Abstract
Built on a neighborhood-based qualitative study that was carried out in Istanbul, this article explores the use of complementary research methods that explore how children contextualize their well-being within the spatial boundaries of a particular social location. Therefore, spatiality is used as a methodological tool to understand children’s subjective construction of well-being embedded in a web of relations. Using the framework of the social studies of childhood that constructs child as an agent, the research study puts emphasis in involving children in the research process as active participants and encouraging them to build their own narratives that manifest authentic childhood experiences. A variety of methods that are developed according to the age of the child are used in this study like in-depth interviews based on spatial experiences, in-depth interviews with a projection method, thematic focus groups and photography study. They are designed to facilitate a participatory research process that encourages the child to think through the spaces (school, home, neighborhood, etc.) along with a web of relations that his/her well-being is embedded in. The spatial understanding of child well-being in relation to subjective and objective conditions is the focus of the analysis of the qualitative research.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The research ‘Developing Child Well-Being Indicators for Turkey’ (Project No: 108 K235) was supported by TÜBİTAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey – Program Code 1001). As this is the first attempt in Turkey to produce a comprehensive index of child well-being indicators, a qualitative and a quantitative study were conducted in Istanbul to test the chosen indicators and to propose a list of indicators to be used widely in Turkey. Both studies validated the usefulness of the indicator set as a tool for monitoring child well-being. For a detailed discussion of the research and the findings see Uyan-Semerci et al. (2012).
The ethical issues involved in doing qualitative research with children goes beyond parental consent. How children can be approached for participation; how to understand whether the child felt free to agree or refuse to participate; how the children could let the adult researcher know that they did not want to talk about a subject or that they wanted to end the interview were the issues discussed among the team before starting the interviewing process. The means of approaching each phase of the research that reflected sensitivity to these issues were explored during the piloting stage, which allowed for a format of individual interviewing that reflected the sensitivities based on allowing the children to shape both the participation and narration process.
If the numbers of the volunteers were high, the participants among the volunteers were decided through casting lots.
It was seen that a positive start in an interview helped the children to get rid of their uneasiness in front of an adult researcher. Such a beginning helped them to express their feelings and experiences in a positive atmosphere and helped them to talk about their negative experiences within the course of the interview more easily. Building a positive interaction with the participant and a comfortable atmosphere to talk about different experiences were essential for the actualization of our research aims.
As it was conceived that children would like to take pictures in their homes, cameras were given to children overnight and the following day the disposable cameras were collected.
References
Axford, N. (2008). Exploring concepts of child well-being: Implication for children’s services. Bristol: The Policy Press.
Barker, J., & Weller, S. (2003). Never work with children? The geography of methodological issues in research with children. Qualitative Research, 3(2), 207–227.
Ben-Arieh, A. (2008). The child indicators movement: Past, present, and future. Child Indicators Research, 1(1), 3–16.
Ben-Arieh, A. (2009). Social indicators of children’s well-being past present and future. In A. Ben-Arieh & I. Frønes (Eds.), Indicators of children’s well-being: Theory and practices in multi-cultural perspective (pp. 1–15). New York: Springer.
Ben-Arieh, A. (2010a). Developing indicators for child well-being in a changing context. In C. McAuley & W. Rose (Eds.), Child well-being: Understanding children’s lives (pp. 129–142). London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Ben-Arieh, A. (2010b). From child welfare to children well-being: The child indicator perspective. In A. Ben-Arieh, S. Phipps, & S. B. Kamerman (Eds.), From child welfare to child well-being: An international perspective on knowledge in the service of policy making (pp. 9–24). New York: Springer.
Ben-Arieh, A. & Frønes, I. (Eds.). (2009). Indicators of children's well-being: Theory and practice in a multicultural perspective (Vol. 36). Verlag: Springer.
Ben-Arieh, A., Kaufman, H. N., Andrews, B. A., George, R., Lee, B. J., & Aber, J. L. (2001). Measuring and monitoring children's well-being. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Press.
Bradshaw, J., Hoelscher, P., & Richardson, D. (2006). An index of child well-being in the European Union. In A. Ben-Arieh & I. Frønes (Eds.), Indicators of children’s well-being: Theory and practice in a multi-cultural perspective (pp. 325–371). New York: Springer.
Christensen, P., James, A., & Jenks, C. (2000). Home and movement: Children constructing “family time”. In S. Holloway & G. Valentine (Eds.), Children’s geographies: Playing, living, learning (pp. 135–150). New York: Routledge.
Darbyshire, P., Macdougall, C., & Schiller, W. (2005). Multiple methods in qualitative research with children: More insight or just more? Qualitative Research, 5, 417–436.
Elsley, S. (2004). Children’s experiences of public space. Children and Society, 18, 155–164.
Fattore, T., Mason, J., & Watson, E. (2007). Children’s conceptualisation(s) of their well-being. Social Indicators Research, 80(1), 5–29.
