taxonomy for child well-being indicators: a framework for the analysis of the well-being of children

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Taxonomy for child well-being indicators: A framework for the analysis of the well-being of children

Asher Ben-AriehThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Ivar FrønesUniversity of Oslo, Norway

AbstractRecent years have brought a dramatic rise in the number of efforts to measure and monitor the status of children. Yet, despite numerous efforts and reports with ‘Child indicators’ in the title, the field of social child indication is fragmented and lacking a unifying taxonomy. The more ambitious the analysis and the more elaborate the statistics, the stronger the need for a common language used by all. This article tries to suggest such a taxonomy.

Keywordscapabilities, child indicators, children’s rights, indicators, well-being

The need for common ground

The governing of complex and changing societies requires statistical measurements that bridge empirical facts and political values for the purposes of policy guidelines that both identify the state of the present and point to future consequences (Frønes, 2007). The fact that policy-makers and social services planners increasingly rely on social indicators to bridge goals and practical action, and guide the making of social policy (Land, 2000), makes the quality of indicators critical. Quality refers not only to the validity of indica-tors, their reliability or technical standard, but also to the framework of understanding and theory on which they implicitly or explicitly rest. Indicators on children’s well-being require a framework for the understanding of the well-being of children.

Corresponding author:Asher Ben-Arieh, Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel. Email: [email protected]

398159 CHDXXX10.1177/0907568211398159Ben-Arieh and FrønesChildhood

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One reason for the current focus on indicators of well-being is that the traditional measures of standard of living and GNP are understood as being too narrow. The Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (2009)1 issued a call for broader measures of national well-being. UNICEF underlines the need for a comprehensive set of indicators on children’s well-being (UNICEF, 2007), and the EU seeks to develop systems of indicators grappling with complex issues, such as social coherence, inclusion and sustainability (Noll, 2002). Similarly, governmental agencies are increasingly including measures of well-being into national statistics (see e.g. Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2009). Indicators track trends along a series of cultural, social and economic dimensions, and are used in relation to the evaluation of the implementation of policies and programmes (Moore et al., 2004) as well as to study the status and life conditions of children (Ben-Arieh, 2009). The revival of interest in indicators in the 1990s can be, partly, related to the popularity of the concept of quality of life (Land and Ferriss, 2010) and illustrates the breadth and depth of the use of the term and not least, the ambitions of that use. Indicators should be able to grapple with subjective as well as objective factors, seek-ing to reveal the qualities of life.

Recent years have brought a dramatic rise in the number of efforts to measure and monitor the position and lives of children (Ben-Arieh, 2006). Not all indicators on children’s lives refer to well-being; some approach it implicitly, without defining or delimiting the area and concept of well-being while others focus on specific aspects of well-being, such as children at-risk. Indicators on well-being cover a broad range of perspectives and fields, ranging from objective measures, seeking to identify mate-rial standards, community standards and social capital, to subjective measures of hap-piness and satisfaction. Despite numerous efforts and reports with ‘indicators’ and ‘child well-being’ in the title, the field of social child indication is fragmented and lacking a unifying taxonomy. The more ambitious the analysis, and the more elabo-rate the statistics, the stronger the need for a common framework of understanding (Frønes, 2007).

The concept of well-being is rooted in traditions of analyses of the quality of life and happiness, as well as in the traditions of studies on standard of living and health. Indicators refer to dynamic processes. Social and individual development, the qual-ity of neighbourhoods, educational achievements and life quality are all examples of dynamic fields. Indicators are constructed as profiles over sets of dimensions, or as indexes seeking to sum up a series of indices into one measure. Indicators of child well-being suitable for use in longitudinal studies, with individual-level data, require measures and indicators different from indicators developed for cross-cultural com-parisons. Dimensions of child well-being often used the following: material well-being; housing and environment; education; health and safety; risk behaviours; and quality of school life (OECD, 2009). The increasing body of data available illustrates the need for a common framework of understanding. Moreover, the fact that the complexity of children’s well-being produces a variety of perspectives, dimensions and a corresponding variety of indicators creates the need for a common ground of understanding.



