Laura Camfield Social Indicators Qualitative Research PDF

Soc Indic Res (2009) 90:531
DOI 10.1007/s11205-008-9310-z
Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries: Reviewing

the Role of Qualitative Methods
Laura Camfield Gina Crivello Martin Woodhead
Accepted: 13 August 2008 / Published online: 12 September 2008

Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008
Abstract The authors review the contribution of qualitative methods to exploring concepts and experiences of wellbeing among children and adults living in developing
countries. They provide examples illustrating the potential of these methods for gaining a
holistic and contextual understanding of peoples perceptions and experiences. Some of
these come from Young Lives, an innovative long-term international research project
investigating the changing nature of child poverty in India, Ethiopia, Peru and Vietnam
(http://www.younglives.org.uk), and others from the Wellbeing in Developing Countries
ESRC research group (WeD), an international, inter-disciplinary project exploring the
social and cultural construction of wellbeing in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru and Thailand
(http://www.welldev.org.uk). The authors show how qualitative methods can be used both
alongside and as part of the development of sensitive and relevant quantitative measures,
and provide some practical and methodological recommendations. They propose that
qualitative approaches are essential in understanding peoples experiences of wellbeing,
both now and in the future. However, the authors caution that while these offer many
benefits, for example, a less structured and hierarchical engagement between researcher
and participant; they require time, energy, and sensitivity. Qualitative methods also work
best when used by trained and experienced researchers working in the local language/s in a
community where some rapport has already been established. Finally, the paper recommends combining data from qualitative and quantitative approaches (e.g. psychological
measures or household surveys) to enhance its explanatory power.
L. Camfield (&)
Young Lives, Department of International Development, Queen Elizabeth House, 3 Mansfield Road,
Oxford OX1 3TB, UK
e-mail: laura.camfield@qeh.ox.ac.uk
L. Camfield
Wellbeing in Developing Countries ESRC Research Group, University of Bath, Bath, UK
G. Crivello M. Woodhead
Young Lives, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
M. Woodhead
Child and Youth Studies Group, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
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L. Camfield et al.
Keywords Wellbeing Mixed methods Qualitative Developing countries