Fattore, T., Mason, J., & Watson, E. (2012). Locating the child centrally as subject in research: Towards a child interpretation of well-being. Child Indicators Research, 5, 423–435.
Fattore, T., Mason, J., & Watson, E. (2016). Children’s understandings of well-being: Towards a child standpoint. Dordrecht: Springer.
Greene, S., & Hill, M. (2004). Researching children’s experience: Methods and methodological issues. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Holloway, S., & Valentine, G. (2000). Spatiality and the new social studies of childhood. Sociology, 34(4), 763–783.
Holloway, S., Valentine, G., & Bingham, N. (2000). Transforming cyberspace: Children’s interventions in the new public sphere. In S. Holloway & G. Valentine (Eds.), Children’s geographies: Playing, living, learning (pp. 135–150). New York: Routledge.
Hunner-Kreisel, C., & Kuhn, M. (2010). Children’s perspective: Methodological critiques and empirical studies. In S. Andresen, I. Diehm, U. Sander, & H. Ziegler (Eds.), Children and the good life: New challenges for research on children (pp. 115–118). Dordrecht: Springer.
James, S. (1990). Is there a “place” for children in geography? Area, 22, 278–283.
James, A., Jenks, C., & Prout, A. (1998). Theorizing childhood. Cambridge: Policy Press.
Jans, M. (2004). Children as citizens. Towards a contemporary notion of child participation. Childhood, 11(1), 27–44.
Jenks, C. (1996). Childhood. London: Routledge.
Jones, D., O’Brien, M., Rustin, M., & Sloan, D. (2000). Children’s independent social mobility in the urban public realm. Childhood, 7(3), 257–277.
Kjorholt, A. T. (2008). Children as new citizens: In the best interest of the child? In A. James & A. L. James (Eds.), European childhoods: Cultures, politics and childhoods in Europe (pp. 14–37). New York: Palgrave.
Leonard, M. (2007). Trapped in space? Children’s accounts of risky environments. Children and Society, 21, 432–445.
Lister, R. (2007). Why citizenship: Where, when and how children? Theoretical Inquiries in Law, 8(2), 692–718.
Marr, P., & Malone, K. (2006). What about me? Children as co-researchers. Available at: http://www.aare.edu.au/07pap/mar07118.pdf.
Matthews, H., & Limb, M. (1999). Defining an agenda for the geography of children. Progress in Human Geography, 23, 6–90.
McKendrick, J. (2000). The geography of children: An annotated bibliography. Childhood, 7(3), 359–387.
Morrow, V. (2001). Using qualitative methods to elicit young people’s perspectives on their environments: Some ideas for community health initiatives. Health Education Research, 16(3), 255–268.
Nelson, M. L., & Quintana, S. M. (2005). Qualitative clinical research with children and adolescents. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 34(2), 344–356.
Philo, C. (2000). The intimate geographies of childhood, special issue: Spaces of childhood. Childhood, 7(3), 243–256.
Prout, A., & James, A. (2005). A new paradigm for the sociology of childhood? Provenance, promises and the problems. In A. James & A. Prout (Eds.), Constructing and reconstructing childhood: Contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood (pp. 7–33). Bristol: Falmer Press.
Qvortrup, J. (1994). Childhood matters: An introduction. In J. Qvortrup, M. Brady, G. Sgritta, & H. Wintersberger (Eds.), Childhood matters: Social theory, practice and politics (pp. 1–24). Vienna: Avebury.
Qvortrup, J. (2007). Editorial: A reminder. Childhood, 14(4), 395–400.
Qvortrup, J. (2009). Childhood as structural form. In J. Qvortrup, W. Corsaro, & M. S. Honig (Eds.), Palgrave handbook of childhood studies (pp. 21–33). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Richardson, D., Hoelscher, P., & Bradshaw, J. (2008). Child well-being in central and eastern European countries (CEE) and common wealth of independent states (CIS). Child Indicators Research, I, 211–250.
Sibley, D. (1995). Families and domestic routines. In S. Pile & N. Thrift (Eds.), Mapping the subject: Geographies of cultural transformation (pp. 123–137). London: Routledge.
Sixsmith, J., Gabhainn, S. N., Fleming, C., & O’Higgins, S. (2007). Children’s, parents’ and teachers’ perceptions of child well-being. Health Education, 107(6), 511–523.
Uyan-Semerci, P., Muderrisoglu, S., Karatay, A., Akkan, B., Kılıc, Z., Oy, B., & Uran, S. (2012). Eşitsiz Bir Toplumda Çocukluk: Çocuğun “İyi Olma Hali”ni Anlamak İstanbul Örneği. İstanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Akkan, B., Müderrisoglu, S., Uyan-Semerci, P. et al. How Do Children Contextualize Their Well-Being? Methodological Insights from a Neighborhood Based Qualitative Study in Istanbul. Child Ind Res 12, 443–460 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-018-9532-9
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-018-9532-9