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What is an indicator?

Dictionaries define indicators as something denoting something, a pointing or directing device. To indicate is to refer to, or imply, to be a sign of. Indicators may refer to the state of the present or, like weather warning systems, childhood indicators, such as social exclusion and dropout trends, may be understood as pointing to what is coming economi-cally and socially. Bauer (1966) described social indicators as statistics and any other forms of evidence that help us assess where we stand and where we are heading. Indicators can be related to factual material domains or evaluation of trends as much as to values and goals. Atkinson et al. (2002: 2) defines social indicators as ‘a parsimonious set of specific indices covering a broad range of social concerns’. As we can see, ‘indica-tors’ refer to a wide range of phenomena including measures, signs, indices and symp-toms, pointing to states of the present and to future development. Well-being covers ‘happiness’ as well as standard of living, and extensive debates have focused on subjec-tive vs objective indicators. Cross-cultural comparative analysis made the idea of well-being even more complex, and illustrated the methodological challenges.

Indicators take on meaning through theories and models, and the ways these interre-late and interact with one another, as well as through their interactions with a variety of other factors (Land, 2000). Indicators are not primarily statistical indexes mapping empirical trends; they are analytical tools bridging the gap between conceptual models and empirical reality. Indicators may be related to the possible realization of values and norms, as when seeking to identify the situation of children in the perspective of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Indicators do not only measure given realities; they are part of processes constructing meaning and the premises for policies and politics. This is illustrated by complex phenomena, such as well-being. Indicators do not point to a given phenomenon defined as well-being; rather, they assign meaning and empirical content to the idea of well-being. Indicators are related to domains, and rooted in values and ideology as well as in theories of childhood (Ben-Arieh et al., 2001). Well-being is not only an individual property, but also a social property. The social dimension refers both to the optimal well-being of a society and to the distributive justice of well-being.

The development of indicators on human well-being has to confront the interaction of biological, psychological and social factors, producing the need for a multidisciplinary approach encompassing the heterogeneous interplay of forces. The concept of transla-tional science refers, in general, to the translation from science into clinical measures, preventive programmes and policies. However, translation also implies the translation of indicators into not only theories and empirical patterns, but also into values and political issues. Indicators represent bridges of translations between empirical patterns and scien-tific understanding, and between scientific understanding and policies and values. Indicators are essential not only to monitoring of goals, but to the establishing of goals (Land et al., 2007). The need for theoretically informed indicators increases with their practical use: the more indicators are used for policy purposes, the more important is their validity, which is anchored in perspectives and the framework of understanding.

Indicators of children’s well-being are informed by the understanding and definitions of well-being. The concept of well-being of children, and the subsequent indicators




developed for identification of children’s well-being, has to be embedded in an analytical framework that encapsulates the dynamics of well-being, and how well-being – or the lack of well-being – manifests in the many domains of the lives of children.

Understanding the well-being of children

Dictionaries define well-being as a desirable state of being happy, healthy or prosperous; but well-being is also related to the fulfilment of desires, to hedonism and the balance of pleasure and pain, to living conditions and so on. In the UN CRC, rights are implicitly understood as creating opportunities for well-being; freedom of choice is, by this defini-tion, an essential element of well-being.

Well-being has to be understood in relation to individual preferences and opportunity structures. As such, the same level of commodities and resources do not produce the same level of well-being for all individuals. Well-being is a dynamic relationship, not just a reflection of the level of income or consumption. Values and references are likely to vary with cultural framework and historical period. The American girl who, some decades ago, realized the goal of most girls and married the handsome local young man just after high school, discovers that she has not at all realized the values dominating 20 years later. The contexts defining the well-being of children change not only because of historical changes, but because the factors producing well-being at one age level do not necessarily produce it at another level. Furthermore, contexts may provide different con-ditions related to social groups and gender. At the core of all analyses of children’s lives and development is the understanding of the developmental relationship between today and tomorrow; the conditions of the present influence further development. This implies that factors of well-being have to be understood within a different framework than one related to other age groups.

