Transcript Diapositiva 1 - University of Western Sydney

Indicators of personal well-being as
subjective indicators of children’s quality
of life.
Ferran Casas
http://www.udg.edu/eridiqv
2nd International Conference of the ISCI
Sydney, 3-4th November 2009
Macro-social “subjective” data from
children and adolescents?
• May (subjective) information given by children and
adolescents have any relevance at macro-social level?
• Are subjective data from children and adolescents
valid and reliable?
• Subjective indicators from children should be only
“measures”, or also other forms of evidence that
enable us to assess where we stand and are going with
respect to our values and goals, and to evaluate
specific programs and their impact (Bauer, 1966)?
• Should we systematically collect some kinds of selfreported information from children and adolescents
to better understand some social dynamics and some
social changes involving them?
• Could that data from children and adolescents be
useful for political decision-making?
Macro-social “subjective” data from
children and adolescents?
• May (subjective) information given by adults have any
relevance at macro-social level?
• Are subjective data from adults valid and reliable?
• Subjective indicators from adults should be only
“measures”, or also other forms of evidence that
enable us to assess where we stand and are going with
respect to our values and goals, and to evaluate
specific programs and their impact (Bauer, 1966)?
• Should we systematically collect some kinds of selfreported information from adults to better
understand some social dynamics and some social
changes involving them?
• Could that data from adults be useful for political
decision-making?
These questions referred to adults….
• … were the point for the birth of the “social indicators
movement” in the 60s (just delete “children and adolescents” in
the previous slide…) (Casas, 1989).
• Well-being, defined as perceptions, evaluations and aspirations
of people (Campbell, Converse and Rodgers, 1976) was agreed to
be relevant to understand the subjective components of the
quality of life.
• The point of view of all social agents involved is very important
to understand complex social realities and to assess well-being
of populations in concrete social and cultural contexts.
• Are children and adolescents important social agents in any
social dynamics?
• Should we ask them for their perceptions, evaluations and
aspirations, referred to some social dynamics and social changes
(like we ask adults) we should understand better?
Quality and quality of life
• Quality is referred to evaluations of the context of
living and of the services provided.
• Quality of life includes both, objective measures of
observable conditions of living and perceptions and
evaluations of overall life and of life domains
(personal well-being measured with subjective
instruments).
• Quality of children’s and adolescents’ life can’t be
properly understood and evaluated WITHOUT
including measures of their own perceptions and
evaluations. However, scientific research has much
less experience measuring children’s QOL, than
adults’
Do we “accept” children’s and adolescents’
data?
• Only recently in the history of social sciences we have started
to collect children’s and adolescents’ self-reported data to
analyse in macrosocial perspectives.
• We have long traditions (in psychology, pedagogy, paediatrics,
and so on) collecting data from children for individual
understanding. However, a feeling of “social and political
relevance” of such data has been often missing in most of our
societies.
• When we have asked children and adolescents for their own
perceptions and evaluations very often the DATA HAS NOT
BEEN AS EXPECTED. Some times we have doubted about the
reliability of data, sometimes we have doubted about the
reliability of informants – the only evidence being that
researchers WE did not have previous experience asking them…..
Unexpected results and challenges: how to
better understand younger generations?
(I)
• When 12 to 16 y.o. adolescents in European countries
think about becoming 21 y.o. – what qualities they
would like best to be appreciate for by other people?
Boy
Girl
Boy’s parent
Girl’s parent
Kindness (8,03)
Kindness (8,62)
Joie de vivre (9,25)
Joie de vivre (9,03)
Niceness (7,92)
Niceness (8,60)
Good manners (9,03)
Personality (8,91)
Personality (7,87)
Personality (8,60)
Responsibility (8,99)
Responsibility (8,82)
Joie de vivre (7,69)
Joie de vivre (8,45)
Solidarity (8,99)
Kindness (8,77)
Family (7,64)
Sensitivity (8,08)
Personality (8,95)
Solidarity (8,76)
Profession (7,55)
Family (8,03)
Kindness (8,90)
Work capacity (8,62)
………………………
…………………………….
……………………………….
…………………………….
Religious faith or
spirituality (5,62)
Religious faith or
spirituality (5,59)
Religious faith or
spirituality (6,87)
Religious faith or
spirituality (6,38)
Money (5,61)
Money (4,53)
Power (4,74)
Power (4,83)
Power (5,53)
Power (4,51)
Money (4,70)
Money (4,75)
Unexpected results and challenges: how to
better understand younger generations?
(II)
• Is there any relationship between parents and
children satisfaction with life?
Correlation between parents’ and
children’s scores to PWI (Personal Well-Being Index)
Jackknife confidence intervals (1-=0.95) for the Pearson correlations between parent and own child
well-being.
Lower
Upper
Correlation
Standard
confidence
confidence
coefficient
error
limit
limit
Standard of living
0.066
0.087
-0.147
0.279
Health
0.216
0.064
0.059
0.373
Life achievements
0.133
0.063
-0.021
0.287
Relations with other people
0.037
0.057
-0.102
0.176
Personal security
0.124
0.078
-0.067
0.315
Groups of people belonging to
0.117
0.078
-0.074
0.308
Security for the future
0.176
0.035
0.090
0.262
PWI
0.186
0.055
0.051
0.321
Overall life satisfaction
0.083
0.055
-0.052
0.218
Unexpected results and challenges: how to
better understand younger generations?
