View Of Well-being Research Articles

Do good lives make good stories?

Narrativists about well-being claim that our lives go better for us if they make good stories—if they exhibit cohesion, thematic consistency, and narrative arc. Yet narrativism leads to mistaken assessments of well-being: prioritizing narrative makes it harder to balance and change pursuits, pushes us toward one-dimensionality, and can’t make sense of the diversity of good lives. Some ways of softening key narrativist claims mean that the view can’t tell us very much about how to live a good life that we can’t find in other theories of well-being; while there are smaller-scale ways we can incorporate narrativist insights into our views of well-being, narrativism should not be a universal organizing principle for our lives.

Wellbeing and the arts in Irish primary teacher education: aligned or apart? A policy and self-study perspective

ABSTRACT Teacher educators act as a conduit to student teachers of policy and this has an impact on practice. Changes in policy affect how subjects are viewed in terms of their importance. This research seeks to explore the apparent increase in emphasis on wellbeing development in policy which influences the work of arts teacher educators, alongside a declining focus on the arts, and a separation of wellbeing from the arts in policy lexicon. Adopting a self-study approach, this article explores if wellbeing features in our practice as arts teacher educators and how our arts education practice aligns with national policy and curriculum development in the Republic of Ireland. The results of the study outline ways in which arts teacher educators are shaped by policy. Recommendations are made for a broader view of wellbeing in policy, and an experience of wellbeing and arts which is embedded into learning processes in teacher education.

Kaum\u0101tua Mana Motuhake P\u014di: a study protocol for enhancing wellbeing, social connectedness and cultural identity for M\u0101ori elders

BackgroundThe Aotearoa New Zealand population is ageing accompanied by health and social challenges including significant inequities that exist between Māori and non-Māori around poor ageing and health. Although historically kaumātua (elder Māori) faced a dominant society that failed to realise their full potential as they age, Māori culture has remained steadfast in upholding elders as cultural/community anchors. Yet, many of today’s kaumātua have experienced ‘cultural dissonance’ as the result of a hegemonic dominant culture subjugating an Indigenous culture, leading to generations of Indigenous peoples compelled or forced to dissociate with their culture. The present research project, Kaumātua Mana Motuhake Pōī (KMMP) comprises two interrelated projects that foreground dimensions of wellbeing within a holistic Te Ao Māori (Māori epistemology) view of wellbeing. Project 1 involves a tuakana-teina/peer educator model approach focused on increasing service access and utilisation to support kaumātua with the greatest health and social needs. Project 2 focuses on physical activity and cultural knowledge exchange (including te reo Māori--Māori language) through intergenerational models of learning.MethodsBoth projects have a consistent research design and common set of methods that coalesce around the emphasis on kaupapa kaumatua; research projects led by kaumātua and kaumātua providers that advance better life outcomes for kaumātua and their communities. The research design for each project is a mixed-methods, pre-test and two post-test, staggered design with 2–3 providers receiving the approach first and then 2–3 receiving it on a delayed basis. A pre-test (baseline) of all participants will be completed. The approach will then be implemented with the first providers. There will then be a follow-up data collection for all participants (post-test 1). The second providers will then implement the approach, which will be followed by a final data collection for all participants (post-test 2).DiscussionTwo specific outcomes are anticipated from this research; firstly, it is hoped that the research methodology provides a framework for how government agencies, researchers and relevant sector stakeholders can work with Māori communities. Secondly, the two individual projects will each produce a tangible approach that, it is anticipated, will be cost effective in enhancing kaumātua hauora and mana motuhake.Trial registrationAustralia New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry (ACTRN12620000316909). Registered 6 March 2020.

