2020, with the exception of satisfaction with friends and classmates and the area where you live, with lower means for these items in 2020. There is a discussion of the possible influence of COVID-19 on these results, while the overall stability of these children’s subjective well-being over the years is highlighted.

Considerando-se a importância do autoconceito no bem-estar dos adolescentes, bem como a necessidade de escalas confiáveis que permitam avaliá-lo, o presente estudo tem como objetivos verificar as propriedades psicométricas da Escala de Autoconceito Multidimensional, sua estrutura e consistência interna em uma amostra de adolescentes brasileiros e verificar a invariância fatorial da escala considerando-se o sexo dos adolescentes. Participaram deste estudo 1.588 adolescentes com idades entre 12 e 16 anos, sendo 65,5% meninas. Os resultados indicam que a versão de quatro dimensões (acadêmica, familiar, física e social) e 20 itens da Escala de Autoconceito Multidimensional apresenta, no geral, consistência interna e índices de ajuste adequados em análise fatorial confirmatória para a amostra. Verifica-se também invariância fatorial entre meninos e meninas por meio de análise fatorial confirmatória multigrupo

El bienestar subjetivo es un componente esencial de la calidad de vida. Conocemos muy poco sobre el bienestar subjetivo de los niños y niñas, y menos aún de los adolescentes de colectivos vulnerables como los que están acogidos por el sistema de protección. El objetivo de este trabajo es estudiar cómo influye el sistema de protección en el bienestar subjetivo de los adolescentes que acoge a partir de sus propias percepciones, evaluaciones y satisfacciones. Es un estudio transversal realizado en Cataluña. La población de estudio fueron los adolescentes entre 12 y 14 años acogidos en centro residencial (n=379) y familia extensa (n=219). Se administró el cuestionario International Survey of Children’s Well-Being que incluía tres escalas psicométricas: Overall Live Satisfaction (OLS), Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (SLSS) y la Personal Well-Being Index (PWI) utilizadas cómo indicadores de bienestar subjetivo. La mayoría de los adolescentes acogidos en familia extensa están satisfechos con el tipo de acogimiento por solo la mitad de los que están acogidos en centro. Los adolescentes que llevan más tiempo en el mismo tipo de acogimiento, los adolescentes que viven en centros de menor tamaño, así como aquellos adolescentes que manifiestan estar satisfechos con sus acogedores, educadores y compañeros de centro, muestran medias de bienestar subjetivo más altas. Es muy importante tener en cuenta la opinión de los adolescentes acogidos por el sistema de protección si se pretende mejorar su bienestar subjetivo. La estabilidad y el vínculo afectivo con acogedores y educadores es clave en su bienestar.

This study compared the 7-item Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI) with two other versions which include the domains "Spirituality" and "Religion", separately, in a sample of Brazilian (n = 1.047) and Chilean (n = 1.053) adolescents. A comparison of psychometric properties between the PWI versions was carried out through multigroup confirmatory factor analysis showing adequate adjustments (CFI > .95, RMSEA < .08), whereas the item spirituality presented better performance. For the analysis of the differential contribution of each domain to the notion of global satisfaction, a regression on the item Overall Life Satisfaction (OLS) was applied using structural equations. It is recommended the inclusion of the item spirituality in the original scale, considering the importance of such domain in both cultures.

Although results from several samples of 12 to 16-year-old adolescents in Catalonia (region of N.E. Spain), obtained andpublished between 1999 and 2012, suggesting a constant decrease in adolescents’ subjective well-being (SWB) with age, untilnow no such data have been available for the general Spanish adolescent population. In this article we present results for arepresentative Spanish sample (N=5934), limited to students in the year of ESO (Educación Secundaria Obligatoria orCompulsory Secondary Education) (mean age = 12.09). aims of this article are twofold: (a) to validate an adaptationof the PWI for Spanish adolescents of around 12-years-old, which we will call PWI8adp; and (b) to identify variables whichshow rences in children’s subjective well-being (SWB) – using the PWI8adp as an indicator of SWB – whendichotomically comparing groups or categories of children. With this sample, among other we observe that Spanishadolescents scoring highest in subjective well-being tend to live in semi-urban environments, were born in Spain, have notrepeated a school year, live in only one family household, have two adults at home with paid employment, have parents withsecondary education or higher and have more material and cultural belongings at home compared to children with lower SWB.Furthermore, the adolescents with higher subjective well-being are those that never worry about money, think otherpeople treat them well, feel greater personal safety, feel they are listened to, report doing daily activities together with their family,do physical exercise or sport every day, have been told children have rights, have experienced fewer important recent changes intheir lives and feel their time is well organized.

