Resumen de Social exclusion and eudaimonic well-being: a children's perspective
There is a lack of information about social exclusion and eudaimonic well-being from a children’s and adolescents’ point of view. With both affecting their lives to large extent, it should be necessary to better understand what they mean from children’s and adolescents’ perspective and to know a better a method of assessment.
The main objective of this thesis is to explore eudaimonic (psychological) well-being and social exclusion from children’s and adolescents’ perspective and the associations between these constructs and with other related ones such as hedonic (subjective) well-being. This is more concretely detailed in the following specific aims: 1) To operationalise child social exclusion in empirical research using data from children and to evaluate how the instrument developed works in different countries, this including, among others, well-being indicators; 2) To explore the relationship between children’s psychological well-being (PWB) and social exclusion indicators in different countries; 3) To explore and understand which aspects contribute most to achieving full satisfaction in life from the adolescents’ point of view, as well as to explore its relationship with subjective and psychological well-being, measured using different instruments; and 4) To explore three dimensions (life goals, autonomy and positive relations with others) for adolescent’s eudaimonic living and their relationship with different levels of subjective well-being (SWB). This is a doctoral thesis developed through publications, and each publication faces one of the aforementioned specific aims.
The data used comes from two projects: the international project Children’s Worlds and a regional project carried out in Girona province (Catalonia, north-east of Spain). The first and the second publications use data from 16 countries (15 in the second one) and the sample used is formed by a total of 19,212 children who answered a questionnaire. Almost half of them are boys (48.8%) with some variations among countries, and the mean age is 12.02 years-old (SD = 0.610) for the pooled sample. The third and fourth publications use the regional data: a total of 940 participants from 16 educational centres aged between 9 and 17 answered the questionnaires (44.1% were boys and 55.9% girls), and 100 of them participated in a focus group over two consecutive years. The third publication analyses quantitative data and the last one uses a mixed methods approach.
The results help in knowing what aspects decision makers should take into account in order to prevent child social exclusion and to improve their well-being through policies. Children and adolescents in this study are reporting an interesting and alternative point of view to the policies made from an adult-centric view to tackle poverty and social exclusion. Policy makers should include their opinions in the decision making process. For example, it is known from children that they have a higher risk of social exclusion if they are not satisfied with the place or area where they live or if they are not participating in organised leisure time activities. Both of these aspects can be acknowledged and improved through social policies.
Child social exclusion is related to PWB, which at the same time is related to SWB. When socially excluded, there is a high risk of low PWB being reported. Moreover, considering the existence of a link between hedonic and eudaimonic traditions, these low PWB levels could also indicate low SWB for these socially excluded children. To this extent, some of the risk factors that point to social exclusion could also be seen as protecting factors. For instance, letting children participate in society, helping them to live with a family, making sure they have a purpose in life, helping them to develop their autonomy, and encouraging them to have significant interpersonal relationships, are just some examples of measures that could be taken to protect children from social exclusion and to increase their well-being. It is important to not only detect the risk factors that point to social exclusion, but also highlight them as protective resources that could face exclusion.
To conclude, the results leave a challenging mission on the table. Social exclusion and eudaimonic well-being cannot be reduced to a single number. However, if the aim is to keep track of the progress made in reducing social exclusion and increasing eudaimonic well-being, an assessment of them is needed, this thesis is providing tools on how to do that.