Благополучие и неблагополучие семьи и ребенка в нарративах специалистов по профилактике безнадзорности и правонарушений несовершеннолетних Санкт-Петербурга

В статье представлены результаты подготовительного этапа лонгитюдного исследования, посвященного жизненным траекториям семей и детей, находящихся в контакте с системой профилактики безнадзорности и правонарушений несовершеннолетних г. Санкт-Петербурга. Ввиду недостаточной определенности критериев, регулирующих работу с семьей, в нормативно-правовой документации значительную роль в дальнейшей траектории семьи и несовершеннолетнего начинает играть субъективная оценка ситуации специалистом. Для понимания оснований этой оценки мы провели серию из 11 полуструктурированных экспертных интервью со специалистами Санкт-Петербурга, представляющими разные органы, входящие в систему профилактики безнадзорности и правонарушений несовершеннолетних. При оценке благополучия специалисты использовали как объективные, так и субъективные критерии, которые соответствуют современным научным и практическим тенденциям в понимании этого явления. В ходе интервью подтвердилась гипотеза о высокой субъективности принятия решений и значительной роли специалиста в развитии дальнейшей жизненной траектории семьи. Специалисты продемонстрировали понимание благополучия, созвучное современным представлениям о данном феномене. Они убеждены, что благополучие и неблагополучие семьи определяет благополучие или неблагополучие ребенка, проживающего в ней. Медиаторами благополучия и неблагополучия являются ресурсы (внутренние, внешние) семьи и ребенка. В представлении специалистов семья, соответствующая существующим в обществе нормам, — залог благополучия ребенка. Сообразно этим убеждениям, неблагополучная семья, а именно семья, отклоняющаяся от норм, формирует неблагополучие ребенка. Необходимо дальнейшее исследование критериев и стадий (не)благополучия и выделение индикаторов, позволяющих специалисту ориентироваться в принятии решения о возможностях дальнейшей работы с семьей или ребенком.
 Благодарность. Исследование выполнено в рамках проекта «Социальные траектории детства в современной России», поддержанного грантом Российского научного фонда № 16-18-10372.

A perfectionist basic structure

When philosophers talk about perfectionism, it is usually as a view of well-being, of developing characteristically human capacities. Yet perfectionism can also be a normative account of what we owe to each other. This article argues that perfectionists have reason to endorse a perfectionist basic structure such that enables persons to develop and exercise their human capacities in meaningful ways. This basic structure has two complementary features: First, it enables a diversity of life experiences. Second, it provides a spatial opportunity structure that creates open-minded environments. Absent these features, rich or lucky individuals gain an unfair advantage in the sphere of opportunities for developing their capacities in meaningful ways.

\u2018What kind of life is this?\u2019 Diabetes related notions of wellbeing among adults in eastern Uganda and implications for mitigating future chronic disease risk

BackgroundEffective prevention and care for type 2 diabetes requires that people link healthy behaviours to chronic disease-related wellbeing. This study explored how people perceive current and future wellbeing, so as to inform lifestyle education.MethodsEight focus group discussions and 12 in-depth interviews were conducted in Iganga and Mayuge districts in rural Eastern Uganda among people aged 35–60 years in three risk categories (1) People with diabetes, (2) people at higher risk of diabetes (with hypertension or overweight) and (3) community members without diabetes.ResultsPeople define wellbeing in three notions: 1) Physical health, 2) Socio-economic status and 3) Aspirational fulfilment. Most people hold the narrower view of wellbeing that focuses on absence of pain. Most overweight participants did not feel their condition as affecting their wellbeing. However, for several people with hypertension, the pains they describe indicate probable serious heart disease. Some people with diabetes expressed deep worry and loss of hope, saying that ‘thoughts are more bothersome than the illness’. Wellbeing among people with diabetes was described in two perspectives: Those who view diabetes as a ‘static’ condition think that they cannot attain wellbeing while those who view it as a ‘dynamic’ condition think that with consistent treatment and healthy lifestyles, they can be well. While many participants perceive future wellbeing as important, people without diabetes are less concerned about it than those with diabetes. Inadequate knowledge about diabetes, drug stock-outs in health facilities, unaffordable healthier food, and contradictory information were cited as barriers to future wellbeing in people with diabetes.ConclusionsTo make type 2 diabetes prevention relevant to healthy people, health education messages should link current lifestyles to future wellbeing. Diabetes patients need counselling support, akin to that in HIV care, to address deep worry and loss of hope.

