Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21857/mnlqgc0p6y
PARTICIPATION OF CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN WELL-BEING RESEARCH: A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS
Andreja Brajša Žganec
orcid.org/0000-0003-0846-6297
; Institut društvenih znanosti Ivo Pilar
Renata Franc
orcid.org/0000-0002-1909-2393
; Institut društvenih znanosti Ivo Pilar
Ljiljana Kaliterna Lipovčan
orcid.org/0000-0002-2662-3156
; Institut društvenih znanosti Ivo Pilar
Ivan Dević
orcid.org/0000-0003-0163-3371
; Institut društvenih znanosti Ivo Pilar
Maja Tadić Vujčić
; Institut društvenih znanosti Ivo Pilar
Toni Babarović
orcid.org/0000-0003-0838-3205
; Institut društvenih znanosti Ivo Pilar
Abstract
The European Cohort Development Project (ECDP) is financed from the
European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme to create specific models for a European
Research Infrastructure that will provide, over the next 25 years, comparative
longitudinal survey data on child and young adult well-being. The infrastructure
developed by ECDP will subsequently coordinate the first Europe wide
cohort survey, named EuroCohort. This will be achieved through the following
three objectives: (a) building support from key political policymakers with a brief
which covers child well-being as well as national funding agencies tasked with
infrastructural spending on science and survey data collection; (b) developing
a scientifically excellent research design; (c) establishing a robust operation al framework that will ensure the logistic integrity of EuroCohort. The aim of
one section of the project is to set up a Children and Young People’s Advisory
Groups (CYPAG) and to identify, through focus groups, a children’s perspective
on well-being, examine the meaning of the word ‘well-being’, as well as gather
information of their understanding of ethical issues in longitudinal research on
child well-being. Three focus group were conducted with about 20 children, in
the age between 10 and 15, representatives from various fields of specially engaged
groups of children, including technical, sports, science and social field,
children involved in national and local relevant organizations, children from student
councils, children from children’s city council, children from relevant nongovernmental
organizations and also children involved in sports organizations.
Some of the children belong to groups such as minorities, children of divorced
parents, children from single-parent families, children from foster families, children
with disabilities, children with chronic illnesses, and children living in poverty.
The results of a qualitative study are presented on how children experience
different aspects of well-being, what they consider to be the most important factors
affecting their well-being, how in their opinion longitudinal studies of child
well-being should be conducted, how to include children in longitudinal studies
of well-being, what ethical issues are they most concerned with within longitudinal
research with children and how they can be addressed. The results show
that children and young people, through their understanding of well-being and
by emphasizing the importance of taking into account the privacy and rights of
children and young people as participants in scientific research, can significantly
contribute to the quality of well-being research, so it is extremely important and
useful to involve them actively in planning and conducting a longitudinal study
of the well-being of children and young people.
Keywords
well-being; children and young people; qualitative research; ethical issues.
Hrčak ID:
231088
URI
Publication date:
24.12.2019.
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