International Handbook of Psychological Well-Being in Children and Adolescents: Bridging the Gaps Between Theory, Research, and Practice

348 Pages·2016·8.24 MB·English

by  Bonnie Kaul Nastasi

International Handbook of Psychological
Well-Being in Children and Adolescents
Bonnie Kaul Nastasi 
Amanda P. Borja
Editors
International Handbook
of Psychological
Well-Being in Children
and Adolescents
Bridging the Gaps Between Theory,
Research, and Practice
Editors
Bonnie Kaul Nastasi Amanda P. Borja
Dept. Psychology Dept. Psychology
Tulane University Tulane University
New Orleans New Orleans
Louisiana Louisiana
USA USA
ISBN 978-1-4939-2832-3 ISBN 978-1-4939-2833-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4939-2833-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015947561
Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London
© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole
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contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.
Printed on acid-free paper
Springer Science+Business Media LLC New York is part of Springer Science+Business Media
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This book is dedicated to the promotion and protection of
individual and collective well-being, psychologically healthy
environments, and human rights for children and adolescents
worldwide. We also dedicate this book to the children and
adolescents whose voices are represented herein and to school
psychologists and other professionals who work to promote
and protect child rights and well-being.
Preface
This handbook culminates a multiyear project devoted to better understand-
ing psychological well-being across the world’s cultures and from the per-
spective of children and adolescents whose voices are often neglected in the
research literature. The work represents the efforts of 30 research partners
from across the globe who volunteered their time and energy to enhance our
knowledge of children’s psychological well-being. The project, Promoting
Psychological Well-Being Globally, was initiated at an annual conference of
the International School Psychology Association (ISPA) by a group of inter-
ested researchers and practitioners from different countries. Collectively, this
group echoed the challenge posed by leading experts that we explore psycho-
logical constructs from an emic (insider) perspective rather than continuing to
rely on the etic (outsider/expert) view of scholars who represent the views of
5 % of the world’s population (Arnett, 2008). With this goal in mind, the group
ventured into an ethnographic qualitative study of the domain of psychologi-
cal well-being to develop culturally informed concepts and definitions. From
a small group of school and educational psychologists who met at ISPA, the
project grew to encompass partners from 14 sites in 12 countries. This group
of 30 research partners engaged more than 800 children and adolescents
through focus group discussions and individual depictions of stress and sup-
port within their social ecologies (using ecomaps). Although the study also
included the perspectives of important socializing agents—parents, teachers,
school administrators and support staff, other health/mental providers—this
book represents primarily the voices of children and adolescents, voices that
are seldom heard in scholarly literature. We hope this book not only informs
the thinking of mental health professionals and educators but also illustrates a
process for representing the voices of children and adolescents in our efforts
to improve their lives.
Bonnie Kaul Nastasi
Amanda P. Borja
vii
viii Preface
Reference
Arnett, J. J. (2008). The neglected 95 %: Why American psychology needs to become less
American. American Psychologist, 63(7), 602–614. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.63.7.602.
Contents
1 Introduction to the Promoting Psychological Well-Being
Globally Project ................................................................................ 1
Bonnie K. Nastasi and Amanda P. Borja
2 T he Promoting Psychological Well-Being Globally
Project: Approach to Data Collection and Analysis...................... 13
Bonnie K. Nastasi and Amanda P. Borja
3 Psychological Well-Being in Children and Adolescents
in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil ......................................................... 33
Patricia Sánchez Lizardi and Júlio César Carregari
4 Psychological Well-Being of Students in Estonia:
Perspectives of Students, Parents, and Teachers ........................... 51
Katri Viitpoom and Helve Saat
5 Psychological Well-Being Among Greek Children
and Adolescents ................................................................................ 61
Chryse Hatzichristou, Philia Issari and Theodora Yfanti
6 Sexual Health, Gender Roles, and Psychological
Well-Being: Voices of Female Adolescents from
Urban Slums of India....................................................................... 79
Emiliya Adelson, Bonnie K. Nastasi, Shubhada Maitra,
Divya Ballal and Latha Rajan
7 Psychological Well-Being as a New Educational
