Educational science and child well-being

Abstract

This chapter examines the relations of educational sciences and child well-being. After clarifying how educational science has influenced not only the status of children and adolescents but also the concepts of childhood and youth, it presents and discusses two key terms, education/Bildung and learning, that may help to clarify what is in no way a self-evident relation between educational science and CWB. Both have become particularly significant since, for example, the UNICEF study on “Child Well Being in Rich Countries” (2007) introduced a specific understanding of “education” as one dimension of well-being. It formulates education/Bildung and learning as a theoretical dimension of CWB in order to sketch how CWB can be operationalized from the educational science perspective.