Methodological
1 Introduction
Openness to insights from other disciplines1 has been the hallmark of organizations such as
International Society for Quality of Life Research, reflecting the fluid and multidimensional nature of its object of study. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate through vivid
example the value of qualitative approaches to researchers, policy makers, and practitioners who construct or use social indicators to map quality of life, with the ultimate goal of
enhancing the wellbeing of people in developing countries. It provides a necessarily
selective mapping of the terrain for future exploration and aims to inspire readers to engage
with qualitative approaches to and literatures on wellbeing, even if they do not adopt
qualitative methods. The approaches described in the paper have particular intellectual
histories that we cannot do justice to here; however, this should not prevent a pragmatic
recognition of their potential as a resource within an integrated investigation of quality of
life or wellbeing. For example, the role of participatory methods in understanding, and
possibly even developing indicators of wellbeing is illustrated with studies exploring
understandings of poverty, illbeing, and vulnerability; wellbeing; and resilience.
Concepts of quality of life and wellbeing, which for the purposes of this paper are treated as
synonymous enable engagement with the whole of peoples lives and provide more accurate
representations and measures than approaches that focus explicitly or implicitly on a single
dimension (for example, health or income). However, there are multiple definitions of these
terms that reflect different philosophical traditions, and little consensus, even within disciplines. For example, wellbeing can be used to refer to any or all of the following, all of which
have different implications for research or intervention: a subjective experience or state of
being (Diener 1984); the space where wellbeing can or should occur (Sen 1990) or a process
with wellbeing as its goal (Aristotle, 350 BC); and, after Veenhoven (2000), the liveability
of the environment and the life ability of the person. While definitions of wellbeing are
contested (it is tempting to succumb to the authoritative pessimism of Hird that there is no
accepted definition of wellbeing [2003, p. 4]), there are some common understandings.
These were reflected in McAllisters (2005) recent review of the wellbeing literature which
defined wellbeing as more than the absence of illness or pathology [with] subjective (selfassessed) and objective (ascribed) dimensions; it can be measured at the level of individuals
or society; it accounts for elements of life satisfaction that cannot be defined, explained or
primarily influenced by economic growth (ibid, p. 2).
In the context of research in developing countries these subtleties become more
apparenthow do local people understand wellbeing and how do these understandings
vary according to life phase, gender, socio-economic status, etc., within a single community? How do people pursue what they see as wellbeing or a good life and what trade
offs are they required to make to attain or preserve it? (e.g. between self and household,
present and future) What resources can people draw on in their pursuit of a good life for
themselves, their families, and communities, and what are the political and social barriers?
There is a further question of how far development agencies should take peoples priorities,
1
Two of the three authors trained as anthropologists; two have also engaged extensively with psychological
methods and literatures; and all three have conducted multi-disciplinary research with children and adults in
developing countries.
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Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries
values and visions of wellbeing into account to ensure the credibility and legitimacy of
development (Copestake 2007). Additionally, there is growing interest in how public
conceptualizations of wellbeing are constructed (Deneulin and Townsend 2007), especially
in relation to children (Hood 2007).
These concerns are part of a shift within international development and child indicators
research (e.g. Camfield and McGregor 2005; Ben-Arieh 2006) from a deficit view that
focuses on survival, to one that acknowledges peoples resources and agency and pursuit of
wellbeing. The contribution of qualitative approaches to a focus on peoples resources and
agency is that they can encompass areas of peoples lives that are influential and important,
but rarely measured (for example, spirituality and religious practice). More participatory
approaches also challenge the reliance on experts and proxies by taking a subjective
approach to peoples experiences and treating them as researchers as well as subjects. We
propose that exploring understandings and experiences of wellbeing using qualitative
research is valuable in its own right, as the paper illustrates, and also improves the accuracy
of measurement. Qualitative research can make measures more comprehensible and relevant to respondents, provide contextual information to explain particular outcomes, and
most importantly, ensure that the stylised facts such as the a dollar a day metric that
influence international assistance are based on measures of what matters.
The paper begins with a brief introduction to the important but slippery concept of
wellbeing, describing types of wellbeing research that have been undertaken with adults
and children. This is necessarily selective as wellbeing research is a broad category: most
international poverty research claims to be about wellbeing (e.g. Coudouel et al. 2001), and
studies of childrens development are implicitly about their wellbeing. The paper then
introduces qualitative approacheswhat they are and how they can be helpfulbefore
focusing on two overlapping approaches to research: qualitative (for example, ethnographic, participatory) and mixed method, which combines insights from qualitative and
quantitative. We have ordered the paper in this way as a heuristic device; boundaries
between the approaches are blurred on paper and in practice, and there is no grand
narrative. We have also tried to resist the temptation to compare ideal types rather than
messy realities (for example, the lone anthropologist working for 30 years in a single
community versus a team of participatory action researchers interviewing villagers over
the course of a week). A reality check is provided by including some examples from our
own research with the Wellbeing in Developing Countries ESRC research group (WeD), an
international, inter-disciplinary project exploring the social and cultural construction of
wellbeing in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru and Thailand (McGregor 2007), and Young Lives,
an innovative long-term international research project investigating the changing nature of
child poverty in India, Ethiopia, Peru and Vietnam (Young Lives 2008). The paper concludes with some methodological reflections, including a brief summary of the challenges
of different approaches.
1.1 Research on Wellbeing in Developing Countries
Research into wellbeing and subjective experiences in developing countries is growing
rapidly,2 and represents a paradigm shift towards holistic, person-centred, and dynamic
understandings of peoples lives, which are nonetheless embedded in particular sociocultural contexts (Boyden 2006; Gough et al. 2007; Camfield, Streuli et al. 2008). Peoples
2
See Gough and McGregor (2007) and studies by Biswas-Diener and Diener (2001, 2006), the International
Wellbeing Group, Moller, Graham, Rojas, Camfield, etc.
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values, aspirations, and experiences of happiness or unhappiness are now measured

directly within some large surveys of individuals and households (e.g. the World Values
Survey, South African Quality of Life Trends Study) rather than inferred from proxies such
as income (see Graham 2005; Guillen-Royo and Velasco 2009 for reviews of happiness
economics in developing countries). They are also explored in participatory studies that
attempt to identify the pathways to particular outcomes (for example, chronic poverty),
within the constraints of a cross-sectional study, and the perceived possibilities for change
in the future (see Table 4, Appendix 1 for a summary of the key studies). The inclusion of
subjective experiences and meanings is part of a move within international development
and research on poverty from economic to multi-dimensional understandings of peoples
lives.3 This is because the latter improves our understanding of the former (for example,
the role of social norms and relationships in maintaining community savings groups in
Bangladesh [Goetz and Sen Gupta 1996]).
However, even multidimensional understandings of peoples lives still focus on what
they should have or be able to do, rather than what people think and feel about what they
have and do (McGregor 2007), which is an obvious role for subjective measures and
qualitative methods. Multidimensional approaches also fail to acknowledge the interpersonal and recursive aspects of wellbeing; for example, the base of shared social and
cultural capital that defines locally defined necessities or what a person needs to participate and aspire (Gudeman 2004, p. 9). By this we mean that peoples experiences and
evaluations of their lives are shaped by their perception of their environment and themselves, in the context of what they value and aspire to. The rationale for taking wellbeing as
the focus is that it places the person, in their relationships and surroundings, at the centre;
Rojas describes this as engaging with a person of flesh and blood in her circumstance []
rather than the wellbeing of an academically constructed agent [2007, p. 261]). Qualitative approaches in particular foreground the presence of both the respondent and the
researcher, which highlights the fallibility of all data collection by emphasizing their role
in its co-creation, and encourages reflexivity about the selective process of interpretation
and representation.
Methods to explore wellbeing can be highly contextual, so people are not separated
from their environments, and sensitive to human diversity and its interaction with the
dynamics of power (McGregor 2007; Boyden 2006). The WeD group, for example,
characterizes wellbeing as a state of being with others, where human needs are met,
where one can act meaningfully to pursue ones goals, and where one enjoys a satisfactory
quality of life (2007). Peoples hedonic experiences (for example, pleasure or emotions)
are undeniably important: the New Economics Foundation defines wellbeing as the quality
of peoples experience of their lives (Shah and Marks 2004) and the cognitive psychologist
Kahneman characterizes it as wanting ones current experience to continue (1999).
However, peoples values and aspirations also play a role; in particular their response to
the central question is my life going well, according to the standards that I choose to
use?4 (Diener). White (2007) makes a further valuable distinction between living a good
life (values and ideals), having a good life (material welfare and standards of living), and
locating ones life (experience and subjectivity).
See Sumner 2007 and the literature published by the WIDER research project on measuring human
wellbeing (e.g. McGillivray 2006; McGillivray and Clarke 2006).
See also the work of philosophers writing on these issues such as Valerie Tiberius, Mark Chekola, and
Daniel Haybron.
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As an integrative or umbrella concept, wellbeing provides the opportunity to combine