The sociology of childhood underscores two dimensions, or axes, in the understanding of childhood and children. Each has its origins in the Greek philosophy that conceived the concepts of being (object or state) and becoming (change or development). These con-cepts refer to life as it is experienced in the present and life as it develops towards adult-hood. Children’s rights refer both to their rights here and now, and to their right to develop and ‘become’, as illustrated by the CRC’s emphasis on children’s rights to realize their potentials. We may view being as a state at a given point in time, and becoming as the unfolding of the life course along trajectories shaped by social structures and the agency of the actor. An emphasis on becoming – as in the modern society – may entail that the state of being is intensely in focus because of the emphasis on becoming. Being may rep-resent the cultivating of factors that are understood to influence future being. The invest-ment in children’s futures may represent an important part of children’s well-being, but may also imply a structuring of childhood that exploits the life of the present. The sociol-ogy of childhood, as well as modern advocacy of children’s rights, underlines children’s rights as citizens of the present, not only as beings on their way to adult positions.

The relationship between being and becoming is, in itself, a part of children’s well-being. The child who spends countless hours, each year, on schoolwork may lose out on leisure activities of play, but may gain in the future, while the child that invests little in schoolwork may enjoy the moment, but weaken his or her future well-being. Similarly, a



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child who spends long hours practising sports or music may lose on his present well-being, but may gain affluence and great achievements as an adult. The status and position of children have to be understood within the framework of the present, as description, and within a framework of life course and development, as predictions. The total well-being includes the well-being of the present and the predicted well-being of the future.

Children’s well-being and the capability approach

A promising approach related to the well-being of children is found in the ‘Capability Approach’ of Amartya Kumar Sen. Sen (1999) understands commodities and resources not only as related to the differentiated profiles of the utilities they represent for the vari-ous individuals and groups, but related to what they are able to achieve with their resources in their local contexts. The individual must be able to trade his or her resources for other valuable resources. What can be achieved with a set of resources depends on the structure of the environment and the strategies and goals of the actor/group. Individual resources have to be related to a system of values and possible transactions, as well as to the individual’s preferences and possible strategies. Within such a model, freedom to act and choose becomes a central issue, as do the profile of the resources and the relationship between the resources and the environment. The capability approach is fruitfully related to the understanding of specific contexts. It is also related to individuals or groups with special needs and their well-being is dependent upon an understanding of their specific relations to the social and physical environments.

Capabilities refer to interaction and relationships, not only to individual or social resources. The concept of capabilities is especially suited related to children’s well-being because children’s movements through life produce new contexts, assigning new values to resources and commodities. Therefore, socialization and development is understood not only as the evolving of capacities (as IQ or economic cultural or capital), but as the evolving of capabilities. The concept of capability is also bridging development and change at a societal level, and socialization and self-realization on the individual level. Indicators of well-being as capabilities have to be based on subjective and objective measures, and be anchored in a matrix of being and becoming, related to the experiences of the moment, as well as in the capacities for development and self-realization.

Yet, unlike Nussbaum (2000), we do not argue in favour of the idea of postulating a set of basic capabilities as critical to children’s well-being. We suggest using the capabil-ity approach as a framework for the understanding of well-being, underlining well-being both as a state and as processes and developments. The fact that capabilities influence well-being (Anand et al., 2005) illustrates the significance of the approach. Yet we are not suggesting a set of indicators on capabilities; rather we call for the positioning of well-being within the framework of the capability approach, underlining the differences – and dynamic relationship – between capabilities and outcomes. We are not seeking to transform the theory of capabilities into empirical indicators; we apply it as a framework of understanding, within which indicators can be based on a variety of theories and research and on a series of domains.

Not all measures and indicators on children’s lives and development refer to well-being. Whether indicators of well-being include grades in primary school, characteristics




of cognitive development, square metres per child in the household or the number of material possessions, is determined by the perspective and framework of understanding.

