Session Information
08 SES 05, Children and Young People's Well-being
Paper Session
Contribution
In recent years wellbeing has become a widely discussed topic both in political circles and society more broadly. Recognising that standard economic measures such as GDP do not satisfactorily capture quality of life, Nobel prize winning economists among others have called for a shift in measuring economic production to measuring people’s wellbeing (Stiglitz, Sen, & Fitoussi, 2009) whilst the United Nations supports the publication of an annual World Happiness Report through its agency the Sustainable Development and Solutions Network (see Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs, 2015, for the latest edition). A number of international comparison studies are beginning to focus on young people’s wellbeing such as the influential UNICEF survey highlighting the influence of poverty on children’s wellbeing in rich countries (United Nations Children's Fund, 2007) and the Children’s Worlds project (see Pople, Rees, Main, & Bradshaw, 2015) but these generally focus on the wellbeing of youngsters in Westernised contexts or well-developed economies. To date little is known about young people’s wellbeing in other contexts in Europe, such as the post-Soviet nations. This paper aims to add to existing knowledge by taking the case of Kazakhstan, as an illustrative example of a post-soviet context.
Thus far, one large-scale survey of young people’s wellbeing in Kazakhstan has been undertaken on behalf of UNICEF (Roelen & Gassmann, 2012) but this relied on a limited number of objective indicators of wellbeing such as nutrition, health, housing, water & sanitation, and school enrolment. The authors themselves recognise limitations in using average statistics to capture diversity of experience and inequality suggesting more in-depth studies are needed (Roelen & Gassmann, 2014). In this paper we argue not only does diversity of experience have to be assessed, but a more holistic model of wellbeing needs to underpin measures. We argue that assessing objective indicators alone is insufficient, as the work of the positive psychology movement has demonstrated the importance of individuals’ subjective experience in understanding wellbeing (M. Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Furthermore, drawing on ancient Greek philosophers, contemporary philosophers and psychologists have delineated hedonic wellbeing, with its focus is on considering what makes life pleasurable and makes people feel good (Kahneman, Diener, & Schwarz, 1999), and eudaimonic wellbeing, interpreted as self-realisation, personal expressiveness, fulfilling one’s potential and living life in a full and deeply satisfying way (Deci & Ryan, 2008). Psychologists are increasingly recognising that both of these elements are needed to conceptualise wellbeing and are evident in recent approaches such as Seligman’s PERMA (positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and achievement) model (M. E. P. Seligman, 2011). This study, therefore, aims to complement and build on the earlier work on young people’s wellbeing in Kazakhstan which drew on objective indicators by taking a primarily psychological perspective on wellbeing to consider young people’s own perceptions of their wellbeing and embracing both hedonic and eudaimonic elements of wellbeing.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2008). Hedonia, Eudaimonia, and well-being: An Introduction. Journal of Happiness Studies, 9(1), 1-11. Helliwell, J., Layard, R., & Sachs, J. (Eds.). (2015). World Happiness Report 2015. New York: Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Kahneman, D., Diener, E., & Schwarz, N. (Eds.). (1999). Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology New York: Russell Sage Foundation. McLellan, R., & Steward, S. (2015). Meauring Student Wellbeing in the School Context. Cambridge Journal of Education, 45(3), 307-332. doi:10.1080/0305764X.2014.889659 Pople, L., Rees, G., Main, G., & Bradshaw, J. (2015). The Good Childhood Report 2015. Retrieved from London: http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/TheGoodChildhoodReport2015.pdf Roelen, K., & Gassmann, F. (2012). Child well-being in Kazakhstan. Retrieved from Roelen, K., & Gassmann, F. (2014). Beyond averages: Child well-being in Kazakhstan. Journal of Children and Poverty, 20(2), 91-110. Seligman, M., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive Psychology: An Introduction. American Psychologist, 55(1), 5-14. Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A new understanding of happiness and well-being - and how to achieve them. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing. Stiglitz, J., Sen, A., & Fitoussi, J.-P. (2009). Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. Retrieved from Paris: United Nations Children's Fund. (2007). Child poverty in perspective: An overview of child wellbeing in rich countries. Retrieved from Florence: Winter, E., McLellan, R., & Torrano, D. (2016). From the UK to Kazakhstan: Understanding, adapting and measuring school students' wellbeing and engagement in scools. Paper presented at the CIES Annual Conference, March 6-10 2016, Vancouver.
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