diverse literatures and methodological approaches to attain a holistic picture of peoples
lives. It enables researchers to explore firstly the way that wellbeing is grounded in and
mediated by social, cultural and political structures and processes. Secondly, the centrality
of relationships to understanding, pursuing, and achieving wellbeing, and finally, the
inevitability of trade-offs and contradictions in this pursuit. In the following section we
briefly outline the role of qualitative and mixed methods approaches in researching
wellbeing and provide examples of their value in studies with both adults and children.
1.2 Methodological Approaches to Wellbeing
We have loosely categorized the approaches to wellbeing discussed in this paper as
qualitative and mixed methods, recognising that even pure quantitative approaches often
contain an element of qualitative work (for example, focus groups or interviews to generate
the items for measures), aside from the qualitative aspects of survey administration
(Olsen and Morgan 2005). Similarly distinctions within the category of qualitative research
relate as much to how researchers choose to position themselves as to any fundamental
difference in ethos or method (for example, the claims made by some participatory
researchers or ethnographers that their research empowers or provides unmediated access
to peoples deepest experiences) (Table 1).
Table 1 Overview of the approaches described in this paper
Approach
Distinctive feature
Methods
Examples
Qualitative,
including
ethnographic
and
participatory
approaches
Holistic & flexible, indepth, usually arising

from long-term
engagement. More
participatory work
involves active, if often
brief, engagement to
involve people in
describing, interpreting,
and occasionally
changing their reality
Interviews; narratives, e.g. E.g. understandings of a

good life in Cairo
biographical essays or
(Wikan); concepts of
accounts of illness; life
wellbeing in Bolivia
histories, participant
(Calestani 2008) and
observation,
among the Cree (Adelson
predominantly task-based
2000); Consultations with
group or individual
the Poor (Narayan et al.
activities (e.g. body
2000); studies of urban
mapping, time use
violence in Columbia &
diaries)
Guatemala (Moser 2003,
2004); developing a QoL
toolbox in Madagascar
(Farnworth 2004)
Mixed-methods
e.g. WeD, Young Lives,

