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How Can Children Tell Us About Their Wellbeing? Exploring the Potential of Participatory Research Approaches within Young Lives

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Abstract

‘Wellbeing’ is a key concept in the study of children’s lives over time, given its potential to link the objective, subjective, and inter-subjective dimensions of their experiences in ways that are holistic, contextualized and longitudinal. For this reason wellbeing is one of the core concepts used by Young Lives, a 15-year project (2000–2015) that follows the lives of 12,000 children growing up in the context of poverty in Ethiopia, Peru, Vietnam and Andhra Pradesh (India) (see http://www.younglives.org.uk). This paper examines a selection of methods being used by Young Lives to capture aspects of child wellbeing in the context of a range of children’s life experiences related to poverty, specific risks and protective processes. It draws on a review of the literature on child-focused methods and on recent experiences piloting three core qualitative methods in the four study countries. The paper reports the development of a methodology that is child-centred, but also acknowledges that every child is embedded within a network of social and economic relationships.

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Notes

  1. Standpoint theories maintain that “people see or view things differently depending on where they are situated structurally in society” (Fattore et al. 2007, p. 27) and that the reality of those located in the least powerful social positions is the most valid knowledge for them.

  2. For examples of combining qualitative and quantitative data to produce case studies see Baulch and Davis (2007) and Scholz and Tietje (2002).

  3. Young Lives documents subjective wellbeing indicators in the caregiver and child surveys, for example, by using Cantril’s ladder, a self-anchored scale framed in terms of best and worst lives.

  4. Conversations based on a structured 14-question interview schedule around key themes of why children go to nursery, the role of adults and favourite and least favourite activities and people.

  5. Project information available on the Sibling Relationships in Middle Childhood website, http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/families/jrfsibresources, Accessed 29 November 2007.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the children and families who participate in Young Lives research, as well as the country researchers who led on the pilot work and produced the pilot reports referred to in this paper: Yisak Tafere (Ethiopia), Patricia Ames (Peru), Ai-Phuong Ton-Nu (Vietnam), and Uma Vennam (India), and their fieldwork teams. Virginia Morrow provided useful comments on an earlier draft of the paper. Young Lives is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and based on a collaborative partnership between the University of Oxford, Save the Children UK, The Open University, UK, and a series of prominent national research and policy institutes in the four study countries. Partial funding for research on early childhood transitions is provided by the Bernard van Leer Foundation, Netherlands. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of DFID, Young Lives, the Bernard van Leer Foundation or the University of Oxford.

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  1. Young Lives, Department of International Development, University of Oxford, Queen Elizabeth House, 3 Mansfield Road, OX1 3TB, Oxford, UK

    Gina Crivello & Laura Camfield

  2. Child and Youth Studies Group, The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK

    Martin Woodhead

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  1. Gina Crivello
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Correspondence to Gina Crivello.

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Crivello, G., Camfield, L. & Woodhead, M. How Can Children Tell Us About Their Wellbeing? Exploring the Potential of Participatory Research Approaches within Young Lives . Soc Indic Res 90, 51–72 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-008-9312-x

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