Well-Being Narratives and Young Children

Multilevel Analysis of Child and Adolescent Subjective Well‐Being Across 14 Countries: Child‐ and Country‐Level Predictors

“…Data from the Children's Worlds Study (Wave 1) were used to test a multilevel model predicting child life satisfaction and self‐image from individual (age, gender), microsystem factors (home context, family relationships, peer relationships, school context, teacher relationships, and neighborhood quality), and country‐level macrosystem factors (GDP and GINI coefficient). It was designed to overcome several deficits in the existing literature, including measurement of (a) objective and adult‐centered perspectives rather than child perspectives (Ben‐Arieh, ; Dinisman et al., ; Estola et al., ; Lee & Yoo, ; Lawler, Newland, Giger, & Roh, ), (b) negative rather than positive indicators (Amerijckx & Humblet, ), (c) a narrow number of populations and countries (Cho, ; Estola et al., ; Govender et al., ; Jordan & Graham, ; Manzoor et al., ), and (d) limited aspects of a child's ecological systems (Amerijckx & Humblet, ; Estola et al., ). This study contributes to the research literature by measuring children's SWB relative to individual, microsystem, and macrosystem factors with international samples that provide greater age variation and geographic representation than previous studies (Estola et al., ; Kim & Main, ; Lee & Yoo, ).…”

“…First, the earlier studies of well‐being focused on objective (adult perspective) as opposed to subjective (child perspective) measures (Estola, Farquhar, & Puroila, ; Lee & Yoo, ). Discrepancies in adult and child perspectives suggest that children's views should be examined (Ben‐Arieh, ; Dinisman, Fernandes, & Main, ; Estola et al., ; Lawler, Newland, Giger, & Roh, ). Second, many studies have examined negative indicators of well‐being, as opposed to positive indicators (Amerijckx & Humblet, ).…”

Moral Functioning: Navigating the Messy Landscape of Values in Finnish Preschools

“…For instance, values like caring, safety, democracy, human flourishing, and non-discrimination have been identified in early childhood contexts (Broström, 2006;Emilson & Johansson, 2009;Estola, 2003;Estola, Farquhar, & Puroila, 2014;Fenech, Sumsion, & Goodfellow, 2008;Hovdelien, 2013;Taggart, 2011;Ylitapio-Mäntylä, 2013). In our study, we are interested in the realization of values in the daily lives of educators at a grass-root level rather than as abstract or formalized ethical codes prompted by curricula or other official statements.…”

Autonomy, Fairness and Active Relationships: Children's Experiences of Well‐being in Childcare

“…Policy‐makers’ and researchers’ interest in children's well‐being in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) settings has increased over the last decade (Mashford‐Scott and others, ). There is a consensus that children's well‐being is central to high‐quality ECEC (Estola and others, ), but there are many different approaches to conceptualising children's well‐being (Rees, ). Recent studies have called for more attention to ‘young children's own views and knowledge’ on their well‐being in ECEC/OSHC settings (Mashford‐Scott and others, , pp.…”

“…We conducted drawing and photo‐elicitation interviews with 15 Australian children of police and nurses, aged four to 12, about their experiences of welling in ECEC/OSHC. Our interviews aimed to operationalise the ‘ having (material resources), loving (companionship) and being (self‐realisation)’ well‐being framework that Estola and others () have adapted from Finnish sociologist Eric Allardt's () welfare typology. Informed by other researchers interested in children's well‐being in ECEC who utilised the having, loving and being framework (Estola and others, ; Puroila and others, ) — outlined in greater detail shortly — we sought to apply this framework to the under‐researched group of children of nurses and police.…”