Finally, children’s life courses, both as the cognitive and social dimension of develop-ment and as the relationship between the present and the future, will constitute one axis in our understanding, while children’s experiences and rights as children, in the present, represent another.

Taxonomy for children’s well-being indicators

Analysis of children’s well-being requires a common framework of understanding of well-being, while taxonomy of indicators has to take into consideration various facets, including the domains and transitions that comprise the differentiated matrix of chil-dren’s lives. Taxonomy of child well-being indicators has to be based on a matrix, illus-trating the differentiation of children’s lives, while resting on a common paradigm of understanding of the dynamics of well-being. Children’s movement through the life course implies that their well-being (and capabilities) is continuously changing, in some periods changes take the form of transitions between very different positions. The changes through the life course require a set of indicators capable of identifying the vari-ous states at various age levels and contexts.

Descriptive indicators

Children’s movements through the life course imply that their capabilities are continuously changing. In some periods this change takes the form of transitions between very divergent positions. Descriptive indicators, methods of measurement of well-being at the present, have to be adapted to life phases and situated factors, making theorization, conceptualiza-tion and measurement extremely complex. Children’s well-being, when understood in the context of capabilities, is contingent on changes in school start, puberty and changes in the local environment, to which children are more vulnerable than adults. Furthermore, a local environment may be very different from the perspective of a young teenager than from the perspectives of a 4-year-old. Descriptive indicators refer to the present and to a variety of states, including: housing, schooling or subjective experiences.

Predictive indicators

Longitudinal studies are increasingly helpful in identifying mechanisms that not only affect children’s current quality of life, but also their future life course and life chances, i.e. their becoming. Indicators related to life course are predictive indicators; states are interpreted as predictors of possible life course trajectories. A possible trajectory refers to the chance for a healthy and prosperous development as well as to the risk for future marginalization. The trajectory is an ideal type in the sociological sense, a possible life course direction. Indicators of becoming are not predictions of the factual future life course of individuals; rather they are formulated as probabilities of the risk of adher-ence to certain life course trajectories. Research seeks to identify how the interplay of hereditary, family and environmental factors contributes to this.



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Indicators of total well-being

Capabilities of the future can only be indicated through the prediction of trajectories; the relationship between trajectories and the present is based on research identifying the stochastic relationship between factors of the present and future outcomes. Total well-being has to be identified in a matrix encompassing both being and becoming. From the perspective of the present, the status of children can be indicated by a set of descriptive measures. From the perspective of the life course development, the status of the child has to be seen not as the state of things, but as a process, where mechanisms and trends, not positions and states, are the essentials.

Preventative measures are based on the idea that knowledge of possible life course trajectories is accessible, as well as on the assumption that risk for specific trajectories can be altered. In order for indicators to fulfil their function in relation to policies and change, they have to be able to identify life course trajectories, as well as the state of the present, and not least, the relationship between processes of the present and developmen-tal trajectories.

The interactive nature of indicators

Factual well-being is the product of interplay between factors that can be analytically, but not substantially, separated. The following four divergent types of factors influence a child’s well-being, as identified or measured through indicators: the focus or perspec-tive; the measurement techniques and tools; the constituency; and the structural factors. These four contexts, which influence and shape children’s well-being, are indicated through various measures and indices, but are not, themselves, direct indicators of chil-dren’s well-being, even if they influence well-being. Figure 1 presents this interrelation as a set of interacting circles.

The interaction of these dimensions influences the development of indicators, and each, in their specific way, influences the shaping of the indicators.

Structural factors and opportunities

An array of structural factors interacts with indicators on well-being. Such factors will include: gender, age, religion and a variety of personal characteristics. Furthermore, chil-dren’s well-being must be understood in both the context of their life course develop-ment and interactions with the environment. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 1998) conceptualizes child develop-ment on the basis of four concentric circles of environmental influence, with time as an underlying factor, recognizing both individual changes, over time, and historical changes.

