Children’s Perspectives and Evaluations of Safety in Diverse Settings and Their Subjective Well-Being: A Multi-National Approach

Mònica González-Carrasco (), Ferran Casas, Asher Ben-Arieh, Shazly Savahl and Habib Tiliouine
Additional contact information
Mònica González-Carrasco: University of Girona
Ferran Casas: University of Girona
Asher Ben-Arieh: Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Shazly Savahl: University of the Western Cape
Habib Tiliouine: University of Oran Es-Senia

Applied Research in Quality of Life, 2019, vol. 14, issue 2, No 2, 309-334

Abstract: Abstract There is a need to explore variations in children’s safety perceptions for different settings (home, school and neighbourhood) and their relationship with subjective well-being (this including satisfaction with safety and satisfaction with life as whole) by comparing a variety of cultural contexts. A further objective is to explore to what extent gender, age group (10 and 12-year-olds) and level of SWB (measured using the SLSS -Student’s Life Satisfaction Scale- and the BMSLSS -Brief Multidimensional Student’s Life Satisfaction Scale) play a role in this prediction. Results obtained through binary logistic models with samples from Spain (n = 2,724), Algeria (n = 2432), South Africa (n = 2192) and Israel (n = 1914), show that children’s perceptions of safety are predicted by their different perceptions and evaluations of school, home and the nearby area. Perceptions of safety in the nearby area and satisfaction with safety (O.R. = 1.080) contribute to predicting higher levels of satisfaction with life as a whole to a greater extent than scores on the SLSS (O.R. = 1.036) and the BMSLSS (O.R. = 1.050) scales. The country participants live in (especially when combined with satisfaction with safety) and, to a lesser extent gender, also make important contributions. The age group they belong to plays a significant role in predicting higher perceptions of safety at home, in the area nearby, at school, and in predicting higher satisfaction with safety. Results open the door to the introduction of specific interventions (e.g. improving parent-child communication, enhancing public spaces for children to play and promoting children’s participation at school), aimed at promoting higher satisfaction with safety and also indirectly at higher satisfaction with life as a whole, on the basis of achieving positive changes of those factors which make the highest contribution.

Keywords: Perceptions of safety; Satisfaction with safety; Subjective well-being; Children; Binary logistic regression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11482-018-9594-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:ariqol:v:14:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s11482-018-9594-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11482

DOI: 10.1007/s11482-018-9594-3

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Research in Quality of Life is currently edited by Daniel Shek

More articles in Applied Research in Quality of Life from Springer, International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().