Boundary: Findings from Padua, Italy .......................................... 97
Alessandra Cavallo
8 Psychological Well-Being of Children and Youth in Mexico ........ 115
Catherine Perkins, Laura Wood, Kris Varjas and Gina Vanegas
9 Promoting Psychological Well-Being in Puerto Rico .................... 137
Mariny León and Amanda Clinton
ix
x Contents
10 M apping Psychological Well-Being: The Case
of Children and Adolescents in Romania ..................................... 151
Valeria Negovan, Vlad Petre Glăveanu and Elena Stănculescu
11 Psychological Well-Being Research with Children in
Samara, Russia ............................................................................... 171
Irina Chaus, Inna Matasova and Mariia Shatalina
12 W ell-Being Among Slovak Adolescents ........................................ 183
Olga Orosova, Beata Gajdosova and Anna Janovska
13 Youth Perspectives About the Factors that Contribute
to Psychological Well-Being in Negombo, Sri Lanka .................. 201
Asoka Jayasena, Amanda P. Borja
and Bonnie K. Nastasi
14 C hildren of Tanzania: Culturally Specific Resilience
and Vulnerability ............................................................................ 221
Robin Spencer Peterson and Martha Jane Giles
15 L onging for a Balanced Life: Voices of Chinese-
American/Immigrant Adolescents from Boston,
Massachusetts, USA ....................................................................... 247
Chieh Li and Huijun Li
16 E mic Perspectives of Risk and Support: Voices from
Lower Elementary Students in New Orleans,
Louisiana, USA ............................................................................... 271
Patrick B. Bell, Jorge M. Verlenden, Allisyn L. Swift,
Heather L. Henderson and Bonnie K. Nastasi
17 Cross-Cultural Patterns of Children’s Phenomenology
About Stressors and Supports ...................................................... 291
Amanda P. Borja, Bonnie K. Nastasi, Emiliya Adelson
and Zainab J. Siddiqui
18 Facilitating Children and Adolescents’ Psychological
Well-Being: A Practitioners’ Model and Research Example ..... 311
Helen Y. Sung and Michael Cunningham
19 Future Directions in Promoting Psychological
Well-Being Globally ....................................................................... 323
Bonnie K. Nastasi and Amanda P. Borja
Index ...................................................................................................... 331
About the Editor
Bonnie Kaul Nastasi, PhD, (Kent State University, 1986, School Psychol-
ogy & Early Childhood Education), is a Professor in the Department of
Psychology, School of Science and Engineering, at Tulane University, and
codirects the Trauma Specialization in School Psychology at Tulane. Dr.
Nastasi’s research focuses on the use of mixed methods designs to develop
and evaluate culturally appropriate assessment and intervention approaches
for promoting mental health and reducing health risks such as sexually trans-
mitted infections (STIs) and HIV, both within the US and internationally. She
directed a multi-country study of psychological well-being of children and
adolescents with research partners in 12 countries from 2008–2013, which
forms the basis of this book. She has worked in Sri Lanka since 1995 on
development of school-based programs to promote psychological well-being
and conducted programming in the Southern province of Sri Lanka follow-
ing the December 2004 tsunami. She was one of the principal investigators
of an interdisciplinary public health research program to prevent STIs among
married men and women living in the slums of Mumbai, India, from 2002–
2013. She is active in promotion of child rights and social justice within
the profession of school psychology and has directed the development of a
curriculum for training school psychologists internationally on child rights,
a joint effort of International School Psychology Association (ISPA), Interna-
tional Institute of Child Rights & Development (IICRD), Division 16 of the
American Psychological Association (APA), and Tulane University’s School
Psychology Program. Dr. Nastasi is an Associate of the IICRD since 2011;
a past-president of APA’s Division 16; 2013–2014 Co-Chair of APA’s Com-
mittee on International Relations in Psychology; Chair of ISPA’s Professional
Development and Practices Committee; incoming Division 16 APA Council
Representative; and President-elect of ISPA.
Amanda P. Borja, PhD, (Tulane University, School Psychology, 2015; MS,
Tulane University, School Psychology, 2012; Mercy College, MS, Urban
Education, 2007). She received her BA from Binghamton University in 2005,
and was a special education teacher in New York City for 4 years. While at
Tulane, she was a Southern Regional Education Board Fellow, which helped
to fund her research and training. Specifically, her research interests focused
on phenomenology about stress, coping, and psychological well-being
among teachers and children in international contexts. Her dissertation proj-
ect focused on cross-cultural patterns of international children’s stressors and
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