The child, with all his or her personal characteristics, interacts first and foremost with the family, but also with a range of other people and systems: friends, neighbours, health care workers, childcare teachers and playmates, schools and so forth. The ecological profile of the child develops with age and maturity; the functions of the different ecologi-cal levels and their interactions change with age. The different systems are dynamic and interdependent, influencing one another and changing over time (Lippman, 2004; Olk,




2004; Stevens et al., 2005). In interacting with the different systems and subsystems, children and their families encounter both barriers and facilitators. These barriers and facilitators can, in many respects, be considered indicators of child well-being (Bradshaw et al., 2007).

The well-being of children is anchored in interactions between individual and envi-ronmental factors at different levels, as illustrated by the Brofenbrenner model. In accordance with the capability approach, the interactions between factors have to be understood as possible fields of transactions. The child’s capability is defined as the opportunity to achieve present and future goals, which is rooted not only in individual resources but also in the opportunity structure of the environment, as illustrated by the position of girls in a series of certain cultural contexts (UNICEF, 2004). The relation-ship between the family and the community, and between the community and the wider society and its institutions, facilitates or obstructs the transactions that produce the level of well-being. The social capital generated at the micro level may enhance the bridging to other levels, or it may represent codes and values that obstruct the transac-tions with other levels.

Interaction is always related to time, not as abstract time, but time as the unfolding of human activities within a historical context. Therefore, in a Hegelian sense position is understood as a process. The future influences the present as expectations of different trajectories related to different groups and individuals. Related to ethnicity, social back-ground and gender, as well as to the characteristics and personalities of individual chil-dren, expectation and ideas of the future influence a child’s adaptation to the factual future. The different ecological levels not only influence children in different ways, they move through the levels along different trajectories throughout the life course.

Figure 1. Circles of interactions with child indicators



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Constituency

The attempt to define child well-being and measure it is further complicated because it is influenced by the audience and the target population that are expected to use the indica-tors. The perspectives of policies influence both the domains chosen and the perspectives applied. However, constituencies cannot be understood as separated groups producing indicators suited to their purposes. The purpose and values of different constituencies are not stable; policy-makers, media, NGOs and political movements are heterogeneous social categories, as are groups such as researchers, parents or groups of children. Constituencies also interact and influence one another in complex ways. Indicators on well-being interact with a variety of constituencies, such as the general public, the media, professionals working with children, advocates, the academic world and children them-selves (Ben-Arieh and Goerge, 2001). All these factors influence the construction of domains and the perspective of the indicators.

Different constituencies create demands for different indicators, and different interac-tions between constituencies influence the shaping of the indicators. For example, Kunkel et al. (2006) presented the agenda-setting effect of the media and its role in regard to child well-being indicators. Others have shown how indicators should be composed in order to be understood and used by policy-makers (Moore and Brown, 2006) or the interaction between indicators, policy-makers and the public (Jack and Tonmyr, 2008; Torney-Purta et al., 2008). Furthermore, studies have looked at the interaction between indicators and the academic and professional world (Hanafin and Brooks, 2009), communities (Korbin et al., 2009) and children (Ben-Arieh, 2005; Fattore et al., 2009).

Constituencies represent values, norms and priorities, and illustrate that there is no universal agreement on choice of indicators. The relationship between constituencies and indicators is, therefore, extremely important, identifying the normative aspects of the corresponding set of indicators.

Measurement techniques and tools

Indicators interact with measurement techniques and tools and the choice of measure-ments influences the form and content of indicators. Often the choices of measures are influenced by what is available, and availability influences the values on the indexes constructed (Ben-Arieh, 2009). Available statistics and information will often be in need of interpretation and translation. Information unrelated to children is translated into mea-surements indicating children’s situation, and measures from one domain may be trans-lated into indicators related to another domain. This process has specific nodes or subfields: the unit of observation; the source of information; and whether the indicators are direct or indirect. These subfields interact with one another in a reciprocal way.

