Culture, context, and child well-being

Abstract

There are different conceptions of happiness and of what the goals of life are in different communities around the world. The resources and developmental pathways for children are extremely diverse as well. To understand such pluralism and to identify universals, comparative cultural understanding of well-being is needed. Cultural activities (dinnertime, praying at a family shrine, doing chores, homework) are useful ways to capture cultural contexts. Well-being is the engaged participation in the activities that are deemed desirable and valued in a cultural community, and the psychological experiences that are produced by such engagement. Daily routines that have better resource fit, less conflict, more balance among inevitably competing goals, more meaningfulness, and enough predictability in activities are likely to enhance well-being. Mixed qualitative and quantitative methods, including field ethnography and conversational interviews, are important methods for the cultural understanding of well-being. Cultural evidence is also important for distinguishing between chaotic and damaging circumstances, which clearly are harmful to the well-being of children most everywhere, versus cultural practices (such as child tasks and responsibilities; multiple caretaking; training for social intelligence and relational competence; importance of effortful accomplishment and persistence; respect for hierarchy) that may seem deleterious to child well-being by some Western criteria, but which actually promote goals and moral directions for life deemed valuable and can enhance child well-being.