Cultural Moderators of the Influence of Environmental Affordances and Provisions on Children’s Subjective Well-Being

Children’s subjective well-being is determined not only by what are, in themselves, satisfying; it is also determined by affordances and provisions that facilitate the attainment of capabilities for them to later on pursue their goals. Country and culture context, however, may influence how strongly affordances and provisions contribute to children’s subjective well-being. As children are socialized in their culture’s endorsed goals and understanding of a good life, their subjective well-being becomes linked to factors that help develop capabilities consistent with these goals. Data from the eight-year-old sample (Wave 2) of Children’s Worlds: International Survey of Children’s Well-Being were used in multilevel analyses to test interactions between hypothesized individual-level predictors and country-level moderators. Results show that children who have more material resources and move about in safer and more adequate spaces have higher levels of multidimensional life satisfaction (MLS) and subjective material well-being (SMWB); children who more frequently engage in worthwhile out-of-school activities have higher levels of MLS but not of SMWB. Both MLS and SMWB are more strongly predicted by safe, adequate living spaces in countries with high inequality-adjusted human development index (InHDI) or with collectivist cultures; these are also more strongly predicted by material resources in countries with restraint cultures. Moreover, SMWB (but not MLS) is more strongly predicted by material resources in countries with low InHDI or with individualist cultures. Results of the current study are generally consistent with the view of well-being as a psychological construct that changes with children’s material and cultural milieu.

Well-being orthodox theories and Islamic views

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess orthodox theories of well-being in western civilization at first, and second, to investigate Islamic views regarding this concept. Then, comparing these two groups of views, it tries to show that there is a kind of convergence between them that it provides a common point for political aspect of well-being. Design/methodology/approach – To investigate this convergence, orthodox theories of well-being were analyzed critically and Islamic views were revealed. Both orthodox theories and Islamic views of well-being were discussed theoretically (not practically) via descriptive-analytical method and based on a philosophical approach. Since the problem that this paper is going to involve and resolve is conceptual (concept and nature of human well-being and finding a common point among different theories), so the proper method will be the descriptive-analytical and dialectic discussion. Findings – This paper found that, despite some similarities between orthodox theories and Islamic views of well-being, the most important difference between Avicenna and hedonistic view is his approach to the concept of enjoyment and his spreading of the meaning of it. Molla Sadra’s approach to well-being is close to the objective list theories of well-being – particularly that of Sen’s and Nussbaum’s. It is concluded that there is a convergence in theories based on movement from instrumental reason to the intellect in specification and investigation of people’s well-being and its elements. Social implications – There is a kind of convergence, so that we can achieve a common point which could be the base for policy making in national and international level to solve problems arising from complexity, ambiguity and boring and dismal disagreements regarding this concept which is an important obstacle in front of the policy makers. Moreover, moving from instrumental reason to the intellect and considering ethical virtues in people’s well-being could be helpful in removing some social problems such as conflicts between labor and employers and financial crises. Originality/value – Description and calcification theories of well-being especially for economists that they are very far from these subjects and introducing of Islamic views via philosophical approach is absolutely original in this paper. Moreover, paper attempts to show the convergence in orthodox theories and between orthodox and Islamic views in which it provides a common point for practical aspect of well-being.

Behavioral Economics, Happiness Surveys, and Public Policy

Two important developments in recent policy analysis are behavioral economics and subjective-well-being (SWB) surveys. What is the connection between them? Some have suggested that behavioral economics strengthens the case for SWB surveys as a central policy tool, e.g., in the form of SWB-based cost-benefit analysis. This article reaches a different conclusion. Behavioral economics shows that individuals in their day-to-day, “System 1” behavior are not expected utility (EU-) rational – that they often fail to comply with the norms of rationality set forth by EU theory. Consider now that the standard preference-based view of individual well-being looks to individuals’ rational preferences. If the findings of behavioral economics are correct, an individual’s answer to a question such as “How satisfied are you with your life?” is not going to tell us much about her rational (EU-compliant) preferences. Behavioral economics, by highlighting widespread failures of EU rationality, might actually argue for an objective-good (non-preference-based) view of well-being. However (except in the limiting case of an objective-good view positing a single mentalistic good, happiness), SWB surveys will not be strong evidence of well-being in the objective-good sense. In short, SWB surveys are no “magic cure” for the genuine difficulties in inferring rational preferences and measuring well-being underscored by behavioral economics.