This paper presents the results of a qualitative research that explores, from an intergenerational and gender perspective, how the use of audiovisual media influences to personal well-being in adolescence. Three, semi-structured group interviews were used with adolescent girls (aged 12 to 18 years), and two with mothers of boys and girls of those ages. The results show that interpersonal relationships are one of the factors that greatly contribute to the adolescents’ well-being. Girls said that the use of technology generates personal well-being because it allows them to maintain interpersonal relationships with their peers. The mothers, however, question whether overuse of technology can contribute to their personal well-being. On the other hand, girls and mothers agree to comment that the use of technology hinders the relationships that adolescents have with their parents. El presente artículo expone los resultados de una investigación cualitativa que explora, desde la perspectiva intergeneracional y de género, de qué forma el uso de los medios audiovisuales influye en el bienestar subjetivo en la adolescencia. Se han realizado tres entrevistas grupales semi-estructuradas con chicas adolescentes (de 12 a 18 años) y dos con madres de chicos y chicas de estas edades. Los resultados avalan una vez más que las relaciones interpersonales son uno de los factores que en mayor medida influye en el bienestar de los y las adolescentes. Las chicas manifiestan que el uso de las tecnologías audiovisuales contribuye a su bienestar subjetivo porque les posibilita mantener las relaciones interpersonales con sus iguales. Las madres, en cambio, ponen en duda que un uso excesivo de las tecnologías pueda contribuir al bienestar subjetivo. Por otra parte, chicas y madres coinciden en comentar que el uso de las tecnologías dificulta las relaciones de los adolescentes con sus progenitores.

This article compares the out-of-home care (OOHC) systems for children at-risk in Spain and Israel. Both countries share a strong tradition of placing children at-risk mainly in large residential care settings rather than familial solutions, and both face the challenge of the deinstitutionalization of care, including the tendency to substitute family-based solutions for institutional care. This article follows the historical development and current status of out-of-home care systems, as well as the main research contributions on these topics in both nations, revealing a great similarity. Both countries share a Mediterranean culture, in which the family ties are dominant in providing personal and social well-being. The strong family ties are assumed to be related to the slower consolidation of foster family care as an alternative for out-of-home placement. In Spain it has led to a high prevalence of kinship foster care, while in Israel this has led to high use of residential care settings. The challenges Spain and Israel face given this structure of public child care are discussed.

¿Cuál es el nivel educativo de los jóvenes que han pasado por el sistema de protección social a la infancia? En la mayoría de los países no se puede contestar esta pregunta. No existen datos sistemáticos ni estadísticos oficiales, exceptuando el Reino Unido. En el presente artículo se realiza una revisión de la literatura científica española a través de estudios y programas que aportan datos indirectos o directos sobre la escolarización y el nivel formativo de los jóvenes de población general en contraste con los del sistema de protección. Algunos de estos trabajos nos indican que estos jóvenes tienen un nivel educativo bajo y un abandono escolar prematuro muy acentuado comparado con la población general, siendo ambos factores frecuentemente citados como de riesgo a la exclusión social. La invisibilidad estadística en la que se encuentra el colectivo de niños y niñas tutelados y más concretamente la referida a su educación, viene acompañada de una escasez de investigación y de programas orientados a la inclusión de estos jóvenes en los distintos niveles de educación. Esta revisión persigue abrir un debate hoy por hoy poco implantado pero necesario.

Adolescents’ participation in all the matters that affect them has great importance for their life and well-being. Just a few studies explore adolescents’ social participation and even less address the link between adolescents’ participation and their subjective well-being (SWB). This article explores adolescents’ perceptions on their participation in family, school, and community and its’ relationship with their SWB measured by four psychometric scales: OLS, SLSS5, BMSLSS and PWI-SC5. Data have been collected within International Survey of Children’s Well-Being-ISCWeB (the fi rst international extended pilot 2011-2012) from four samples of adolescents (M=12,1, SD=0,68): Brazil, Chile, Romania and Spain. Descriptive and exploratory analyzes were performed using independent sample ‘t’ test in order to examine mean scores of the SWB indicators by gender in the four countries and Pearson Chi-Square to test gender differences between the group of adolescents who perceive they are listened by adults and the group with nonparticipation. The relationship between adolescents’ perception on participation in family, school and community, gender and their SWB was explored by analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results indicated that greater perceived participation of adolescents aged 12 is signifi cantly associated with higher subjective well-being. Variations between countries in SWB in the way that adolescent’s perceive their participation and also between boys and girls were found. The results are discussed with focus on the implementation of children’s rights and programs which enables adolescents’ participation in the contexts of their life and also on the need to improve policies for children and adolescents.