Combines the opportunities Combination of survey,
combining Participatory
qualitative, &
and challenges offered by
Poverty Assessment &
participatory methods or
different methods and
surveys in Uganda
data (e.g. household
analytical approaches;
(Lawson et al. 2006;
surveys & participatory
increases data validity
McGee 2004) and
poverty assessments or
through iteration &
Rwanda (Howe and
life histories); analysis &
triangulation & enables
Mckay 2007), combining
presentation using
targeting of findings to
surveys & life histories in
quantitative & qualitative
different audiences
Bangladesh (Baulch and
approaches
Davis 2007), structured &
open-ended exploration
of peoples visions of the
good in South Africa
(Clark 2002)
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1.2.1 Qualitative
The sub-section on qualitative methods covers ethnography, and common ethnographic
techniques such as semi-structured interviews and participant observation, and task-based
participatory methods such as drawing. It also discusses the benefits from taking a more
participatory approach, whatever methods are used. Wellbeings location in the disciplinary and methodological borderlands makes it a classic object of anthropological
attention (Thin 2005; Corsin-Jimenez 2007). Wilk suggests using ethnography to study
wellbeing in the same way as it is used to study power (and by extension poverty)
where
Unpacking the various meanings of this term has helped make many of us understand
that it is objective and subjective, measurable and experiential aspects are really two
parts of the same whole. The objective reality of the exercise of power cannot be
separated from the beliefs and feelings that motivate, activate, and justify it. Victimisation and empowerment are subjective as well as objective
(1999, p. 93)
Although some anthropologists accuse their discipline of neglecting wellbeing (e.g. Thin
2005; Wilk 2008), much early anthropology, for example, Margaret Meads study of
teenage life in Samoa (1928), is grounded in a powerful critique of modernity, possibly
driven by a romantic vision of the other that relates to the anthropologists own desire to
find an alternative vision of wellbeing (for example, one that draws on the deep
connections to ancestors and community that were considered absent in the West). These
motivations may be familiar to contemporary researchers of quality of life and wellbeing.
Despite applied anthropologys checkered history (e.g. Keesing 1945), it has produced
ethnography: a research methodology that is grounded and flexible, and capable of generating new and surprising information about the way in which people see the world
(Hammersley and Atkinson 1995). This is even the case when these tacit understandings
(Giddens 1997, p. 169) [are] so profoundly internalised that they cannot be asked about
directly (White and Petitt 2005, p. 26). For example, White and Petitt argue that using
participatory methods to access local perceptions of the good life may not capture the
deepest values of what people consider well-being (for example, a respondents concern
about the state of their eternal soul) as these are beyond the frame of a wellbeing ranking
(ibid). Thin similarly proposes that wellbeing needs to be set in the broader context of
anthropologys concern with moralitywith what it means to be good, to live a good life
and to organize social processes and institutions that facilitate or inhibit virtue and wellbeing (2005, pp. 45).
Ethnographic methods provide what the interpretive anthropologist Geertz characterizes
as thick description which attempts as far as possible to provide an insiders perspective
on peoples understandings and actions (our own constructions of other peoples constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to [1973, p. 9]). The illustration
Geertz gives of thick description is the difference between a blink and a wink; one is
an involuntary twitch, while the other can be a conspiratorial signal to a friend, or even a
parody of that signal to confuse an observer. The physical movement is identical but each
has a distinct meaning (as anyone unfortunate enough to have had the first taken for the
second knows [Geertz 1973, p. 6]), which varies between different contexts and cultural
systems. Geertz provides an example of thick description from his own research when he
was an involuntary participant in a police raid on the village cockfight, which gave him an
experiential understanding of one of the main components of Balinese wellbeing:
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Getting caught, or almost caught, in a vice raid is perhaps not a very generalizable
recipe for achieving that mysterious necessity of anthropological field work, rapport,
but for me it worked very well. It led to a sudden and unusually complete acceptance
into a society extremely difficult for outsiders to penetrate. It gave me the kind of
immediate, inside view grasp of an aspect of peasant mentality that anthropologists not fortunate enough to flee headlong with their subjects from armed authorities
normally do not get. And, perhaps most important of all [] it put me very quickly
on to a combination of emotional explosion, status war, and philosophical drama of
central significance to the society whose inner nature I desired to understand
Geertz (1973, p. 416)
Geertzs description illustrates the potential of ethnography for understanding how people
conceptualise wellbeing, how this changes over time and in response to particular
experiences, and what sacrifices people are prepared to make in its pursuit.5 As peoples
meanings are often deeply buried-Bourdieu describes how what is essential goes without
saying because it comes without saying (1977, p. 167)it may be necessary to
supplement direct questions about wellbeing with participant observation, and listen to
respondents speaking in their own terms, rather than in the slightly artificial context of an
interview or participatory exercise. The examples given in the paper illustrate the potential
of ethnography as a method for studying wellbeing; for example, exploring local
understandings of wellbeing (e.g. Calestani 2008), collecting detailed information on the
experiences of people living in poverty using longitudinal ethnography (e.g. Wikan