ATHLETIC POLICY, PASSIVE WELL-BEING: DEFENDING FREEDOM IN THE CAPABILITY APPROACH

Abstract:G.A. Cohen has criticized the capability approach for focusing on individuals’ freedom – their capability to control their lives – and ignoring benefits achieved passively. He argues that this view of well-being is excessively ‘athletic’. However, if the capability approach is employed to guide egalitarian public policy, capabilities are the appropriate goal of just distributive policies, not just components of individual well-being. When understood as a policy-guide, I argue that the capability approach's focus on ‘athletic’ individual freedom and control is justified: in the public domain, it is important not just that individuals receive benefits, but that they participate in their achievement.

La configuración de la recreación acuática en España: estudio de su evolución en el cambio de siglo (The configuration of aquatic recreation in Spain: a study of its development at the turn of the century)

Estudios publicados en nuestro país recogen que las actividades físico-deportivas figuran entre las más elegidas por los ciudadanos para ocupar el tiempo de ocio. Además, en los reconocidos y periódicos estudios sobre los hábitos físicos de los españoles del sociólogo García Ferrando aparece la denominada natación recreativa entre las primeras posiciones en las últimas décadas. Este dato es el punto de partida de este trabajo en el que se pretende analizar y reflexionar sobre qué prácticas físico-deportivas abarca este concepto. Utilizando distintas evidencias, el objetivo de este trabajo es indagar en la recreación acuática, su andadura en nuestro país desde sus orígenes, los factores que determinan su evidente evolución y las tendencias a las que se ha visto encauzada. Bien desde la influencia del movimiento Deporte para Todos hasta los efectos de la posmodernidad, o bien desde el juego como esencia hasta la perspectiva integral de bienestar, el deambular de la recreación en los equipamientos acuáticos en nuestro país se ha estado nutriendo de factores diversos desde sus inicios en la pasada década de los 80.Palabras clave. Recreación acuática, conceptualización, ocio, equipamientos acuáticos.Abstract. Studies published in Spain show that physical activities and sports are among the most frequently chosen activities by the public to spend their leisure time. In addition, in the well-known and periodic studies about the physical habits of the Spaniard conducted by the sociologist García Ferrando, recreational swimming has been appearing on the top positions during the last decades. This fact is the starting point of the present study, which aims to explore and reflect on the physical activities and sports involved in this concept. Different sources will be used to reach the purpose of the study, which wants to explore aquatic recreation: its evolution in Spain since its inception, the factors that have determined its considerable growth in popularity and the actual trends it presents. From the influence of the Sport for All movement to the effects of postmodernism, or from the essential meaning of play to the holistic view of well-being, since its conception in the 1980s, the evolution of recreation in aquatic facilities in Spain has been nourished by different factors.Key Words. Aquatic recreation, conceptualisation, leisure, aquatic facilities.

Ethics & Politics: Impact on New Firm Formation

New firm formation indicates the dynamism of an economy. The supporting context, in which new firm formation takes place, has individual, cultural and political connotations. The entrepreneur searches for opportunity, contributes the investment, takes the risk and builds the organization. In all the processes involving organization building, the entrepreneur exhibits highest level of ethical standard. Ethics becomes of paramount importance, since it forms the base, the common and shared value system around which the organization and larger community interacts. Lack of ethics jeopardizes the sustainability of the organization. If the promoter is suspected or found to be unethical, then the organization looses the goodwill and base upon which it stands. However, politics being a system of governance has significant impact on new firm formation. It creates the milieu in which organization takes birth, gets directed and thrives. Politics being central to the governance, has access to information, resources, and mechanism. At the same time politics ensures the balance of larger public interest, societal goals in comparison to the business interest of the entrepreneur, shareholders and employees of any organization. It tries to resolve the dichotomy involved. Thus, the context of Ethics and Politics has tremendous impact on new firm formation and entrepreneurship. Politics is also impacted by the existing firms and new firm formation. Politics has to ensure the economic growth and development, leading to financial betterment of the public. At macro level; income, price, interest, supply, demand etc are used to judge the efficacy and efficiency of political process. Similarly at micro level politics has impact in influencing the individual betterment. Politics and Firm economics form a bidirectional symbiotic relationship. If the relationship is not symbiotic, then the system goes to a higher level of entropy and creates chaos. Ethics is individualized in nature, relates to broader view of wellbeing of the individuals, society and nature. Ethics is supra to regulatory framework. In this sense we can understand that laws and regulations are minimal ethics. This paper takes the extant literature, example and practices from different fields and analyses in the context of Odisha

