Advances in children's rights and children's well-being measurement: Implications for school psychologists

Hanita Kosher, Xu Jiang, Asher Ben-Arieh, E. Scott Huebner*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

Recent years have brought important changes to the profession of school psychology, influenced by larger social, scientific, and political trends. These trends include the emergence of children's rights agenda and advances in children's well-being measurement. During these years, a growing public attention and commitment to the notion of children's rights has developed, which is best expressed in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Convention outlines the conditions necessary to ensure and promote children's well-being and calls for the ongoing monitoring of children's well-being for accountability purposes. We articulate advances in children's rights and children's well-being measurement in the context of children's schooling experiences in general and for school psychology in particular. We highlight implications for the assessment roles of school psychologists, who occupy a unique position at the intersection of multiple subsystems of children's overall ecosystems. We argue that the synergy between a rights-based agenda and advances in children's well-being assessment methodology can provide valuable opportunities for school psychology. This synergy can help school communities establish perspective and goals for children's well-being in rights respecting ways, using the most promising well-being assessment strategies.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)7-20
Number of pages14
JournalSchool Psychology Quarterly
Volume29
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2014

Keywords

  • Child well-being
  • Children's rights
  • School psychology
  • Subjective well-being
  • United Nations Convention on Children's Rights

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Advances in children's rights and children's well-being measurement: Implications for school psychologists'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this