1985), and contextualizing understandings of peoples lives and livelihoods (e.g. Reynolds
1991). While a rich and holistic understanding can be gained through ethnography or
longitudinal qualitative research, reassuringly even a single interview can provide insight
into what someone means by quality of life or wellbeing, as described in the section on
mixed methods. This is especially so in the context of responding to a measure of
wellbeing, as described in Section 2.2.
The conventional distinction between participatory and qualitative and ethnographic
methods is an artificial one as participatory methods are obviously a subgroup of qualitative methods, and many qualitative and ethnographic studies of childrens wellbeing use
group or task-based activities (e.g. Punch 1998). Ethnography can also encompass the
altered researcher/researched relationship (for example, the anthropological classic
Reflections on fieldwork in Morocco [Rabinow 1997]), where participants have some
role in setting the agendas of the research, the course of data collection, and/or analysis and
presentation of results. Conversely, so-called participatory methods encompass many
degrees of participation, as illustrated by Harts ladder of child participation (1992), which
moves from child-initiated and directed to manipulation. Participatory research on
poverty is distinct from mainstream economic approaches in its emphasis on experiential
aspects of poverty such as being respected, having meaningful choices, and being able to
preserve ones dignity (e.g. Brock 1999). As in all qualitative research, participatory
studies aim to be experience-near, but they also aim to create a space for people to share
and reflect upon their experiences and to conduct research that generates valuable outcomes for participants, policy makers, and practitioners. Good participatory work can
widen the lens to include aspects of peoples lives that are often overlooked in purely
quantitative studies such as companionship, everyday pleasures, and sources of meaning
5
The acceptance tale that Geertz recounts can also be seen as an example of the anthropological rhetoric
critiqued by Clifford and Marcus (1986).
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that enable them to sustain their wellbeing in insecure and resource-poor environments
(Laderchi 2001; White and Pettit 2005; Camfield and McGregor 2005). The process of
collective discussion and decision is seen as a good in itself, which can also spur collective action (e.g. the Participatory Learning and Action approaches advocated by Reason
and Bradbury 2000), for example, the Childrens Forums in Vietnam carried out as part of
Young Lives (Pham and Jones 2005).
Participatory research has become increasingly popular during the past twenty years,
evidenced by the mainstreaming of Participatory Poverty Assessments in the 1990s (e.g.
Norton et al. 2001) and the World Bank funded Consultations with the Poor study
(Narayan and Walton 2000, 2002; Narayan et al. 2000), although its integration or
co-option into the mainstream has attracted some criticism (e.g. Cooke and Kothari 2001;
White 1996). The main claims made by participatory methodologies is that they more
closely reflect respondents worldviews than traditional, scientific approaches by (i)
recognizing the contextual, subjective and non-material dimensions of human experience,
(ii) illustrating the complex dynamics behind poverty and well-being, and (iii) draw[ing]
out culture, location and social group-specific understandings of the dimensions of wellbeing (White and Pettit 2005, p. 13). For example, White and Pettit (ibid) cite two
volumes of practitioner reflections on participatory methods, which note their value in
identifying improved quality of life according to local standards (Cornwall and Pratt
2002), and capturing local perspectives (Cornwall et al. 2001).
Connecting with participants understandings is even more important for studies of
childrens wellbeing (as explored in Sects. 2.3 and 2.4) because childrens interests and
priorities may differ and even at times conflict with those of adults (Qvortrup 1994; Prout
and James 1997; Woodhead and Faulkner 2008). Childrens participation in analysis as
well as data gathering can increase the reliability of the research (Kirk and Miller 1986 and
Kefalyew 1996, p. 204, both cited in Ben-Arieh 2005) and may also help diminish the
ethical problem of imbalanced power relationships between researcher and researched at
the point of data collection and interpretation (Morrow and Richards 1996, p. 100). Hill
(1997) and Thomas and OKane (2000) provide several examples of how to involve
children during the data collection process, for example, by selecting methods that enable
them to control the form and content of the discussion, interviewing children on more than
one occasion, working in small groups to aid collective interpretation, or having a few
peer analysts draw out important messages from other childrens accounts.
Participation is assumed to enhance childrens subjective wellbeing in the short-term
through the act of participating in the research, and in the long-term as a means of
improving the accuracy of data collected to inform child-related policy making. Doing
research with children rather than on children enables researchers to engage critically with
their own assumptions about childrens capabilities and about the nature of a good
childhood, and create spaces where alternative voices can be heard. However, participatory
research with children involves more than simply using participatory techniques as no
method is inherently participatory (White 1996; Morrow and Richards 1996) and
research methodologies need to be flexible to communicate appropriately with different
respondents and respond to changing contexts and emergent findings. Visual and interactive methods may be helpful, especially with younger children, to allow all participants
to engage in generating and reflecting on their data (Crivello et al. 2008). Nevertheless,
drawing, speaking confidently in front of a group, or talking with adults are culture specific
skills which children acquire gradually.
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1.2.2 Mixed Method

