Equip de Recerca sobre Infància, Drets dels Infants i la seva Qualitat de Vida

1. Equip de Recerca sobre Infància, Drets dels Infants i la seva Qualitat de Vida (Research Team on Children, Children’s Rights and their Quality of Life) http://www.udg.edu/eridiqv Institut de Recerca sobre Qualitat de Vida (Research Institute on Quality of Life http://www.udg.edu/irqv Universitat de Girona

2. ERÍDIQVobjectives • Developing quality of life related basic and applied research, mainly in the field of childhood, adolescence and their families, at local, regional, national or international level • Cooperating with other institutions, organisations and networks in order to promote or develop interdisciplinary research and/or activities related to quality of life, at local, regional, national and international level • Promoting dissemination and knowledge applicability in relation to quality of life, particularly in relation to research results from Catalonia Main facets of interest • Well-being perceptions and evaluations • Social rights, social problems and social needs • Cultures, new technologies and quality of life Research lines • Subjective well-being, life satisfaction and values aspired to • Audiovisual media between adolescents and adults • Children’s rights and child protection systems • Subjective well-being and active and satisfactory aging 2

3. Theoretical and epistemological approach • Theoretical and methodological pluralism. Our research is not grounded on only one socio-psychological paradigm or methodologically approach. We think multi-method approach are more rich (quantitative + qualitative) • Quality-of-life oriented approach: Priority for the evaluation of positive phenomena and positive change. Positive (social) psychology • Attention given to complexity theories: social realities are complex and they may be fuzzy, fractal, chaotic, … - cause-effect relations may not be lineal nor proportional • Complexity + quality-of-life approaches = In order to understand complex realities the perspective of all implied stakeholders (social agents) should be known and considered (and, therefore, children’s and adolescents self-reported evaluations and points of view must always be included in research) • We feel compromised with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and with its implementation. Provision, Protection and Participation rights • We feel compromised with the applicability of our research results: Face statistical invisibility of childhood. Work for availability of subjective social indicators of children and childhood. Research developed by ERIDIQV is grounded on the following premises and ideological and epistemological considerations:

4. Parents and their own child ERIDIQV started to collect datafrom 12 to 16-year-old adolescents and their own parents in 1999. Information given by children and adolescents in Catalonia was often offering unexpected results. Intergenerational different points of view in relation to some relevant aspects of children’s lives were observed.

5. The context:an ever more rapidly changing society Adolescents cultures Interpersonal relationships (ICT) Values. aspirations Environments (material and non-material) Social representations (of childhood. …) Ideas on parental authority Traditional values on how to raise children Ever-quickening pace of social change …..

6. Unexpected results and challenges (I) When 12 to 16-year-old adolescents in European countries think about becoming 21-year-old. what qualities they would like best to be appreciate for by other people? What qualities would like parents his o her child has when becomes 21-year-old? N = 1184 adolescents 12 to 16-year-olds N = 468 of their own parents. Catalonia. Spain. December 2003. 21 qualities. scored from 0 to 10

8. Unexpected results and challenges (II) Why satisfaction with life and with most life domains continuously decrease during adolescence in most countries? Adolescents 12 to 16-year-olds. Scores from 0 to 10. Catalonia. Spain: 2003 (N = 2,715). 2005 (N = 5,140). 2007 (N= 1,392). 2008 (N = 2,841).

10. Testing different instruments with samples from 4 different countries • Catalonia. Spain 2009 (N = 2,900). • Rio Grande do Sul. Brazil: 2009 (N = 1,588) • Valparaiso. Chile: 2009 (N = 843) (only 14-16-year-olds) • Gran Buenos Aires. Argentina: 2009 (N = 342)

11. Spain

12. Brazil

13. Argentina

14. Chile

15. Four countries

16. Tendency by age PWI - 7 SWLS BMSLSS OLS HOL FORDYCE

17. Unexpected results and challenges (III) To be with family members. including parents. is one of the preferred activities for 12 to 16 y.o. adolescents? Is watching television another of their preferred activities?

18. Preferred activities according 12 to 16 years old adolescents To be with friends 8.77 To practice hobbies 8.08 To listen to music 7.97 To surf in the Internet 7.73 To use a computer 7.66 To play sports 7.43 To be with the mother 7.09 To watch television 7.03 0 to 10 scale. Source: ERIDIQV. April 2006 Catalan sample (N = 4,945)

19. Most enjoying activities. by gender

20. Frequency of activities with the father. by gender

21. Topics frequently talked with the father. by gender

22. Frequency of activities with the mother. by gender

23. Topics frequently talked with the mother. by gender

24. Unexpected results and challenges (IV) Adolescent that self-attribute to be high television consumers are less satisfied with their lives? (Catalan sample N = 4945). 12 to 16-year-olds. May 2006.

25. Well-being and self-attribution as television consumer

26. Unexpected results and challenges (V) Is there any relationship between parents and their own child satisfaction with life? N = 266 paired adolescents 12 to 16-year-olds and their own parents. Catalonia. Spain. May 2006.

27. Correlation between parents’ and children’s scores to PWI(Personal Well-Being Index)

28. New samples: Paired parent-child answers in two countries

29. Parents and own child well-being. according different scales. Spain.

31. Parents and own child domain and overall well-being correlation

32. SEM: Parents and own child correlation: 0,17 for BMSLSS, 0,21 for SWLS and 0,15 for PWI-7

33. SEM: Parents and own child correlation In order to make groups comparable we tested to restrict lambdas and taus. Statistics of the models with restricted lambdas fit, but with restricted taus did not fit. Therefore correlations between parents and own children can be compared: They are significant but very low. However, that also means that components of the items differ between parents and children when related to the respective overall scale. Conclusion: Means of the summated scales can’t be compared between parents and own child.

34. Reflections Adults’ cultures are changing. However, adolescents cultures are changing very fast and may be constructed with little connection to adults’ cultures. Intergenerational understanding requires open and easy dialog, otherwise the pace of social change will increase “cultural distance” between adults and the youngest and real communication may become more difficult…. particularly when audio-visual media are “between” adults and children!