Constructing a definition: Adolescent wellbeing from the perspective of the child and expert (original) (raw)
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International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 2024
Many existing measures of adolescent wellbeing tend to overlook the perspectives of children and are frequently one-dimensional or designed for specific contexts. We argue that a comprehensive assessment of wellbeing should cover multiple aspects of a child's wellbeing and that this cannot be done using a single dimension or a limited selection of items. This study aimed to develop and show the initial validation for the Winchester Adolescent Wellbeing Scale (WAWS). We adopted a personbased participatory approach where the inclusion of children's perspectives was used to define wellbeing and develop the structure of the scale. This ensured children's voices and experiences were central to the instrument's creation. The five-factor scale, validated with 422 adolescents aged 11-16, demonstrated robust model fit (RMSEA = 0.07, χ2/d.f. = 2.23, TLI = 0.91, CFI = 0.92) and internal reliability (Cronbach's alpha exceeding 0.8 across subdimensions). The WAWS has theoretical significance through incorporating adolescents' perspectives and offering a contextindependent and multifaceted wellbeing scale.
Rethinking Youth Wellbeing: Critical Perspectives
2015
Edited by Katie Wright & Julie McLeod This volume offers a critical rethinking of the construct of youth wellbeing, stepping back from taken-for-granted and psychologically inflected understandings. Wellbeing has become a catchphrase in educational, health and social care policies internationally, informing a range of school programs and social interventions and increasingly shaping everyday understandings of young people. Drawing on research by established and emerging scholars in Australia, Singapore and the UK, the book critically examines the myriad effects of dominant discourses of wellbeing on the one hand, and the social and cultural dimensions of wellbeing on the other. From diverse methodological and theoretical perspectives, it explores how notions of wellbeing have been mobilized across time and space, in and out of school contexts, and the different inflections and effects of wellbeing discourses are having in education, transnationally and comparatively. The book offers researchers as well as practitioners new perspectives on current approaches to student wellbeing in schools and novel ways of thinking about the wellbeing of young people beyond educational settings. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Inventing youth wellbeing -- Julie McLeod & Katie Wright 2. To be well is to be not unwell: The new battleground inside our children’s heads -- Linda Graham 3. Vulnerability and wellbeing in educational settings: The implications of a therapeutic approach to social justice -- Kathryn Ecclestone 4. The limits of wellbeing -- Johanna Wyn, Hernan Cuervo & Evelina Landstedt 5. Constructions of young women’s health and wellbeing in neoliberal times: A case study of the HPV vaccination program in Australia -- Kellie Burns & Cristyn Davies 6. Young people, sexual pleasure and sexual health services: What happens when “good sex” is bad for your health? -- Ester McGeeney 7. “I’d just cut myself to kill the pain”: Seeing sense in young women’s self-injury -- Kathryn Daley 8. Rethinking role-play for health and wellbeing: Creating a pedagogy of possibility -- Helen Cahill 9. Wellbeing and schools: Exploring the normative dimensions -- Amy Chapman 10. Social-emotional learning: Promotion of youth wellbeing in Singapore schools -- Chong Wan Har and Lee Boon Ooi 11. Happiness, wellbeing and self-esteem: Public feelings and educational projects -- Julie McLeod 12. From targeted interventions to universal approaches: Historicizing wellbeing -- Katie Wright
A prototype analysis of New Zealand adolescents’ conceptualizations of wellbeing
International Journal of Wellbeing
This research investigated New Zealand adolescents' (aged 11 to 13, N = 361) perceptions of wellbeing from a prototype perspective. Specifically, three studies examined what constitutes and promotes wellbeing, whether adolescents' perspectives are aligned with adults' conceptualizations and academic models of wellbeing, whether socioeconomic status influences adolescents' conceptualization, and whether wellbeing is prototypically organized. Results showed that wellbeing is prototypically organized as some components are more central to the concept of wellbeing and others more peripheral. Contrary to lay adults' conceptualizations and popular wellbeing models, adolescents consider enjoyment/having fun, feeling safe, and being kind/helpful as central components of wellbeing, and sense of satisfaction as a peripheral component of wellbeing. Furthermore, low socioeconomic status adolescents consider comfort/being wealthy, being focused, good physical health, good values, and success/achievements as more central for wellbeing than highsocioeconomic status adolescents. Consistent with the current literature, positive family relationships, positive friendships, and physical activity/sport were the most frequently reported pathways to wellbeing among adolescents. Overall, researchers and practitioners should consider adolescents' understanding of wellbeing in the development of wellbeing assessments and interventions.