The sub-section on mixed methods distinguishes between different approaches to combining methods (for example, the timing of the qualitative input), and describes the role of
qualitative techniques in drafting, piloting, and validating measures of wellbeing. Wellbeing is a truly hybrid concept because it is both objective and subjective and these
aspects cannot be separated or reduced to each other (Wilk 1999). For this reason Wilk
recommends mixing qualitative and quantitative methods as any indicator no matter
how clever, is going to miss an essential quality of what needs to be measured. There is no
alternative but to combine measurements with assessments of what the measures mean to
the people being measured (1999, p. 93). Both quantitative and qualitative methods
provide answers on the nature and extent of wellbeing that can be used separately to
validate each others findings (triangulation) or brought together to deepen insights and
possibly raise new questions. Mixed methods research6 is defined as the combined use of
both quantitative and qualitative methodologies within the same study in order to address a
single research question (Hewson in Jupp 2006, p. 179). However, this simple definition
obscures the challenges involved in reconciling the different values, goals, epistemologies,
and analytical approaches held by different disciplines (see Olsen 2006; Bevan 2007b). For
example, Brannen describes how
Quantitative researchers have seen qualitative researchers as too context specific,
their samples as unrepresentative and their claims about their work as unwarranted
that is judged from the vantage point of statistical generalisation. For their part
qualitative researchers view quantitative research as overly simplistic, decontextualised, reductionist in terms of its generalisations, and failing to capture the meanings
that actors attach to their lives and circumstances
(2005, p. 7, op. cit. Jones and Sumner 2008)
Disputes continue even within mixed methods research, for example, Bevan (2005) makes
a further distinction between Q-squared (called after the conference series of the same
name, see www.q-squared.ca/) and Q-integrated approaches as she contends that only the
latter is genuinely integrated. According to Bevan, while Q-squared approaches collect
and analyse data separately and bring it together to answer specific research questions, Qintegrated approaches entail cross-disciplinary research using a range of research instruments to produce different types of data that can be analyzed both quantitatively and
qualitatively. An example of Q-integration is the research on subjective wellbeing by the
WeD team in Ethiopia (Bevan 2007a, June) which reported aggregate responses to measures of wellbeing (Woodcock 2007) and also used individual responses in household casestudies alongside qualitative data (Lavers 2008; Pankhurst 2006).
Mixed methods approaches sequence the input from qualitative and quantitative
methods in different ways, depending on whether they are combining methods to
increase understanding, initiate new research questions, create complementary insights,
or highlight contradictions for future exploration (Brannen 2005, pp. 1214). For
example, qualitative methods like semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and even
ethnography (Ware et al. 2003) are often used to generate item content for measures of
Cresswell (2003) and Brannen (2005), provide a useful overview of this area, and Carvalho and White
(1997), Kanbur (2003), and Jones and Sumner (2008) explore the potential of these methods in relation to
studies of poverty and childrens wellbeing respectively.
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subjective health, which can be an important component of wellbeing. Cognitive interviews are used to understand more about how people respond to these measures
(Barofsky 1996), both with established measures (e.g. Mallinson 2002), and as part of
pre-testing (e.g. Bowden et al. 2002), and qualitative methods can be used in the validation of subjective measures, as they shift the focus from the measure to the respondent
by aiming to assess the accuracy with which a measure has represented their worldview
(Paterson and Britten 2003). Examples of cognitive interviewing and qualitative validation are given in Sect. 2.1.
2 Examples of Qualitative and Mixed Methods Approaches to Wellbeing