Wellbeing in the New Zealand Curriculum

This study examines the usage and contexts of wellbeing in New Zealand’s curriculum, a formal statement of education policy enacted by a democratically elected government. The analysis is guided by a current model of student wellbeing rooted in seven, interdependent domains: Having, Being, Relating, Thinking, Feeling, Functioning, and Striving. Identification of explicit and implicit references to wellbeing in the NZC provides a rare opportunity to locate areas of alignment between governmental indicators and these domains. The scope of analysis is deliberately broad, thus providing a transferrable model for curriculum analysis from the perspective of student wellbeing. This study found that words and phrases cluster around constructs associated with the Relating domain, and that the Feeling domain was under-represented by the curricular language. This suggests that a New Zealand educational view of wellbeing may differ from how it is conceptualized in the literature. Qualitative content analysis of a national curriculum invites further study into how wellbeing is understood and experienced by students and teachers, and how their views align with the intended curriculum. This exercise can be adapted by educators practicing in different schooling contexts, resulting in site-appropriate indicators relevant to their own guiding principles and educational aims.

Well-Being in Development: Comparing Global Designs with Local Views in Peru

Disagreements over development arise in part from different ways of thinking about human well-being, an issue explored here with reference to two pieces of empirical research in Peru. The first is an analysis of ontological assumptions underpinning secondary literature on development policy at the national level. The second is the pilot testing of a combined ethnographic and psychometric approach to measuring individuals’ perceptions of well-being. Congruence and disjuncture between the different views of well-being that emerge from this analysis are systematically explored, along with the potential for reducing such gaps as a means to improving development practise. The paper also examines the link between such analysis and the role of what Mignolo refers to as ‘border thinking’ within the geopolitics of knowledge. Les desaccords concernant le developpement resultent en partie des manieres diverses d’envisager le bien-etre humain. Nous examinons cette question en nous appuyant sur deux travaux de recherche empirique menes au Perou. Le premier est une analyse des hypotheses ontologiques sous-tendant la litterature secondaire sur la politique de developpement national. Le second est l’essai pilote d’une approche a la fois ethnographique et psychometrique de la mesure des perceptions qu’ont les individus du bien-etre. Nous examinons systematiquement les contrastes et similarites entre les differentes perceptions du bien-etre reveles par cette analyse ainsi que la possibilite de reduire ces ecarts dans le but d’ameliorer les pratiques de developpement. Cet article examine egalement le lien entre une telle analyse et le role de ce que Mignolo appelle ‘la pensee frontaliere’ dans le cadre de la notion de geopolitique de la connaissance.

