Do children like school – Crowding in or out? International comparison of children's perspectives

Abstract

International studies among children, such as those by the HBSC and PISA, have revealed a gap between school outcomes in terms of academic success and children's subjective wellbeing. This paper aims to focus on the idea of school as a source of subjective wellbeing for children, and uses the analysis of their ‘liking school’ as such an indicator. The data is drawn from the international Children's Worlds Study (2013/2014) funded by the Jacobs Foundation. In this study, children's perspectives are compared over three age groups (8-, 10- and 12-year-olds), from 16 countries worldwide. The analysis reveals a general crowding out trend of ‘liking school’ – i.e. the proportion of children who like going to school, decreases by age; however Ethiopia and Nepal are the outliers, with an opposite trend observed there. The analysis demonstrates a wide variability in how crowding in or out of ‘liking school’ takes place and also aims to outline its determinants: how teachers and other children in school treat them, and how safe a child feels. Not feeling safe at school is the strongest predictor of crowding out for the group who ‘likes going to school’ in all of the 16 countries, while ‘not being left out by classmates’ is the only factor that uncovers universal crowding in potential as children grow older.