Section 2 illustrates the value of the approaches described above in exploring wellbeing
with both adults and children. Sections 2.1 and 2.2 provides examples of studies with
adults using qualitative (ethnographic and participatory methods) and mixed methods
(participatory numbers (Chambers 2003), validating measures of wellbeing, and integrating qualitative and quantitative data). Sections 2.3 and 2.4 provides similar examples
from studies with children using qualitative (ethnographic and participatory methods) and
mixed methods (developing indicators or measures and integrating qualitative and quantitative data).
2.1 Studies with Adults Using Qualitative Methods
In this section we use Wikans longitudinal ethnography of a poor community in Cairo as
an example of an ethnographic approach to wellbeing. This method has a long history as
Oscar Lewis conducted similar studies with families in rural Mexico (1959) and PuertoRican families in New York (1966), which informed his theory on the culture of poverty
(1966). Wikan (1985) carried out fieldwork with 17 families (100 individuals) from a small
neighborhood in Cairo, which she visited regularly for 13 years (19691982), four of
which were spent living with one of the participating families. Her sample was selected
through natural networks of friendship and amity to help her develop a rapport and
observe her respondents in their natural surroundings. Her main finding was that while the
expert judgment is that standards of living are in decline,
In terms of their own values the poor argue that they dress better, have better health,
better entertainment, more and better education, more employment opportunities,
better chances for savings and investments, less need than before for borrowing, and
much, much more in the way of prestigious consumer goods. And they celebrate the
feast [Eid]
(1985, p. 8)
Wikan notes the effects on peoples wellbeing of a change in their self conception from
seeing themselves as poor and shameful to experiencing increased self-esteem from having
a better style of living. This expresses itself in new clothes, which enable nearly all
families to celebrate the feast days, household equipment, and most importantly television.
Television not only provides a focal point by attracting husbands and sons who previously
hung out in cafes, but is also pleasurable as the entertainment introduced in such lives by
Egyptian TV comedy and soap opera genuinely changes the level of living (1985, p. 12).
She maintains that as goods have accumulated, so have all family members self-pride.
Whereas previously men were too ashamed of their homes to bring acquaintances there,
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they now have items to show off with pride (1985, p. 24). Wikan assert that the
importance of appearances in Egyptian society mean that material acquisitions play a
significant role in increasing self-esteem and argues therefore for their inclusion in
international measures of standards of living (noting also that standard measures such as
housing have little relevance in this context, due to the tenure system and positive attitudes
towards overcrowding). In addition to providing an alternative perspective on its
constituents, Wikan gives a detailed account of peoples dogged pursuit of wellbeing
(mak[ing] swift use of marginal improvements in opportunities and circumstances
(1985, p. 23), and unpacks issues of intra-household allocation (for example, how
employed daughters are more beneficial than sons for their mothers wellbeing because
they feel obliged to share their income).
Corsin-Jimenez (2007, pp. 12), in his edited collection on the anthropology of wellbeing, uses Evans-Pritchards evocative description of the Nuer of the southern Sudan as
an illustration of how ethnography can contribute to our understanding of wellbeing
through extraordinarily rich descriptions of the social and political forms of life
[which] provide an alternative route into the political and theoretical imagination of
wellbeing. For example, Evans-Pritchard defines wellbeing for the Nuer as that in which
a family possesses several lactating cows, for then the children are well nourished and
there is a surplus that can be devoted to cheese making and entertaining guests (1940, p.
21, in Corsin-Jimenez, op. cit.). Ethnographies can overcome a common criticism of
wellbeing research as individualistic and politically nave (e.g. Sointu 2005; James 2007)
by providing socially and politically embedded accounts of wellbeing. James (2007, pp.
2021) criticizes the current rhetoric of wellbeing for a fastidiously modern and a historical presumption about how individuals ought to fare in life and suggests that it is
absurd to look for wellbeing in contexts such as Sudanese refugee camps in Ethiopia
where a communitys historical sense of purpose has been evacuatedwhere people are
told and slowly come to realize, that they will never return to their old ways of livelihoods. Calestani (2008, this issue) similarly explores potential contradictions between
individual and collective definitions of the good life in the Bolivian plateau, and Adelson
(2000) notes how for the Whapmagoosti Cree wellbeing or being alive well is inextricably linked to the life of their community (if the land is not healthy then how can we
be? [2000, p. 3]). Contributors to Corsin-Jimenezs edited collection (2007) continue to
emphasise the social and political dimension of wellbeing by tackling subjects such as the
depoliticizing effect of international health and literacy programs in Nepal (Harper and
Maddox) and changing concepts of wellbeing (mad ife) among the Fuyuge in Papua New
Guinea in response to increased pressure from international mining companies and a
modernizing state (Hirsch).
The interaction between global and local dimensions of wellbeing was also captured by
Farnsworths work with smallholder organic farmers in Madagascar (2004), which aimed
to develop a simple and flexible QoL toolkit for use by local researchers. The methods
needed to be specific enough to produce unique meanings in particular situations, and
universal enough to speak to other stakeholders (for example, the German consumers at the
other end of the organic supply chain). She also felt the methods should be dynamic as well
as grounded as wellbeing is a process of becoming rather than a state. Farnsworths
approach has obvious value as a way of fully understanding local peoples realities before
developing a measure, and is quicker than the long-term ethnographic engagement
described in the earlier part of this section.
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2.2 Studies with Adults Using Mixed Methods

