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Does the Realisation of Children’s Rights Determine Good Life in 8-Year-Olds’ Perspectives? A Comparison of Eight European Countries

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Abstract

The UN Convention of the Rights of the Child forms a normative basis for the understanding and measurement of child well-being. Nevertheless, there is still the question of how far the rights are reflected in the everyday lives of children. This study is aimed at constructing a bottom-up approach to study reflections of rights in children’s perceptions of a good life. It tries to demonstrate the relationships between the indicators of subjective well-being in the rights framework (such as feeling safe, being heard and cared for and treated fairly) and the subjective perception of good life measured among eight-year old children. Three sources of well-being – family, school and friends are put in focus. The empirical basis of the paper comes from the second wave of the Children’s Worlds study. Its sub-sample of over 8000 eight-year old children from eight European countries is used. Sub-indices of rights reflections in four rights domains (protection, provision, participation and non-discrimination) and a general index of a rights reflection in children’s well-being assessments are constructed as an operational model for data analysis. The analysis revealed that provision (being cared for) and protection (feeling safe) are the leading determinants of a good life in children’s perspectives, while participation (being heard and listened to) and non-discrimination (being treated fairly) are the most diverse determinants of a good life across countries.

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  • 01 May 2018

    The original version of this article unfortunately published online with omitted acknowledgement statement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Social Studies, University of Tartu, Lossi 36, 51003, Tartu, Estonia

    Dagmar Kutsar & Kadri Soo

  2. Department of Business Activity, Poznań University of Economics and Business, Al. Niepodległości 10, 61-875, Poznań, Poland

    Tomasz Strózik

  3. Department of Statistics and Demography, Poznań University of Economics and Business, Al. Niepodległości 10, 61-875, Poznań, Poland

    Dorota Strózik

  4. Babeş Bolyai” University Cluj-Napoca, Bd 21 Dec. 1989 nr. 128, Cluj Napoca, Romania

    Brindusa Grigoraș

  5. Department of Sociology and Social Work, University of Oradea, Str. Universităţii nr. 1, Oradea, Romania

    Sergiu Bălțătescu

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  1. Dagmar Kutsar
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  2. Kadri Soo
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  3. Tomasz Strózik
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  4. Dorota Strózik
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Correspondence to Dagmar Kutsar.

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Kutsar, D., Soo, K., Strózik, T. et al. Does the Realisation of Children’s Rights Determine Good Life in 8-Year-Olds’ Perspectives? A Comparison of Eight European Countries. Child Ind Res 12, 161–183 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-017-9499-y

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