Children's engagement with nature enhances their well-being at both individual and community levels, yet systemic inequalities within local contexts shape children's access, proximity, quality, and safety in natural spaces. Research shows that children's understandings of nature and community are formed through their access to these spaces during their formative years. This article examines environmental subjective well-being (ESWB), an emerging interdisciplinary focus that captures the benefits of children's interactions with the natural environment and their influence on subjective well-being from a child-centred perspective. Understanding ESWB requires a nuanced contextualisation of place and inequality. We synthesise current evidence on children's engagement with nature in community settings and identify priorities for future research. We position children's engagement with nature as a social justice and children's rights imperative, with implications for policy and practice globally, particularly for the Global South.

The role of socio-spatial contexts in promoting children’s well-being in urban planning and design is gaining attention. Nevertheless, the discourse on children’s well-being has primarily been shaped by adults, often overlooking the unique needs and perspectives of younger populations. This interdisciplinary study located in Berlin, Germany, conducted by educational scientists, planners, and architects, challenges this by directly engaging with children through game-based data collection combined with ethnographic research to explore their well-being needs. From children’s centers and schools to digital worlds, neighborhoods, and interactions with crime, children clearly articulate where, how, when, and with whom they create moments of well-being. The findings highlight the importance of children’s centers as well-being hubs, offering insights into how well-being can be nurtured through both physical design and programmatic offerings tailored to children’s needs. A key insight is the role of religious places and family practices, alongside micro-spaces and translocal references provided by neighborhood spaces, in shaping children’s sense of identity and well-being. Additionally, the importance of having access to digital spaces is emphasized by the children. The study contributes to the discourse on child-friendly cities by advocating for multi-scalar planning and design approaches. The research calls for urban planners and designers to integrate children’s perspectives to design spaces that accommodate the full spectrum of children’s well-being needs, including micro-scale interventions and flexible, child-responsive interior designs.

Die Child Well-being Forschung ist ein internationales Forschungsfeld, das in der Erziehungswissenschaft wachsende Aufmerksamkeit erfährt. Studien zu Child Well-being untersuchen Lebenslagen und Lebenswelten von Kindern unter normativen Gesichtspunkten mit Vorstellungen guter, gerechter, rechtmäßiger oder erstrebenswerter Kindheiten. Der Beitrag beleuchtet das Forschungsfeld in seinen interdisziplinären und gesellschaftlichen Kontexten, markiert aktuelle Herausforderungen in theoretischer und methodologischer Hinsicht und stellt dabei jeweils den Einfluss der Kindheitsforschung heraus. Exemplarisch werden Studien aus einem internationalen Forschungsverbund zu Child Well-being vorgestellt, der explorativ untersucht, wie Kinder selbst Wohlergehen konzeptualisieren und erleben und welche Rückschlüsse sich daraus für die Theorieentwicklung ziehen lassen. Der Beitrag schließt mit einem Resümee, das die Potentiale der Child Well-being Forschung für eine differenz- und ungleichheitstheoretisch informierte Erziehungs- und Bildungswissenschaft herausstellt.

Vorgestellt wird ein diskurs- und subjektivierungsanalytischer Forschungsansatz, mit dem sich Prozesse der (Re-)Produktion und Verschiebung von Differenzordnungen im Zuge von Studiengangswahlen qualitativ-empirisch untersuchen lassen. Ausgehend vom Lehrkräftemangel im gewerblich-technischen berufsbildenden Lehramt zielt der Beitrag darauf, Bezüge auf (historische) Differenzordnungen in den Blick zu rücken, die als kulturelle Barrieren Zugänge zum Beruf erschweren. Berufswahlprozesse werden dabei als Prozesse der Subjektivierung im Kontext von Professionskulturen konzeptualisiert. Vor dem Hintergrund von Studien zur historischen Verwobenheit der Professionskultur mit Differenzordnungen wird anhand von Äußerungen aus Gruppendiskussionen herausgearbeitet, wie im Sprechen Studierender (Nicht-) Passungsverhältnisse zwischen Selbst und Beruf diskursiv erzeugt und dabei Differenzierungen relevant werden, die mit Differenzordnungen verknüpft sind. Mit dem analytischen Fokus auf die diskursiven Modi der Herstellung von Nicht-/Passungskonstruktionen kann gezeigt werden, wie in den Äußerungen historisch situierte Differenzordnungen (re-)produziert, irritiert und verschoben werden. (DIPF/Orig.)

This chapter starts from the premise that children's position in intergenerational orders places them in a structurally unequal position in that their social positioning means that the operation of social institutions limits their opportunities to engage in social practices that have implications for their well-being. This structural inequality is ameliorated or exacerbated through systems of necessary and socially created dependency (e.g. via the family and education), which create vast inequalities between groups of children both within and across nations. Starting from this premise, we draw upon our research taken as part of the Children's Understandings of Wellbeing: Global and Local Contexts (CUWB) study, which seeks to understand the relationship between social, political, economic, and cultural contexts, and children's experiences and perspectives of well-being. Using Fraser's theory of justice, which accounts for justice claims along dimensions of recognition and redistribution, we reconstruct, from children's perspectives, certain justice claims that could contribute to a broader normative framework addressing intergenerational inequalities and which has relevance for children from diverse contexts.