Se analizan los itinerarios formativos de los niños, niñas y adolescentes tutelados por la administración pública y los datos disponibles acerca de su situación, desde varias perspectivas conceptuales. A continuación se presenta un estudio empírico cualitativo sobre cómo perciben esta situación una muestra de jóvenes ex-tutelados, así como diferentes agentes sociales implicados en su proceso de atención por el sistema público de protección social: profesionales responsables de distintos servicios y personas de referencia designadas por los propios jóvenes. Se presentan los resultados de un total de 96 entrevistas realizadas en Cataluña. Los jóvenes entrevistados (N=35) tenían entre 19 y 22 años y fueron seleccionados entre aquellos que a los 16 estaban en el sistema de protección, presentaban buenos resultados académicos, y capacidad y motivación para seguir estudiando. A dichos jóvenes se les entrevistó dos veces, la segunda un año después de la primera, para hacer un seguimiento del logro de sus planes formativos. Los resultados muestran su percepción de cuáles son circunstancias que facilitan continuar con los estudios y cuáles lo dificultan. Además nos muestran las coincidencias, discrepancias y diversidad entre sus respuestas y las de los otros agentes sociales entrevistados sobre cuáles son los factores facilitadores y dificultadores de la continuación de unos estudios reglados. Estos resultados nos sugieren la necesidad de una profunda revisión de cómo los profesionales y las políticas de protección a la infancia se representan la educación formal de los jóvenes tutelados, y de cómo se abordan los apoyos que precisan para continuar sus estudios.

El presente artículo expone los resultados de una investigación cualitativa que explora, desde la perspectiva intergeneracional y de género, de qué forma el uso de los medios audiovisuales influye en el bienestar subjetivo en la adolescencia. Se han realizado tres entrevistas grupales semi-estructuradas con chicas adolescentes (de 12 a 18 años) y dos con madres de chicos y chicas de estas edades. Los resultados avalan una vez más que las relaciones interpersonales son uno de los factores que en mayor medida influye en el bienestar de los y las adolescentes. Las chicas manifiestan que el uso de las tecnologías audiovisuales contribuye a su bienestar subjetivo porque les posibilita mantener las relaciones interpersonales con sus iguales. Las madres, en cambio, ponen en duda que un uso excesivo de las tecnologías pueda contribuir al bienestar subjetivo. Por otra parte, chicas y madres coinciden en comentar que el uso de las tecnologías dificulta las relaciones de los adolescentes con sus progenitores.

Presentamos los resultados de una investigación sobre el uso, la disponibilidad y algunos aspectos relativos a las relaciones que se establecen con diferentes personas en torno al teléfono móvil en una muestra de adolescentes (N=1211) entre 12 y 16 años de la provincia de Girona. Los resultados ponen de manifiesto la existencia de diferencias de género en cuanto a su disposición y uso, siendo las chicas las que en mayor porcentaje poseen un móvil y más horas dedican a usarlo. Los adolescentes prefieren hablar sobre lo que hacen con el móvil con los iguales, seguido de los hermanos o las hermanas y, en último lugar, con los adultos (progenitores y profesores o profesoras). Finalmente, se analiza cómo los adolescentes se muestran más interesados por e informados sobre Internet y el móvil en comparación con los otros cuatro medios audiovisuales explorados (televisión, ordenador, juegos para ordenador y videojuegos).

Resumo: O objetivo geral do estudo é investigar a relação existente entre eventos estressores cotidianos, senso de comunidade e bem-estar subjetivo em alunos de escolas urbanas e rurais do Nordeste do Brasil, focando nas diferenças por contexto territorial. A amostra está formada por 757 participantes, 495 alunos de escolas urbanas e 262 de escolas rurais, dos 6o e 7o anos (9 a 18 anos) de 21 escolas públicas municipais e estaduais, 13 urbanas e 8 rurais, de 7 municípios do Ceará, Brasil. Os instrumentos utilizados foram: inventário de eventos estressores, escala de satisfação com a vida para estudantes, índice de senso de comunidade e oito índices de satisfação por âmbitos da vida (família, bens materiais, relações, bairro/zona, saúde, tempo, escola, pessoal). Os resultados indicam que os alunos das escolas públicas (desfavorecidos socioeconomicamente) de contextos urbanos estão mais expostos ao estresse cotidiano, pontuam mais baixo em satisfação com âmbitos específicos da vida e senso de comunidade, sendo este último um indicador importante na avaliação do bem-estar da população estudada.