On Conceptualizing Child Well-Being: Drawing on Disciplinary Understandings of Childhood.

This theoretical article asks whether, and how, the well-being of children should be thought about differently from the well-being of adults. It was prompted by growing attention to student well-being in school education in Canada and elsewhere. The author argues that any distinction must rest on an understanding of childhood, meaning the socially constructed understanding of children's lives. The article draws core understandings of childhood from four scholarly disciplines and combines them into one integrative view. It then sets out what this view means for any conceptualization of child well-being.

Key points

• Student well-being is receiving greater attention as a concern for school education in Canada and beyond.
• The article asks whether and how child well-being should be conceptualized differently from adult well-being.
• It argues that the distinction needs to be grounded in an understanding of childhood, the socially constructed understanding of children's lives.
• It extracts core understandings of childhood from four scholarly disciplines and develops an integrative view from them.
• It identifies implications of this integrative view for any conceptualization of child well-being.

Limitations

This is a theoretical article, so it offers no empirical data and does not test any intervention. The abstract does not name the four disciplines or give the specific implications, so those details are not available here.