(III)
• Why satisfaction with life and with most life domains
continuously decreases during adolescence in most (or
all) countries?
88
PWI 8
84
PWI 8
80
76
Age
72
68
64
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Age
2003
2005
2007
2008
Unexpected results and challenges: how to
better understand younger generations?
(IV)
• To be with family members, including parents, is one
of the preferred activities for 12 to 16 y.o.
adolescents?
• Is watching television another of their preferred
activities?
Preferred activities according 12 to 16
years old adolescents (Catalan sample N = 4945)








To be with friends
To practice hobbies
To listen to music
To surf in the Internet
To use a computer
To play sports
To be with the mother
To watch television
8,77
8,08
7,97
7,73
7,66
7,43
7,09
7,03
0 to10 scale. Source: ERIDIQV, April 2006
Research on children’s point of view
(some examples):
 Their opinion on the family (CRN, 1994; Van Gils,
1995).
 Their own rights (Torney & Brice, 1979; Melton, 1980,
1983; Melton & Limber, 1992; Ochaita, Espinosa &
Grediaga, 1994).
 Their neighbourhood or city (Casas, 1996).
 Their satisfaction with life, and with different life
domains (self, family, school, friends, environment)
(Huebner, 1994; Casas et al., 2000).
 Their satisfaction with communication with adults
referred to what they do with audio-visual media
(Casas, 1998; Casas & Figuer, 2000).
 Etc.
The “Child Indicators Movement”
 Ben-Arieh (2008) talks about the birth of the child
indicators movement, which is based on:
 The normative concept of children’s rights
 The new sociology of childhood
 Ecological theories of child development
 and related to 3 methodological issues:
 The emerging importance of the subjective
perspective
 The child as the unit of observation
 The expanded use of administrative data and the
growing variety of data sources.
Well-being indicators and
children’s rights
 Indicators of material conditions of living (“objective” indicators): very
important to assess Provision, Protection and Prevention.
 Child poverty
 Child deaths by injury
 Teenage births
 Child maltreatment deaths
 Etc..
 (how can we evaluate the “friendliness” of a city for children?)
 Psychosocial indicators (“subjective” indicators): very important
to assess Participation and Promotion.
 Children’s own perceptions, evaluations and aspirations (opinions;
understanding of their own rights; children’s satisfaction with life
domains, with their city, with services, etc…; values they aspire to;
etc…)
 Perceptions and evaluations of adults about children
 (how can we evaluate the attitudes of adult citizens towards
children?)
Articulating “objective” and “subjective”
indicators of children’s and adolescents’ well-being
(I)
 Material well-being
 Relative income poverty (% of children)
 Households without jobs (% of children)
 Reported deprivation (% low family affluence; % few educational
resources; %fewer than 10 books in the home)
 Health and safety
 Health at age 0-1 (per 1000 dying before 1; % low birth weight)
 Preventative health services (% immunized measles, DPT, polio)
 Safety (deaths from accidents per 100.000 aged 0-19).
 Educational well-being
 School achievement at age 15 (reading literacy, mathematical
literacy, science literacy)
 Beyond basics (% 15-19 remaining in education)
 The transition to employment (% 15-19 not in education, training or
employment; % of 15 expecting low-skilled work)
Adamson, P. (2007). Child Poverty in perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich
countries. Report Card 7. Innocenti Research Centre. UNICEF.
Articulating “objective” and “subjective”
indicators of children’s and adolescents’ well-being
(II)
 Young people’s relationships
 Family structure (% with single-parent; % in stepfamilies)
 Family relationships (% eating main meal with parents once a week;
% with parents spending time “just talking” to them)
 Peer relationships (% report peer “kind and helpful”)
 Behaviours and risks
 Health behaviours (% who eat breakfast; % eat fruit daily; %
physically active; % overweight)
 Risk behaviours (% smoking; % drunk + twice; % using cannabis; %
having sex by 15; % use condoms; teenage fertility rate)
 Experience of violence (% involved in fighting; % reporting being
bullied).
 Subjective well-being
 Health (% rating health “fair” or “poor”)
 School life (% “liking school a lot”)
 Personal well-being (% above midpoint on life satisfaction; %
reporting negative personal well-being)
Adamson, P. (2007). Child Poverty in perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich
countries. Report Card 7. Innocenti Research Centre. UNICEF.
Subjective indicators of children’s and
adolescents’ well-being
Main recent reviews of the quality of life and wellbeing literature related to children and
adolescents.
 Andelman, R.B.; Attkisson, C.C.; Zima, B.T. &
Rosenblatt, A.B. (1999). Quality of life of children:
Toward conceptual clarity. In M.E. Maruisch: The use
of psychological testing for treatment planning and
outcomes assessment. London. LEA.
