IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/chinre/v18y2025i3d10.1007_s12187-025-10229-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Host and Refugee Children’s Definition of Happiness: “Give Me a Room”

Author

Listed:
  • Menşure Alkış Küçükaydın

    (Necmettin Erbakan University)

Abstract

Studies on the happiness of adults and adolescents have been conducted in different cultures and associated with different contexts. However, a limited number of studies have directly examined the meaning that children attribute to happiness. Moreover, the happiness of a refugee group and children in the position of hosting them has yet to be addressed. Therefore, this study investigated the meaning attributed to happiness by Syrian refugees and Turkish children. 207 Syrian children (mean age = 9.73, SD = 0.83) and 204 Turkish children (mean age = 8.90, SD = 0.90) participated in the study. A sentence completion test was used in the study. The data were grouped using codes from previous literature and content analysis. The results showed that Turkish and refugee children reported common variables about happiness. However, while refugee children mostly identified happiness with meeting basic needs, Turkish children talked about a pleasant life. By examining refugee and host children’s perceptions of happiness, the study has reached some conclusions about how refugee crises affect people’s emotional and social well-being.

Suggested Citation

  • Menşure Alkış Küçükaydın, 2025. "Host and Refugee Children’s Definition of Happiness: “Give Me a Room”," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 18(3), pages 1053-1072, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:chinre:v:18:y:2025:i:3:d:10.1007_s12187-025-10229-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s12187-025-10229-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12187-025-10229-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12187-025-10229-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Children; Happiness; Refugee;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:chinre:v:18:y:2025:i:3:d:10.1007_s12187-025-10229-7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.