The role of gender and living context in shaping Palestinian children’s agency and well-being

Abstract

Through a mixed-method design, the study investigated gender and context differences within the domains of agency, life satisfaction, affectivity, and symptoms of trauma. Two-hundred-fifty Palestinian children from cities, villages, and refugee camps (M = 11.58, SD = 1.49) completed four self-reported measures, Multilevel Student’s Life Satisfaction Scale, Children’s Hope Scale, Children’s Impact of Event Scale, and Positive and Negative Affect Scales. Based on drawings and walk-along interviews with 75 children (M = 10.27, SD = 1.38), thematic analysis was performed to detect gender and context-specific differences regarding all the variables, which assisted in the interpretation of quantitative findings. Findings showed higher girls’ satisfaction in the dimension of school (MD = 1.497, p