Noting that policy and childhood research are paying increasingly attention to quality in childhood life, this paper will provide some significant insights from children’s perspectives on their own wellbeing.
In the literature on children’s wellbeing there is a considerable gap:
- most of the research describe wellbeing from a deficit (child health problems, child abuse, risk taking etc) or without considering some important domain such as children’s participation or their preferred activities;
- There is limited research that directly considers children’s views about their wellbeing.
(Fattore, Mason and Whatson, 2007).
This paper explores how two researchers from two different countries (Italy and Australia) explore this issue, focusing on children’s engagement in order to grasp an increased understandingof the quality of their life. Considering the independent research of the two authors, it emerged that a common overarching research focus was apparent. This focus is encapsulated in the following questions; “What elements do children consider essential for a good life or positive wellbeing?”
The researchers explore these questions involving children and considering their experience as central in order to understand how children’s describe their own wellbeing.
The particular attention posed on children’s understanding is inspired by important assumptions:
- the UNCRC (United Nations, 1989), which mandates that children and young people have a right to say what they think about matters that affect them and a right to have those views taken seriously;
- recognition of children as competent agents in their own lives, who can and do have valuable and important knowledge about their world and possess the competence to articulate their ideas.;
- The language and perspectives of children provide an opportunity for adults such as teachers and parents to consider their own priorities and the effect of their interactions with young people.
While quantitative, survey and experimental studies are necessary, they cannot by themselves provide sufficient information or the rich insights required to fully capture the nuanced complexity of children’s experiences (Darbyshire at al., 2005). Because children deserve to be heard, the researchers implement a qualitative approach in order to explore children’s experience and understand their own perspective.
Both the researchers used a participatory-qualitative approach in involving children about their quality of life.
The researchers independently worked in their countries and design a framework of children’s perspectives about the elements they consider essential for wellbeing. The paper aim to present the “two pictures” emerged by the research in order to compare some of the results.