The unit of observation. This statistical phrase refers to the focus of the data collection. The unit of observation can vary from the parents or adult caregivers, to the family, the community or even a programme or service. The child indicator movement began incor-porating child-centred indicators, separating (at least for analytical measurement pur-poses) the child from his or her family. Gradually, the child was established as the unit of




observation (Sauli, 1997). Furthermore, it is not only important to identify the voice of children and to anchor that voice in its contexts, the validity of indicators is often based on the simultaneous use of a variety of perspectives. This refers not only to what is often termed triangulation, observing the same phenomena from various perspectives, but also to a combination of measurements from different sources of information and from differ-ent domains, while maintaining the child as the unit of observation. The child as a unit does not imply that the child is understood as a monad separate from the context; the child as a unit is an analytical precondition for grasping the influences of the variety of contexts in which the child exists.

Source of information. The mechanisms used to collect data for indicators are affected by the richness of children’s lives. This implies that no single source of information would have been complete or sufficient. Thus, a need exists for using different sources of infor-mation: census and surveys, social research (ranging from longitudinal methods to eth-nographic) and administrative data from a variety of sources. As for the source of information, more studies are moving towards using the child as their source of informa-tion, related both to information about the subject child and to other children, other groups and information on institutions and environmental facts. While some researchers have raised doubts, ample research shows that studies directly involving children have yielded just as good response rates and reliability as studies using adults (Melton, 2005). Various sources of information may also be related to the child as the unit, ensuring that a variety of sources target the child as a unit, rather than blend the child with various institutional contexts.

Signs and unobtrusive measures. Unobtrusive measures don’t require that the researcher intrude in the context of research. Rather, the researcher utilizes signs and traces left by the subjects or information from other sources that is related to the subjects. Within his-torical oriented analysis, such data are utilized as indicators of historical development and analysis of cultural and social trends is based on natural occurring data. This requires analysis of historical contexts and content. The importance of such analysis is increasing with the expansion of social media and the merging of the life world and the media.

Direct or indirect measures. Indicators of children’s well-being could, and probably should, include both direct and indirect measures. Indirect (surrogate) measures, such as housing density or expenditure on education or health, number of traffic accidents, etc., bears considerable importance for children’s well-being. Yet, children’s well-being should be understood also from the child’s experiences and his or her perspective. This requires the use of direct measures, focusing on the child and his or her status and putting the child in the context of his or her environment.

The perspective or focus

The complexity of well-being requires new perspectives and new approaches. This is illustrated by the dramatic developments in the use of indicators in recent years, which can be summarized in a number of major shifts. The first of these shifts



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established indicators on children’s well-being as a tool for studying social development and well-being beyond survival and basic needs (Bradshaw et al., 2007). Other shifts include the ‘new’ emphasis on the subjective dimension and the move from indicators of risk to indicators of positive outcomes. These are interrelated and are based on the funda-mental expansion from objective indicators on survival and basic needs, to a broader understanding of the complex fields of social needs and well-being (Ben-Arieh, 2009).

These changes are also related to policies. Measures of risk factors or negative behaviours are not the same as measures that gauge protective factors or positive behaviours (Aber and Jones, 1997). The absence of problems or failures does not nec-essarily indicate proper growth and success (Moore et al., 2004). Furthermore, in con-trast to the immediacy of well-being, well-becoming describes a future focus (i.e. preparing children to be productive and happy adults, and to avoid social exclusion). Qvortrup (1994) claimed that the conventional preoccupation with the next generation is essentially a preoccupation with adults, in the sense that their ‘good life’ is post-poned until adulthood (De Lone, 1979). This emphasis on children’s rights in child-hood does not imply that children do not have the right to be well prepared for the future. On the contrary, it suggests that children also have a right to a good life as chil-dren. Studies indicating that measures directed towards the future (like kindergartens) have the most profound positive effects on children from disadvantaged backgrounds, illustrated that different perspectives on well-being have divergent consequences for different groups and social classes. A focus on the happiness of the present, versus the future, looks different from the perspective of, for example, the dominating middle-class in Europe than it does from the perspective of immigrant parents seeking to secure their children a future in a new context.

