School and Neighborhood: Influences of Subjective Well-Being in Chilean Children

The objective of this study was to analyze the influence of school and neighborhood microsystems on the subjective well-being of children and adolescents. The sample included 1392 students aged between 10 and 13 years from Chile’s Metropolitan, Valparaiso and Biobío regions, who participated in the International Survey on Children’s Well-Being [ISCWeB]. The instruments used are Overall Life Satisfaction, Overall Happiness Scale, General Domain Satisfaction Index and items of the ISCWeB questionnaire. Structural equation model (SEM) tested the theoretical model that explains how school and neighborhood microsystems jointly predict subjective well-being (overall life satisfaction and happiness). The model showed a good fit with a χ2 = 258.34, a CFI index of.952, a RMSEA of.048 and SRMR of.032. In the model, the single item scales of overall life satisfaction and happiness have an explained variance of 16 and 14%, respectively, where they are positively related to both microsystems. Moreover, the school microsystem shows the greatest influence on overall life satisfaction and happiness. The results obtained are valuable, not only because of the correlations with other international studies on this subject, but also because they constitute one of the first studies that analyzes microsystems and their relationship with subjective well-being in childhood and adolescence in Chile.