adolescent well-being subjective indicators of relationships in a romanian and spanish adolescent...
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Adolescent well-being subjective indicators of relationships in a Romanian and Spanish adolescent sample.
Sergiu Bălţătescu*, Ferran Casas**, Adrian Hatos*, Irma Bertran**, and Mònica González** *Department of Sociology and Social Work. University of Oradea (Romania)**Research Institute on Quality of Life. Universitat de Girona (Spain)
Thirs ISCI conference, York July 26-29, 2011
Relationships• Of most importance throughout life• Critical in childhood and adolescence• The meaning , intensity and scope of relationship is changing
with developmental stages• In adolescence, peer relationship become salient while
influence of parents is lowering• Unselective peer-group relationships give way to the selective
personal relationships, then with relationship with adolescents from another sex• There is an emotional (romantic) life without a proper
relationship
MethodSpainTwo-stage cluster sample (Compulsory
Secondary Education (ESO) Centres/classes). Four provinces of Catalonia. N=1945
Romania• N=930• Bihor county • Stratified sample of the urban high-school
population
Questionnaire The Personal Well-Being Index (PWI) scale (Cummins,
2003; Cummins et al., 2003), 7 items versionSatisfaction with relationship with:
peers friends teachers parents
Overall satisfaction with relationships (included in Personal Wellbeing Index).
Satisfaction with emotional lifeA single item on overall life satisfaction (OLS).Several items on satisfaction with other aspects of
life and life domains, including a set of school-related items.
All are measured on an 11-points scale (0 to 10)
Sample
sex * Age (13-16) * Country Crosstabulation
Count
96 108 144 119 467
83 97 129 164 473
179 205 273 283 940
273 290 239 130 932
300 350 234 136 1020
573 640 473 266 1952
male
female
sex
Total
male
female
sex
Total
CountryRumania
Spain
13 14 15 16
Age (13-16)
Total
Results: Personal well-being Index (from: Casas, Baltatescu at al. 2009) Means Romania Spain
boys girls boys girls
With your health 8,6 8,1 8,4 8,3
With your standard of living 8,7 8,6 8,4 8,3
With what you have achieved in life 7,9 7,8 7,8 7,8
With how safe you feel 8,5 8,6 7,7 7,3
With groups of people you belong to 8,4 8,7 8,3 8,5
With your future security 8,4 8,5 7,4 7,2
With your personal relationships 8,4 8,5 8,1 8,2
With your sentimental life 8,2 8,2 7,1 7,0
PWI-7 84,6 84,2 80,4 79,9
With your overall life 8,9 9,0 8,1 8,0Note: Standard errors for all computed coefficients, except PWI are less than 0,1. For PWI the standard errors vary between 0,44 and 0,82.
Resultsrelationship items Means Romania Spain
boys girls boys girlsWith your personal relationships 8,4 8,5 8,1 8,2
With the relationship with school peers 7,8 7,9 8,0 8,2
With the relationship with teachers 7,3 8,0 6,9 7,3
With your sentimental life 8,2 8,2 7,1 7,0
With your family relationships 9,0 9,0 8,3 8,1
With your relationships with your friends 8,7 8,8 8,6 8,8
Comparisons• Relationships
with friends highest
• Relationships with professors - the lowest
• Romania: family relationship – very high
• Spain: sentimental life – very low
Evaluation of the possibility of the inclusion of a new PWI item• Item: satisfaction with sentimental life • Motivation: • The sentimental life = the affective experiences associated
with the romantic relations. • Useless to stress the importance of this domain for adolescents.
• None of PWI items capture these domains. • The “personal relations”
• too general to capture the romantic relationships. • Often in adolescence and youth the romantic emotions are
consumed outside a (more or less stable) relationship.
Unique contribution of domains to life as a whole
Romania (7 items) R2=0,385 Romania (7+1 items) R2=0,405
Unique contribution of domains to life as a whole
Spain (7 items) R2=0,370 Spain (7+1 items) R2=0,398
Evaluation of the possibility of the inclusion of a new PWI item: pros & cons
Pro’s• The item loads on the same
factor as life as a whole and the other PWI items
• With β=.17-.18, the item would be among the most important predictors of the life as a whole
• The item slightly increase the capacity of the Index to predict the levels of life as a whole.
Con’s
• The item would steal a part of the variation from the satisfaction with personal relationships, an item from the same conceptual domain.