Britain best place to be a child!

Beat me to it - I was going to start the thread with something like "Britain tops the world again".

Slightly more serious I've started to read the full report and so far I'm of the opinion that it's not a report that can be dismissed lightly. :(
 
Darat said:
Beat me to it - I was going to start the thread with something like "Britain tops the world again".

Slightly more serious I've started to read the full report and so far I'm of the opinion that it's not a report that can be dismissed lightly. :(
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i thought i'd pre-empt the scandinavian contingent by beating them to a "look how good our country is" thread :)

The rankings in full

1. Netherlands
2. Sweden
3. Denmark
4. Finland
5. Spain
6. Switzerland
7. Norway
8. Italy
9. Republic of Ireland
10. Belgium
11. Germany
12. Canada
13. Greece
14. Poland
15. Czech Republic
16. France
17. Portugal
18. Austria
19. Hungary
20. United States
21. United Kingdom
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6359363.stm
 
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Some author was on Radio 5 this morning saying that the study was flawed becuase a lot of the evidence was anecdotal. I presume that anything regarding drinking, drug use and pregnancy could be independently verified.

He also launched into an impassioned defence of our educators apparently unaware that education was one of the few (the only ?) area where we didn't stink.
 
The Don said:
Some author was on Radio 5 this morning saying that the study was flawed becuase a lot of the evidence was anecdotal. I presume that anything regarding drinking, drug use and pregnancy could be independently verified.

He also launched into an impassioned defence of our educators apparently unaware that education was one of the few (the only ?) area where we didn't stink.
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yes i heard that interview - i didn't think much to his arguments - it seemed to revolve around "well, i came from a poor background, and i've done alright for myself - so this study is wrong...." :rolleyes:
 
andyandy said:
yes i heard that interview - i didn't think much to his arguments - it seemed to revolve around "well, i came from a poor background, and i've done alright for myself - so this study is wrong...." :rolleyes:
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Whatever the quality of the evidence, "experts'" opinions are almost undoubtedly of lower average quality. Rather predictably, child-oriented NGOs declare the findings very bad, opposition MPs likewise, and the government says "it's not accurate". OK then . . .
 
Been reading through the report and there are some areas that I think are perhaps offering unfair comparisons.

For example in the Educational Well being one they use "percentage aged 15-19 remaining in education", but I could see this being quite misleading. For example some countries start educating children later the others so a pupil at age 18 may have only received the same amount of schooling years as one at 16 in another country. I think this would have provided a better metric if it took this account.

There are a few other things like this but on the whole I think they have made a stab at providing a way to compare differences between countries.

However there is one aspect of the report that I think has to be taken with a large pinch of salt and that is the "Subjective well-being of young people,," indeed the report itself acknowledges that data is limited and subjective for this section of the report.
 
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So when it comes to material wellbeing; health and safety; educational wellbeing, family and peer relationships, behaviours and risks; and the young people's own perceptions of their wellbeing we do poorly but what about the important issue.

How many kids in those other countries can say they are British ?
 
How come Britain is "bottom of the league table"? The table shown has 21 entries in it, and Britain is at number 21 - the bottom. But there were 25 countries surveyed (33 if you include non-OECD countries). Okay, so it's not exactly something to be proud of but we were not the very bottom of the heap.
 
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well for starters, they seem to be measuring "relative poverty" - children in households with less than 50% of the national median income.....

which seems a strange inter-country comparative when talking about "poverty" - because what you're really measuring is national social disparity....

to be fair the report itself does note this deficiency.....but a statistic that does not account for actual material wealth or standard of living does seem somewhat misleading when talking about poverty.

p8 of the report....(working my way through it looking for redeeming features :) )
 
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Lothian said:
So when it comes to material wellbeing; health and safety; educational wellbeing, family and peer relationships, behaviours and risks; and the young people's own perceptions of their wellbeing we do poorly but what about the important issue.

How many kids in those other countries can say they are British ?
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Well I did a small study of that and found that most Danish kids could, though the ones under 10 generally had trouble with the pronunciation.
 
Darat said:
Been reading through the report and there are some areas that I think are perhaps offering unfair comparisons.

For example in the Educational Well being one they use "percentage aged 15-19 remaining in education", but I could see this being quite misleading. For example some countries start educating children later the others so a pupil at age 18 may have only received the same amount of schooling years as one at 16 in another country. I think this would have provided a better metric if it took this account.

There are a few other things like this but on the whole I think they have made a stab at providing a way to compare differences between countries.

However there is one aspect of the report that I think has to be taken with a large pinch of salt and that is the "Subjective well-being of young people,," indeed the report itself acknowledges that data is limited and subjective for this section of the report.
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I had just finished reading the full report after following a link from Google News before I logged on here. I see a number of problems with a lot of the questions, many of which are acknowledged in the report.

There is certainly something there for everyone.

As a Canadian I am proud to note that the use of cannabis is highest among our teenagers and that they also score second highest in education. Go figure! :cool:
 
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