 Pollard, E. & Lee, P.D. (2003). Child well-being: A
systematic review of the literature. Social Indicators
Research, 61, 1, 59-78.
 Huebner, E.S. (2004). Research on assessment of life
satisfaction of children and adolescents. Social
Indicators Research, 66, 1-2, 3-33.
Most used scales to measure children’s
“subjective” well-being: (a) specific scales
• Perceived Life Satisfaction Scale (PLSS) (Adelman et al., 1989).
• Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (SLSS) (Huebner, 1991).
• Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scales (MSLSS)
(Huebner, 1994).
• Quality of Life Profile – Adolescent version (QOLP-Q) (Raphael
et al., 1996).
• Comprehensive Quality of Life Scale – Students version (ComQOL Students) (Cummins, 1999; Gullone & Cummins, 1999).
• Brief Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale
(BMSLSS) (Seligson et al., 2003).
• Personal Well-Being Index, version for school-age children and
adolescents (PWI-SC) (Cummins & Lau, 2005).
• Personal Well-Being Index, version for pre.school age children
(PWI-PS) (Cummins & Lau, 2005).
Most used scales to measure children’s
“subjective” well-being: (b) non specific scales
 Some scales used for overall population have also
been administered to adolescents with acceptable
results in some countries:
 Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) (Diener et al.,
1998).
 Personal Well-Being Index (PWI) (Cummins, 1998;
Cummins et al., 2003).
 Fordyce’s Happiness Scale (FHS) (Fordyce, 1988).
 Psychometric properties of some of the specific and
non specific scales can be meet in Bender (1997) and
in Gilman & Huebner (2001).
 Correlations among all these scales are moderate or
high in most cases.
Some topics for discussion (I)
 Qualitative approaches are also very useful to better
understand how children and adolescents understand
their own well-being (Camfield, 2008; Crivello et al.,
2009; Holder & Coleman, 2009).
 The influence of different social and cultural
contexts on children’s and adolescents’ well-being is
not yet well understood. It is often doubtful that
influences are functioning in the same way then
among adults.
 Like among adults, interpersonal relationships are
very important contributors to well-being among
children and adolescents. However, children’s cultures
are much more influenced than adults’ by the new
relationships created using the new audiovisual media
(information and communication technologies – ICTs).
Some topics for discussion (II)
 Our shared social representations of childhood rise
biases in the ways we perceive and conceptualise what
is good and what is bad for children, that is to say,
what are children's social problems (as opposite to
"private") and what is "good life" for childhood (for
all our children's population) (Casas, 1998).
 Three related social representations must be taken
into account:
 Social representations of childhood.
 Social representations of which are children’s social needs
and social problems.
 Social representations on the acceptable ways to solve
children’s social problems and social needs, and to promote
their well-being and quality of life.
Some topics for discussion (III)
 Even scientists usually conceptualise childhood
through the most usual social representations of
childhood in our social-cultural context (Chombart de
Lauwe, 1971; 1984; 1989; Casas, 1995; 1997).
 Traditionally there has been a strong reluctance of
social scientists to accept children's self-reported
information as reliable (in agreement with the adult's
social representation of children as not-yets Verhellen, 1992; Casas, 1996). The consequences have
been dramatic in some arenas, as for example judicial
processes (Casas, 1997).
 If we overview the research labelled children's
quality of life studies, we find very few publications
in which children have been asked anything.
Some topics for discussion (III)
 The most usual research in that field is about the attribution of
needs, or the perceptions of quality, that adults (experts or
parents) do about children.
 That is a misuse of the concept "quality of life", because it
betrays the basic definition of the concept: people own
perceptions, evaluations, and aspirations. So, in practice, what is
referred as research on children's quality of life, some times is
not truly on the quality of their lives but on other's perceptions
or opinions about their lives.
 Disagreements between children's perspectives about their own
lives and adult's perspectives about children's lives are an
important dimension of social life.
 Adolescents and youngsters in general are well-known as
much more "risk-takers" than adults; having new amusing
experiences, knowing their limits, is very important for them.
 For adults "security" is much more important.
 For youngsters, security measures imposed by adult may be
considered simply limitations to their freedoms and "must
not" be taken into account; and so on.
Some topics for discussion (IV)
 We must not forget that the psychosocial context in
which such disagreement happens is based in both,
adults and youngsters, considering each others as
different social groups or categories.
 Their behaviours happen in what social psychologists
call processes of inter-group categorial
differentiation (Casas, 1995). It is a big challenge to
try to deeply understand why adults we are so
"interested" in keeping children and teenagers as a
completely differentiated social category, instead of
trying to build up social consensus with the new
generations. That is also one of the basic points to
understand why adults we are often so reluctant when
we speak about the need of increasing children's
social participation.
Some topics for discussion (V)
 It is adult's orientation and competence that
raises the difference of children's competence
(Garbarino, Stott et al., 1989).
It will be adults’ orientation and political priorities
that will raise the difference of a better
understanding with the younger generations. Taking
their perspectives as a serious component of social
life involves systematically collecting data about their
social conditions of living, including self-reported data
about their perceptions, evaluations and aspirations
(on their lives, on their society, on the services they
get from their city and their society).