153 © Springer International Publishing AG 2017
J.C. Sarriera, L.M. Bedin (eds.), Psychosocial Well-being of Children and
Adolescents in Latin America, Children’s Well-Being: Indicators and Research
16, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55601-7_8
Chapter 8
School and Neighborhood: Inluences
of Subjective Well-Being in Chilean Children
Denise Oyarzún Gómez, Ferran Casas, Jaime Alfaro Inzunza,
and Paula Ascorra Costa
8.1 Introduction
At the international level, the civil society and governments are interested in the
well-being of children and adolescents, which has led to proposals for its evaluation
in this age group since the late twentieth century, incipiently introducing children’s
and adolescents’ voices as legal subjects and active players in society.
Several studies show that the relationship between the cognitive component of
subjective well-being (i.e. life satisfaction) and sociodemographic variables, such as
age, sex, and socioeconomic status, is weak or that the contribution to their prediction
is modest (Gilman & Huebner, 2003; Huebner et al., 2005; Proctor, Linley & Maltby,
2009). Moreover, the percentage of variance, explained by these variables, ranges
from 5 to 10% (Bradshaw et al., 2011; Rees et al., 2012). Thus, it is assumed that
sociodemographic variables are not capable of explaining the variation of subjective
well-being on their own (Goswami, 2013; Newland et al. 2014; Rees et al., 2012).
D.O. Gómez (*)
Pontiicia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile
Universidad de Girona, Girona, Spain
e-mail: deniseoyarzun@gmail.com
F. Casas
Senior Professor of Social Psychology, Emeritus Professor of the University
of Girona (UdG), Llinars del Vallés (Barcelona)
e-mail: ferran.casas@udg.edu
J.A. Inzunza
Universidad del Desarrollo, Concepción, Chile
e-mail: jalfaro@udd.cl
P.A. Costa
Pontiicia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile
e-mail: paula.ascorra@pucv.cl