Children’s Rights International Study Project (CRISP)—A Shift from the Focus on Children’s Rights to a Quality of Life Assessment Instrument

Abstract

Originally designed in the nineties to gather subjective perspective of the importance and existence of certain children’s rights at home and at the school, by students and significant adults, using cross-culturally comparable methodology, the study evolved to gather a number of subjective quality of life assessment indicators. Survey study with different types of closed questions. Three measurements in Slovenia in the last decade, 2,000–3,000 students each sweep, and smaller samples in three other countries. Data base has been built on the importance and existence of key quality of life variables and assessments of the proper age to assume certain adult-like rights that enables comparisons of values cross-culturally and between age groups, and national trends that suggest slight degradation of the quality of life of children in last 15 years. The data gathered using this methodology proved to be culture sensitive (reflecting value hierarchies of rights in different countries), age sensitive (reflecting the evolving capacities of the child to grasp more sophisticated levels of rights and the quality of life assessments), useful tool for monitoring changes in the attitudes of (different groups of) adults towards children in the times of social change and transition, and other measures. The elements of the methodology could be used in future efforts to provide such subjective indicators on a broader international scale, as well as for national monitoring of the quality of life of children.