Sense of community mediates the relationship between social and community variables on adolescent life satisfaction

The study of subjective well-being in adolescence has had a recent and dynamic
development. Despite this, the meso-systemic contextual factors and their relationship with
well-being have had relatively little attention compared to the micro-social dimensions.
Regarding this context, this chapter aims to examine the association between life
satisfaction with social-communitarian dimensions, and specifically the role that the sense
of community plays in Chilean adolescents. Here, we provide a systematic review of the
literature on the relationship between subjective well-being in childhood and adolescence
with a focus on Sense of Community, Social Well-Being, and Community Support
variables. Next, we analyze the relationship between subjective well-being scales together
with analyzing the role of the sense of community in mediating overall life satisfaction and
its relationship with community support and social well-being. The analysis uses the
Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (SLSS) (Huebner 1991), Sense of Community Scale
(Sánchez 2001), the Social Well-being Scale (Keyes 1998), and Perceived Community
Support Questionnaire (PCSQ; Herrero and Gracia 2007). The target population studied in
this chapter is based on a convenience sample of 438 adolescents of both sexes, aged
between 14 and 18, belonging to public schools, subsidized private schools, and private
schools distributed among seven urban neighborhoods in three regions of Chile. The results
indicate that the sense of community mediates the relationship between community support
and overall life satisfaction in Chilean adolescents. In addition, the sense of community has
a partial contribution to the relationship between social well-being and overall life
satisfaction. The discussion includes an analysis of the implications of these findings for
future studies on adolescent subjective well-being.