Jaime Alfaro

Satisfacción escolar y bienestar subjetivo en la adolescencia: poniendo a prueba indicadores para su medición comparativa en Brasil, Chile y España

This paper studies the inter-linguistic and intercultural comparability of subjective wellbeing during adolescence, as well as school satisfaction as a component of this well-being, using samples of 12 to 16-year-old from Brazil (n=1588), Chile (n=843) and Spain (n=2900). As subjective well-being indicators, two versions of the PWI (Cummins, Eckersley, van Pallant, Vugt, and Misajon, 2003) were adopted, one measuring well-being with different life domains, a single-item scale on overall life satisfaction (OLS). The six items on satisfaction with different facets of the school life, used by Casas et al. (2013), were included as subjective indicators of school satisfaction. The original version of the PWI (PWI7) and a longer version with 10 items (PWI10) are used. Both versions show a good fit in Confirmatory Factor Analysis using the pooled sample. Using multiple regressions analysis and Structural Equations Modelling (SEM), different options are considered and analyzed in order to estimate the most appropriate model to compare subjective wellbeing cross-countries, with school satisfaction included. An analysis of the results indicates that two multi-group SEM, which include the six items on satisfaction with different facets of school life related to a latent variable, and also related to latent variables PWI7 and PWI10, respectively, show good comparability between countries. Multiple regression analysis suggests that the most useful synthetic indicator on satisfaction with school life is satisfaction with your life as student. When this item is included in PWI7 or PWI10, internal consistency of each of the scales (PWI8 and PWI11) improves, and the respective multi-group SEM of these two psychometric scales show that variances, covariances and regressions are comparable between the three studied countries. This was not the case with the overall mean indices, which is probably due to the different answering styles of adolescents in each country.

Sense of Community Mediates the Relationship Between Social and Community Variables on Adolescent Life Satisfaction

The study of subjective well-being in adolescence has had a recent and dynamic development. Despite this, the meso-systemic contextual factors and their relationship with well-being have had relatively little attention compared to the micro-social dimensions. Regarding this context, this chapter aims to examine the association between life satisfaction with social-communitarian dimensions, and specifically the role that the sense of community plays in Chilean adolescents. Here, we provide a systematic review of the literature on the relationship between subjective well-being in childhood and adolescence with a focus on Sense of Community, Social Well-Being, and Community Support variables. Next, we analyze the relationship between subjective well-being scales together with analyzing the role of the sense of community in mediating overall life satisfaction and its relationship with community support and social well-being. The analysis uses the Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (SLSS) (Huebner 1991), Sense of Community Scale (Sanchez 2001), the Social Well-being Scale (Keyes 1998), and Perceived Community Support Questionnaire (PCSQ; Herrero and Gracia 2007). The target population studied in this chapter is based on a convenience sample of 438 adolescents of both sexes, aged between 14 and 18, belonging to public schools, subsidized private schools, and private schools distributed among seven urban neighborhoods in three regions of Chile. The results indicate that the sense of community mediates the relationship between community support and overall life satisfaction in Chilean adolescents. In addition, the sense of community has a partial contribution to the relationship between social well-being and overall life satisfaction. The discussion includes an analysis of the implications of these findings for future studies on adolescent subjective well-being.

Recreation, Free Time and Well-Being According to Children and Adolescents in Chile: Mediator Meanings of Satisfaction

This chapter contributes to the field of subjective well-being in childhood and adolescence, analyzing the meanings of recreation and use of free time and its relationship with life satisfaction from the perspective of Chilean children and adolescents aged between 10 and 18 years.Subjective Well-being is understood as a contingent, culturally anchored social construction that is dynamically produced and transformed in the socio-cultural context. In this report, we integrate analyzes of information produced in two studies, in which a descriptive design was followed and purposive sampling was used. We present the results raised from the participation of a total of 106 Chilean children and adolescents, of both sexes and different social contexts, through semi-structured interviews and focus groups. For the purpose of analysis, one of the two studies used the technique of content analysis, while in the other the analysis was performed following the open coding orientations of the Grounded Theory. The results show that well-being, in relation to free time, is mediated by the possibility of feeling free, in contrast to day-to-day duties, in which satisfaction and dissatisfaction is related to the possibility of having personal time, as well as meeting with loved ones, such as family and friends. In addition, the power of seeing new places, having contact with nature and having out-of-the-ordinary experiences are valued.