Adolescents’ Psychological Well-Being: A Multidimensional Measure
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Over the last few years, different theoretical approaches have emerged advocating for a positive understanding of adolescence, recognizing it as a stage characterized by plasticity, the acquisition of competences and the achievement of satisfactory levels of well-being and positive adjustment. Based on Ryff’s multidimensional model of psychological well-being, this study aims: (1) to develop an adjusted measuring instrument for adolescents (Brief Scale of Psychological Well-Being for Adolescents), as well as analysing its psychometric properties; and (2) to conduct a descriptive analysis of the levels of psychological and subjective well-being among adolescent boys and girls. A sample of 1590 Andalusian adolescents (51% girls), aged between 13 and 19 years old participated in this study. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) showed the validity of the instrument, with a multidimensional factorial solution of four factors (self-acceptance, positive interpersonal relationships, auton...
A Qualitative Longitudinal Study on the Well-Being of Children and Adolescents
Child Indicators Research, 2018
The aim of this article is to identify factors influencing well-being (whether positively or negatively) reported by children and adolescents from their own perspective, in the context of focus groups and individual interviews, and variations in their answers at two different points in time (one year apart), according to: 1) their previous scores (higher or lower) measured using psychometric scales of subjective well-being (SWB) and related constructs (temperamental traits, specifically via variables related to perceptual and pleasure sensitivity and life optimism), and 2) their age (measured through school year and classified into five cohorts). Important commonalites were observed in the answers reported by participants regardless of their prior levels of SWB and related constructs, the cohort they belonged to, the two separate data collections and the data collection technique used. This finding is interpreted as being due to the existence of a shared and fairly stable bottom-up effect in children and adolescents' well-being. However, interesting discrepances are also observed between the groups of participants, which contributes to converging theoretical explanations arising out of two different traditions in the study of well-being (the hedonic and the eudaimonic), while also furthering scientific knowledge on how to better research children and adolescents' well-being from a qualitative point of view.
Well-Being from the Understanding of Children and Adolescents: a Qualitative Metasynthesis
Within the framework of the increasing academic valuation of the use of qualitative methodologies for the study of the well-being of children and adolescents, a systematic review of the available empirical production was developed through the "Qualitative Metasynthesis" methodology. The purpose of the study was to analyze and describe, jointly and integratively, the main common and shared aspects of the available knowledge on the dimensions that, according to the children and adolescent's understandings, are significant for their well-being. During the second semester of the year 2018, the SCOPUS and Web of Science databases were reviewed, identifying a total of 76 articles of which 13 met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed following the methodology of constant comparison, interpretation of results and conceptual reinterpretation proposed by Sandelowski and Barroso (2007). The results brought about the delimitation and description of five categories: "Positive notion of oneself"; "Good treatment and support relations"; "Recognition"; "Significant activities"; and "Contextual aspects". The obtained results contribute to the systematization of the knowledge about well-being provided from qualitative methodologies, thus contributing to the development of indicators for the study of well-being with information on domains and significant areas for children and adolescents.
Well-being of children and adolescents: a multidimensional construct
Revista Médica de Minas Gerais, 2013
Objectives: To review the literature on the well-being of children and adolescents from a multidimensional perspective. Methods: A narrative review was conducted and articles from the PubMed database, from publications of national and international institutions, dissertations and theses were selected. Results: The production of articles on the well-being of children and adolescents still cannot be considered significant when compared to other themes in the scientific production involving individuals in this age group. These findings highlight the importance of a targeted approach to this issue. It is clear that the term wellbeing, despite being commonly used, is inconsistently defined. A single domain is unable to encompass all the complexity involved in this concept, as attested by the extensive list of studies and reports monitoring well-being throughout the world. Analysis based on data from the Health Beagá Study reveals the existence of important intra-urban differences in the various domains of well-being of adolescents living in Belo Horizonte, a large urban center in Brazil, reinforcing the importance of studying well-being from a multidimensional perspective, one that can visualize is as a potential indicator of social inequities. Conclusion: We found that well-being is influenced not only by individual attributes but also by contextual factors such as family, neighborhood, and country characteristics.