The paper outlines a cultural-analytical approach to the phenomenon of the shortage of teachers in industrial and technical vocational schools. It outlines firstly the theoretical perspective on occupational choices as a process of subjectification in the context of professional cultures that are seen as constitutively interwoven with social differences. The paper then uses empirical data from online group discussions (where students talk about the possibility of studying vocational teacher education) to demonstrate exemplarily how the outlined analytical focus leads to insides into discursive practices of differentiations that (re)produce non-/ fitting relations between the self and the anticipated profession. It further investigates how these discursive practices of differentiations are embedded in historical cultures of the professions interconnected with gender orders and other orders of social difference, that (re)emerge, repeat and shift, but still act as cultural barriers in the access to the profession.

This paper aims to contribute to the theory on school-related well-being by applying a qualitative approach that focuses on children’s experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic and conceptualizes them as an epistemic opportunity to reconstruct aspects of school-related well-being from children’s perspectives. Within the framework of the multinational qualitative study Children’s Understandings of Well-being (CUWB), it conceptualizes well-being as a cultural construct and argues for including children’s voices in the process of knowledge production. By drawing on statements from online interviews with 11- to 14-year-old children from Berlin, Germany in spring 2021 during school lockdown and by using a discourse analytical approach, the paper outlines the findings on visibility as a central feature of well-being in school environments that children make relevant for experiences of agency, security, and self. Visibility in school is constructed as a medium of control that subjects their bodies to norms of the school, exposes the individual to the gaze of others, and provides security in the context of the digital sphere and its temptations. The paper argues to systematically include these reflections and assessments of new digital learning arrangements during the Covid-19 pandemic into theoretical concepts on school-related well-being.

Das Konzept des kindlichen Wohlbefindens gewinnt in international vergleichenden Studien zunehmend an Bedeutung und ist von zentraler Bedeutung fur das Verstandnis von Kindheiten und Generationenordnungen in Gesellschaften. Aktuelle Herausforderungen der theoretischen Konzeptualisierung kindlichen Wohlbefindens betreffen die Normativitat des Konzepts, die Art und Weise, wie Kinder selbst Wohlbefinden konzeptualisieren und die Bedeutung sozialer und kultureller Kontexte. Dies gilt auch fur die raumliche Dimension kindlichen Wohlbefindens, die bisher kaum systematisch untersucht wurde. Diese Leerstelle hat erhebliche theoretische und empirische Auswirkungen. In diesem Artikel gehen wir davon aus, dass ein besseres Verstandnis der raumlichen Dimension von Wohlbefinden hilfreich ist, um nicht nur Wohlbefinden aus Sicht von Kindern besser zu verstehen, sondern auch, wie sich Kindheiten aktuell refigurieren. Auf Basis einer vergleichenden, multinationalen qualitativen Studie diskutieren wir den Wert einer raumanalytischen Auswertung jenseits eines methodologischen Nationalismus. Wir stutzen uns dabei auf empirische Beispiele aus Baku (Aserbaidschan), Genf (Schweiz), Berlin (Deutschland), Sydney (Australien) und Tel Aviv (Israel). Unsere Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass Handlungsmachtigkeit, Demokratisierung von Kindheit und die Bedeutung eines translokalen digitalen eigenen Raums zentrale Normen im Verstandnis von Wohlbefinden der interviewten Kinder sind und zugleich Strukturmomente einer gegenwartigen Refiguration von Kindheiten unter je spezifischen lokalen Bedingungen.

Child Well-being research has developed significantly in the last thirty years and is facing challenges with regard to the concepts of child well-being and to the integration of children's perspectives into research (Fattore et al. 2019). The aim of this paper is to highlight the cultural dimension of both challenges and to reflect on cultural approaches towards child well-being and children's perspectives. Culture is defined in this paper as a symbolic order and as a "set of practices" (Hall 2009, p. 2) that produce meaning (Hörning and Reuter 2004; Reckwitz 2002). The chapter starts (in Sect. 2.2) by outlining the relevance of culture as a challenge in the context of developments in child well-being research (Fattore et al. 2019; Ben-Arieh et al. 2014a, 2014b). The chapter aims to summarize central points in the current debates and to reflect on cultural approaches towards child well-being, as well as on epistemological approaches as part of the cultural constitution of knowledge on children. Section 2.3 then outlines the specific analytical approach that the Berlin CUWB study has developed to investigate children's understandings of well-being as cultural constructs. It will reflect on the methodological background of this approach in discourse theory and on the methodological concept of 'theoretical empiricism' and then outlines the objects and units of analysis. Section 2.4 presents some finding on children's understandings of well-being in the context of digital culture as an example, based on published data from different teams that are part of the CUWB network.

Bibliographie: Fegter, Susann/Langer, Antje/Thon, Christine: Diskursanalytische Geschlechterforschung in der Erziehungswissenschaft – Einleitung in den Themenschwerpunkt, Jahrbuch erziehungswissenschaftliche Geschlechterforschung, Jg. 17 (2021), S. 11-22. https://doi.org/10.3224/jeg.v17i1.01