Thursday, April 23, 2009
Well-being of UK children is lower than almost all other European countries.
For the second time in two years a comprehensive review of the well-being of children across Europe has ranked the UK as near the bottom of the table.
York University was commissioned by the Child Poverty Action Group to survey the well-being of young people across Europe. The research assessed young people in 29 countries (The EU plus Norway and Iceland) using 43 separate measures in 7 categories . As well evaluating data the research included interviews with young people (up to age 19) in each country.
The seven categories of well-being reviewed were:
Health;
Subjective well-being;
Relationships;
Material resources
Behaviour and risk
Education
Housing and environment.
Overall the UK was ranked 24th of the 29th countries. The UK did not feature in the top 1/3 in any category and came in the bottom third in four- Health, Subjective well -being, Material resources and Education. The highest individual ranking for the UK was fifteenth in the category of children’s relationships with peers and parents. The Uk’s lowest score was for Material Resources with only Lithuania and Poland coming lower.
The Netherlands came top overall and also in the top 1/3 in all of the seven categories. Scandinavian countries dominated the top 5 countries in every aspect of well-being.
The CPAG York University research shows similar rankings for the UK to the Unicef study of children’s well-being published in 2007.
Children's own accounts of their lives are a valuable source of information about the childhood experience. A second research survey ( The Childwise Newsround Survey ) published this month reveals that children and young people have a range of issues and worries which impact upon their daily lives. Childwise conducted one-to-one interviews with 1,000 children aged 6-12 living in the UK on behalf of the BBC programmes CBBC and Newsround in January 2009 and the results have just been published.
Children reported worry and fear as features of their day to day lives to an extent which matches surveys of adults.
40% of the children said they were worried about money,
25% said they were worried about being a victim of crime enough to avoid going out on their own,
The biggest fear children reported was being bullied. The second biggest fear amongst the 6-12 year olds was being stabbed or shot.
The survey also revealed that in terms of bullying, these fears often had a basis in experience. Over 1/4 of all the children interviewed said they had been bullied in school and 10% felt teachers at their school had also been bullied (or attacked) whilst they had been there.
Interestingly, 75% of the children surveyed said they felt their childhood was better than their parents.
Perhaps the new focus on well-being in the OFSTED process together with the increased recognition of the importance of acting on learners' views will increase the UK ranking in the next survey.