Editors´ Foreword
In 2007, World Vision Deutschland commissioned its first representative study. The World Vision Kinderstudie asked 8- to 11-year-old children in Germany about their well-being and how they see the world they live in. The results of this study and the attention it received from the general public encouraged us to commission a further study only 3 years later, and we have also decided to continue with such studies in the future. As a lobby for children, we were delighted to see the benefits of the study's participative approach: The research team succeeded in talking to children directly instead of just talking about them. We were also greatly impressed by the way our study triggered an intense debate throughout Germany over the needs and concerns of children.
In this, the second World Vision Kinderstudie, the tried and tested team gathered by Klaus Hurrelmann (Hertie School of Governance, Berlin), Sabine Andresen (Bielefeld University), and Ulrich Schneekloth (TNS Infratest, Munich) has successfully met the challenge of lowering the age of the children in the survey to 6 years. This gives us scientific knowledge about the well-being of the youngest members of our society, and it enables us to draw conclusions on the various socioeconomic factors influencing their development and on how they themselves view the world they live in.
There are now a great number of national and international studies on "children's well-being." They all indicate that even the youngest children are becoming increasingly aware of both material and felt poverty, and that this influences how they view their future prospects. In a society with ever growing social divides—not least due to the worldwide economic recession—and a higher poverty rate in the Federal Republic of Germany than ever before, there is urgent need for action!
Our long-term goal is to find out and analyze whether and how far studies like the World Vision Kinderstudie, the LBS-Kinderbarometer [child barometer], the German Youth Institute's Kinderpanel [child panel], and the UNICEF study Child poverty in perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries (2007) combined with the growing public discussion on child poverty and well-being in Germany can contribute to a reorientation in society and appropriate political and social reforms.
By interviewing children, the authors of the second World Vision Kinderstudie have once again put together a host of interesting findings and drawn some fascinating conclusions. We hope that this second survey will not only help to give children a voice but also ensure that we pay enough attention to what this voice has to tell us. This is the only way to bring about the necessary changes in politics and society that will grant all children an equal and just start in life. We wish you, the reader, some very informative reading; and we wish all of us in society that this study will help to bring about a life in all its fullness for every single child.
Dr. Hartmut Kopf
Head of the World Vision Institute for Research and Innovation
Silke Hachmeyer
Project manager World Vision Kinderstudie 2010