Finally, much of the research on children’s lives has, until recently, focused on objec-tive descriptions, and statistical analysis often treats children as passive objects who are acted on by the structures of the adult world, producing a form of determinism, even within the framework of probabilities. The underlining of children as actors and subjects requires that the search for objective measures has to be coupled with the subjective perspective of the children (Casas et al., 2004), and the identification of the best interests of the child. The need for children’s subjective experiences is partly rooted in children’s rights to a voice, and partly in the fact that information on children’s life world is doomed to be skewed, as long as the children’s own perspectives are lacking.

The perspectives chosen are rooted in scientific theories as well as political or social interests. Different perspectives represent not only different approaches to well-being, they influence, and even shape, the understanding of well-being, and by this the ‘level’ of well-being.

The child indicators

It is important to examine the last level – that of the child indicators themselves. Again, one must acknowledge the fact that different types of indicators coexist within this level. The literature usually refers to outcome measures, to indicators of inputs and to indica-tors of children status (Land, 1975; Land and Ferriss, 2010). Figure 2 portrays the three types of indicators and their interactions.




Indicators of inputs. The capability approach (Sen, 1999) calls for examining investments and inputs that are intended for children’s well-being and which the children will be capable of utilizing. Child indicators have long been used for monitoring investments in child services and programmes. Expenditure on education, health and social services on the national, regional or local level are examples of such input indicators. Allocations of social workers and teachers, as well as class size, are all examples of input indicators. Similarly, evaluations of programmes and services utilize intervention indicators and these indicators monitor the effect of an intervention or programme. One example of this approach would be an examination of the number of children who succeed in tests fol-lowing preparation programs ranked against the entire number of test participants.

Yet, input indicators encompass more than just measures of investment of evaluation or intervention. Child indicators have long been about risk factors in children’s lives and measurement has been carried out in an effort to prevent such hazards. Recent years have brought into focus another type of input indicator: indicators of protective or positive factors in children’s lives (i.e. a sense of belongingness) aimed at monitoring children’s well-being and not merely children being kept safe from risks. Risks factors, protective factors and factors expected to bring positive outcomes, are all operating in the present as expected trajectories. Input encompasses the identification of the effects of ‘natural’ factors and the policies and implementation that affect these factors. Intervention repre-sents external inputs and natural factors represent parts of the environment that are iden-tified as factors related to analysis.

Outcome indicators. Building on input indicators, and especially on the investment and intervention indicators, recent years have seen a splurge of outcome indicators. In essence, these measures are trying to connect a series of desired outcomes in children’s lives to the level of investment, or to specific programmes or services, showing their consequences. At their best, these tools could present causality. However, in some cases,

Outcomes

Economic

Emotional

Physical

Social and legal

Status as description

Status as process

Protective factors

Risk factors

Interventions

Investments

A consequence of status

A result of interventions

In relation to investment

A means to explore causality

Status of childrenInputs

Figure 2. Three types of indicators and their relations



472 Childhood 18(4)

these indicators might be misleading. For example, outcome-based indicators for evaluating the educational system focus on the achievements of children who are enrolled in the educational system, and do not measure the effectiveness of the general education system (Vanderwood et al., 1995). Outcome indicators may be based on a variety of perspectives, and an empirical as well an analytical framework, illustrating that the per-spective and the framework need to be articulated. A perspective on marginalization, related to the educational system, requires a different set of indicators than a focus on the quality of the educational elite. In that regard the work of Land and colleagues (Land et al., 2007) of measuring changes in child well-being in the USA can serve as an exam-ple for a system of analysis based on outcome indicators. Specifically, that system is based on the results of subjective well-being studies (of happiness and life satisfaction) that have identified content areas that occur over and over again – for guidance in the selection of domains of well-being and statistical indicators within those domains.

Indicators of children status. Sen (1999) argues that inputs and even outputs, while impor-tant, are not enough to understand and monitor well-being. The capacity to utilize the opportunities is at the core of well-being. Thus, measuring well-being cannot be confined to inputs or outputs, but must include the total well-being of children, with regard to the entire population. Bearing in mind the example of students’ success in tests within the educational system, one can look at different populations; any change in the evaluated population (i.e. the indicator type) changes the results. A narrow perspective that looks only at students that took the exams can indicate if the system is efficient. Did it succeed in preparing the students for their exams? When looking at the entire, relevant child popu-lation (not only those who took the exam or even those who were enrolled in school at the appropriate age group), we obtain a picture that indicates not only the system’s efficiency but also its total effectiveness (how well it reaches its target population).

