This study explores adolescent well-being during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in two high-income countries from Europe and one middle-income country from South America. The aim is to investigate the correlates of different dimensions of subjective wellbeing in 10-to 16-year-olds from different cultural contexts. Methods: An online, self-report questionnaire was completed by 1,613 adolescents in Luxembourg, Germany, and Brazil between May and July 2020. The outcome variables were measures of life satisfaction and emotional well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study included a range of sociodemographic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal covariates. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and latent variable structural equational modeling. Results: A two-factor model of subjective well-being, consisting of life satisfaction and emotional well-being latent constructs, fitted well with this sample data for Luxembourg, Germany, and Brazil. Results showed that gender, socioeconomic status, intrapersonal factors, quantity and type of schoolwork, and relationships with adults were important common predictors of individual differences in subjective well-being during COVID-19. Fear of illness emerged as the strongest correlate of emotional well-being across the three countries. Conclusions: This study indicates that girls and adolescents from low-income homes may be especially vulnerable to negative secondary impacts of COVID-19 that can affect mental health. It identified several common correlates of subjective well-being in adolescents from different cultural settings, including factors that may be changeable, such as the following: the way adults listen to adolescents, schoolwork during distant learning, and fear of illness. Findings can inform the development of quality interventions for promoting the well-being of adolescents during a global pandemic.

The paper explores children's perspectives of distance education, their learning experiences and school satisfaction in Luxembourg, Germany and Switzerland during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The data stem from an online questionnaire completed by 1773 primary and secondary school children aged 6–16. While the paper uses quantitative and qualitative data, it aligns with the qualitative research tradition and predominantly uses an inductive approach. The findings show that teachers offered varied types of distance education and that parents supported children. The children's contact time with teachers and their time spent on schoolwork varied within and between countries. Their school satisfaction dropped in the three countries. The paper calls for training and development on distant education.

This paper makes an attempt to interpret the German debate on social pedagogy as a multifaceted perspective that, whilst diverse in its assumptions about what social pedagogy is, also shows a striking commonality. To exemplify this, we intentionally focus on dominant theories of social pedagogy in Germany, which aim to directly answer the question of what social pedagogy is. However, in attempting to contribute to a clearer understanding of social pedagogy as a theoretical phenomenon, it is not sufficient to describe these theories and the various ideas of social pedagogy they generate. Instead, it is essential to deconstruct how these theories reify their numerous assumptions on social pedagogy. We will therefore argue that it is worthwhile not to focus too narrowly on what is reified as social pedagogy in dominant theories in Germany. Instead, we suggest a careful analysis of how social pedagogy is commonly theorized. Our hypothesis is that, in Germany, prominent theories of social pedagogy reify social pedagogy by means of a distinctively ontological mode of reification. This mode we see as a common pattern of dominant theories of social pedagogy in Germany, regardless of the different objects of social pedagogy produced by these theories. Beyond a mere critique, we intend to also explain this mode at the end of our paper and raise the question whether it might point to a broader concept of how theories of social pedagogy and social work are usually generated in Germany and beyond.

This paper deals with perceptions, encounters and experiences of children with refugees and refugee children in Germany. It is based on the Fourth World Vision Children Study, which is regularly conducted in Germany since 2007. The study is based on a representative survey among 6- to 11-year-old children, which was combined with qualitative case studies and focuses on children´s well-being, their fears, their concerns as well as their attitudes toward other societal groups and contemporary political issues. For the survey of the Fourth World Vision Children Study, in the questionnaire there were also items included which should allow collecting data on children´s encounters and experiences with refugees, and particularly refugees who are their peers. This paper presents the approach taken in the study and how it is embedded conceptually in childhood studies before reporting and discussing selected findings on the experiences of children in Germany with refugees in their neighbourhood and among their peers. The findings presented in this paper refer to contact as well as interactions and opportunities for establishing friendships between refugee and non-refugee children. This is followed by a discussion of the implications these findings have in terms of consequences for supporting refugee children when arriving at Germany. In the conclusion, we will finally point out the implications of our study for the broader field of childhood studies in social sciences.

No abstract