Children’s Aspirations, Societal Development and Cultural Sensitivity. Aspirational Profiles Emerging From Data Provided By Children in 22 Countries

Societal development is related to aspirations, which are specific to each culture. Societal goals and aspirations are only partially reflected in national policies, and change with time and across countries as a consequence of the diverse interactions that take place in each territorial context. Children’s aspirations at the population or national level are usually ignored when analysing societal development due to there being a scarcity of large-scale or representative samples of children’s self-reported information in any country. In order to illustrate cultural diversity and how cultural sensitivity is needed to understand the cross-cultural heterogeneity and diversity of children’s lives and aspirations, the 10 and 12-year-old age groups from Waves 1 and 2 of the Children’ Worlds international research project databases have been used. Here we present data provided by children from 22 countries. Different cultural profiles have been identified that influence the intensity of children’s aspirations, and different aspirational profiles have been shown to have different effects on subjective well-being by country. The results show that survey methodology can be used to measure children’s aspirations at the population level and suggest one of the potential procedures for identifying the development goals pursued by children. Data provided by children could be taken as indicators of social change, progress or development – adding them to alternative indexes to the most frequently used development indexes at present—based on economic or health data only. Keeping children statistically invisible hides crucial domains from the public debate on human development goals.