From notions of health to causality

In 2005 the European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care (ESPMH) initiated an annual contest for young scholars. Every year an ESPMH prize is awarded to a scholar younger than 35 years of age for a scientific contribution on ethical, epistemological, or other philosophical topics relating to medicine and health care. The first paper in this issue, ‘On the relationship between individual and population health’, has been written by the winner of this prize in 2007, Onyebuchi A. Arah. Compared to the idea of individual health, ‘population health’ is a relatively new, rather fashionable term in the field of medicine and health care. The relationship between individual and population health is partially built on the dichotomization of medicine into clinical medicine and public health. Individual and population health are often seen as absolute and independent concepts. Onyebuchi A. Arah argues that the relationship between the two is largely relative and dynamic. His argument is based on an attempt to include a population perspective on health in definitions of health, particularly by emphasizing the role of the ‘context’ component of any notion of health. The second contribution in this issue, written by Shawn H. E. Harmon, also deals with public health, but this paper is more practical in nature. After having reminded us of the fact that public health is a multidisciplinary and complex phenomenon, the author argues that public health promotion is a moral duty and that, although multiple actors are relevant and necessary to fulfilling this duty, the role of international actors is paramount. The paper especially focuses on one of the most important international organizations in this field, that is, the World Health Organization (WHO). Shawn H. E. Harmon argues that better health can and must be better promoted through a more robust interpretation of the WHO’s role. Together with other international organizations, he argues, the WHO has not yet played its necessary part in promoting ‘health for all’. The third paper, written by Rui Nunes, Guilhermina Rego and Christina Brandao, leaves the difference between individual and public health for what it is. The authors evaluate the role of independent regulatory agencies in the field of health care, as compared to the role of traditional public regulations, with regard to a fair process of equal access to health care and of setting limits to health care. In their argument Norman Daniels’ and James Sabin’s theory of accountability for reasonableness plays a central role. The authors conclude that accountability for reasonableness should be regarded as a landmark of any health care reform. The rationale for limit-setting decisions must be clearly communicated toward the public. Karin Dahlberg, Les Todres and Kathleen Galvin focus on individual health care. They critically review the common standard of ‘patient-centred’ or ‘patient-led’ health care and argue that current patient-led approaches hinder a focus on a deeper understanding of what patient-led care could be. Based on various phenomenological and existential insights they present an alternative interpretation of patient-led care which they call ‘lifeworld-led care’. A philosophy of the person, a view of well-being, and a philosophy of care should be key elements in the further development of this ‘lifeworld-led care’. With the paper of Juha Raikka, ‘The ethical and political evaluation of biotechnology strategies’, we enter a new category of topics in this issue, that is, regulatory aspects of research and new biotechnologies. Juha Raikka focuses on W. Dekkers (&) B. Gordijn UMC St Radboud Nijmegen, 114 IQ Healthcare, Section Ethics, PO Box 9101, 6500 Nijmegen, HB, The Netherlands e-mail: w.dekkers@iq.umcn.nl

A fleeting history of happiness: children's perspectives

The concept of well-being has become part of the Government's agenda, with reports and books suggesting that happiness can be manipulated and that it is in the political interest to promote it. This instrumental view of well-being is examined in the light of children's experiences and their comments on them. These representative attitudes are compared with the accumulated wisdom of philosophers and the changing attitudes to happiness over time.

ENDORSEMENT AND FREEDOM IN AMARTYA SEN'S CAPABILITY APPROACH

A central question for assessing the merits of Amartya Sen's capability approach as a potential answer to the “distribution of what”? question concerns the exact role and nature of freedom in that approach. Sen holds that a person's capability identifies that person's effective freedom to achieve valuable states of beings and doings, or functionings, and that freedom so understood, rather than achieved functionings themselves, is the primary evaluative space. Sen's emphasis on freedom has been criticised by G. A. Cohen, according to whom the capability approach either uses too expansive a definition of freedom or rests on an implausibly active, indeed “athletic,” view of well-being. This paper defends the capability approach from this criticism. It argues that we can view the capability approach to be underpinned by an account of well-being which takes the endorsement of valuable functionings as constitutive of well-being, and by a particular view of the way in which endorsement relates to force and choice.

An Economic View of Well-Being and the Problems of World Poverty

An Economic View of Well-Being and the Problems of World Poverty

The British and Australian view of wellbeing.

Many doctors working in the United Kingdom view Australia as the land of milk and honey, where the sun always shines. However, the rain sometimes falls on Australian doctors too. Peter Cross and Jeff Browscombe investigate the British and Australian perspectives on wellbeing

Concept analysis of well-being.

Traditionally, mortality and morbidity were considered two important indicators of health outcome. Until recently, the measurement of health outcome focused on individuals' subjective perceptions of well-being. Well-being has been popularly used in many scientific disciplines. The definitions of well-being, however, were diverse and inconsistent in previous literature. The ambiguous concept used in research study will impede the development of knowledge and theory. Concept analysis, therefore, is necessary to synthesize the existing views of well-being and distinguish it from other concepts to explicate the meaning of well-being.