The life world of children has to be related to different groups, both descriptively and related to the processes of development of well-being. The capability perspective blurs present and the future, being and becoming; the present represents both the quality of life in the present and the capabilities developing towards the future. The perspectives of well-being transform the understanding of children’s status from static to process, and from a descriptive framework to an inferential framework, in the sense that the descrip-tive data are interpreted within a process framework. The status of children refers both to a descriptive level, as subjective and objective descriptions of positions on different dimensions, and to a process level, understanding status as a process interacting with the factors identified as input.

The interactions between different circles

Thus far, we have discussed the various levels affecting child indicators and the interrela-tions between these levels. Yet, we have made it clear from the beginning that these dif-ferent circles interact with one another. Figure 3 presents a general scheme of these interactions. It suggests that the different contexts are interactive, with and among one another, and that the child indicators are both a consequence of the various context levels and also an influencing factor on them.




Indeed, all levels of the diagram are interacting with each other and in a two-way direc-tion. Others have already argued that the major shifts in the perspective and focus have led to the rapid development of new indicators and the child indicators movement and, as a result, new advancements have been made in measurement and methodology (Ben-Arieh, 2010). Yet, less attention was paid to the interactive relations between these two contexts (i.e. the influence of perspective and focus on the measurement, and vice versa). Furthermore, while we know that the constituency and the structural factors, many times, determine not only what to measure but also how and from what perspective (Little, 2006), the interaction between the constituencies and the set of indicators, as well as the frame-work of understanding, is analysed to a limited degree. The discourse on the construction of indicators, involving different disciplines, organizations and political agencies, is partly a discourse of a scientific level, partly on the level of constituencies. The status of children can be angled as a process, and as description of status, freezing a point in time.

Concluding thoughts

A framework of understanding also constitutes the boundaries of the idea and concept of well-being. Indicators on children’s life situations may refer to the framework of well-being, or to aspects of this framework, but measures of, for example, educational success on the national level, level of leisure activities or size of family homes, are not,

Constituency

Structural and influencing factors

Indicators

The measurement techniques and tools

The framework of understanding; well-being as capability for development

The indicator perspective/focus

Positive or negative

Survival and basic needs or quality of life

Well-being and well-becoming

Source of information

Direct or indirect measurement

Subjective or objective

Unit of observation

Outcomes Status of children Input

Figure 3. Between circles relations



474 Childhood 18(4)

as such, related to the perspective of well-being. The development and use of indicators is driven by a set of different forces, rooted in divergent constituencies and frameworks of understanding.

Indicators are used to identify trends and evaluate policies and interventions. Related to the CRC, indicators seek to identify implementation and outcomes. Related to distributive justice, indicators seek to identify the positions of children and groups of children in the processes of distribution of goods. The conception of well-being offers not only a frame-work for the understanding of children’s lives, when combined with the development of indicators it provides a framework that bridges the normative/political and empirical level.

Related to children, and childhood, some perspectives are more developed than others. However, this does not imply that the less developed systems of indicators are less important. The complex balancing between the well-being of the present and the future lies at the core of children’s well-being; the definition of the balance is rooted in values as well as in the historical context and the social position of the various groups.

Indeed, indicators are signs of process and status; they are signs of the present and the future; they are signs of possessions and capabilities; and they are signs of invest-ment and outcomes. The effort to clearly define indicators of children’s well-being must deal with its multi-complex nature, to a degree that clearing the fog around the com-plexity is, in itself, a major contribution. We hope that this article is a modest contribution in that direction.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Note

1. At: wikiprogress.org/w/index.php/Commission_on_the_Measurement_of_Economic_Performance_and_Social_Progress.

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