More recently participatory research has been used in developing countries in conjunction with household surveys (for example, Participatory Poverty Assessments), or as
a means of generating quantitative data (e.g. Barahona and Levy 2003). Community
wealth and more recently wellbeing rankings are often used in the initial stages of
participatory research as they provide valuable insights into how local people define
wellbeing and the referents they use when asked to make judgments about their own
lives (e.g. Seeley et al. 1995; Chadwick et al. 1995). According Van Campenhout (2007),
the advantage of wellbeing ranking over conventional poverty indicators in developing
countries is that they (i) use local conceptions of poverty and wellbeing that acknowledge the complexity of rural settings (Scoones et al. 1995), (ii) include intangible
elements such as status, bargaining power, and access to support networks, and (iii) are
less vulnerable to individual biases (for example, underestimating current consumption to
increase the chance of receiving development assistance in the future). They also
acknowledge inequalities in household distribution that affect the wellbeing of household
members; for example, Van Campenhout noted that the major contribution of girls and
women in fetching firewood and water were captured by participatory methods, but not
by poverty indicators.
Findings from qualitative studies emphasise the importance of paying attention to
peoples subjective wellbeing or QoL, and qualitative methods have an additional role in
interrogating these constructs and improving their measurement. Within WeD subjective
QoL was explored both qualitatively (Camfield 2006) and quantitatively (e.g. Woodcock
et al. 2007). The WeD definition of QoL as the outcome of the gap between peoples
goals and perceived resources, in the context of their environment, culture, values, and
experiences (Camfield et al. 2006) was developed through a combination of literature
review and exploratory research in the WeD sites7 to identify dimensions of QoL and test a
range of methods. The definition builds on the World Health Organisations work on crosscultural quality of life measurement (WHOQOL group 1995) by highlighting the interplay
between peoples conceptions of their goals and satisfaction with their achievement, given
their material and social circumstances. It shows the additional influence of gap theories
such as Calman (1984), Michalos (1985), and Ruta et al. (1994). During the exploratory
research, WeD used the Global Person Generated Index8 (GPGI) as this represented the
best operationalisation of the WeD definition. However, WeD subsequently developed an
individualized measure of weighted goal attainment (the WeDQoL) where the level of
satisfaction with a goal reported by the respondent is weighted by how important they
perceived this goal to be. This is assumed to be a more accurate proxy for subjective
WeDs exploratory research took place in rural, peri-urban, and urban sites in Bangladesh, Ethiopia,
Thailand and Peru. The average sample size for the countries was 360 (range 314419) and age and gender
were used as the key breaking variables, followed by religion or ethnicity. The fieldwork used qualitative
and quantitative methods, including semi-structured interviews, focus groups, the Global Person Generated
Index and the Satisfaction with Life Scale, all of which had been piloted in similar WeD sites.
The Global Person Generated Index (GPGI) is an individualised QoL measure that uses a mix of openended questions, scoring, and points allocation to establish peoples satisfaction with the areas of life that are
most important to them. It was developed in 1994, revised four years later to broaden the focus from healthrelated QoL to QoL itself, and piloted in Ethiopia, Thailand, and Bangladesh in 2004 (Ruta et al. 1994,
2004; Ruta 1998)
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wellbeing. The WeDQoL bridges the gap between the ideographic approach of the GPGI
and nomothetic (abstract or universal) approach of international measures such as the
WHOQOL. By developing and validating a questionnaire with a common format and
additional items that reflected the priorities of people in particular countries (for example,
having metta-karuna for others in Thailand; see http://www.bath.ac.uk/econ-dev/wellbeing/
research/methods-toobox/qol-toolbox.htm), it was possible to not only integrate subjective
and objective data (for example, the Index of Needs Deprivation and total household
expenditure, Camfield and Guillen-Royo 2009), but also to relate the subjective data to
qualitative case study material for both individuals (Lavers 2008) and groups (Camfield,
Guillen-Royo et al. 2008).
Cognitive interviewing is rarely part of the process of developing a subjective measure
in developing countries, although arguably even more important due to the acknowledged
problems of these measures outside their original context (Camfield 2004). Bowden and
Fox-Rushbys development of the KENQOL (Bowden et al. 2001, 2002; Fox-Rushby et al.
2003, Fox-Rushby and Bowden 2003; Nzioka et al. 2001) is an example of good practice
as it involved first identifying the local concepts of health that the scale was based upon
through extensive qualitative research and long-term participant observation, and then
rigorously pre-testing the measure using six separate methods to ensure that it was capturing the self-perceived and locally defined health of people in Makueni district,
Kenya (Bowden et al. 2002). Qualitative methods can also be used as part of validating a
measure, for example, Camfield and Ruta (2007) compared the content of the GPGI (Ruta
1998; Ruta et al. 1994) and in-depth semi-structured interviews as part of the validation of
the versions that were administered in Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and Thailand during the WeD
exploratory quality of life research (see also Martin 2007). This was a disconcerting
exercise as more than half of the cases analysed found minor discrepancies between the
GPGI and the interview, which related to the overall score, the relative weights in one area,
or basic errors of comprehension. Some discrepancies can be attributed to interviewer
competence; for example, Bangladesh had almost twice as many successfully completed
GPGIs as Thailand. However, there were some patterns: in Bangladesh the discrepancies
related to areas that were abstract, or personal, and thus difficult to capture in a few words
(e.g. own boredom and lack of fulfillment) while in Thailand they mainly related to
debt. This suggests that people will talk about different things in the more relaxed context
of a semi-structured interview, not merely topics that are abstract, or idiosyncratic (i.e.
important to them, but not important), but also ones that are potentially shameful. The
impression is reinforced in Table 2, which compares the GPGI scores for importance and
satisfaction given by a 73 year old man from rural Ethiopia with his responses in the
accompanying semi-structured interview. His overall score was low but positive (63 percent), however, his description of his current situation was I am living a dead life, and
I want to die [] I am living a life that is horrible and very bad/worst, which suggests a
much lower score. Similar discrepancies can be seen in Table 2 between the weights given
to areas and the number of times they were mentioned, and between the score for satisfaction and his verbal evaluations. This type of exercise underlines the need for caution in
interpreting both quantitative and qualitative data outside the contexts in which they were
collected. Since the respondent also said he wanted to die because he had no farming
implements, this may be a manner of speaking that relates to his age, location, or religion,
and would mean something quite different in the mouth of another respondent. It highlights
the value of thick description, or at least having local anthropologists or historians at hand
to resolve these puzzles (Table 2).
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L. Camfield et al.
Table 2 Comparison of quantitative and qualitative data on the subjective experiences of an Ethiopian
respondent
GPGI area
Quantitative data
Qualitative data
Wealth,
poverty,
& assets
Score 2 of 6, 30% weight, mentioned [20 It is good to die rather than to live in poverty. I
times
am very poor
Education
Score 4 out of 6, 30% weight, mentioned

indirectly twice
I am not skilful, knowledgeable, and sociable

because of my poor living condition
Labour/
work
Score 4 of 6, 20% weight, mentioned 16

times
I am not benefiting from my life because no

return from my work
Health
Score 6 out of 6, 10% weight
I am getting physically weak and old
Peace
Score 6 out of 6, 10% weight, mentioned 5 This day I am not happy with any thing but
during the Haile Selassie regime I was happy
times, but not in relation to the current
with life
regime
2.3 Studies with Children Using Qualitative Methods

Ethnographic approaches have been used in studies of childhood wellbeing, with the
obvious proviso that it is less easy for an adult researcher to be a participant observer, or
blend into the background. For example, Punch (1998) used a mixture of semi-participant
observation, informal interviews and task-based methods to investigate how children
negotiate their independence as they grow up in rural Bolivia. Corsaro and Molinari (2005)
conducted a seven-year longitudinal ethnography of a group of Italian childrens transition
from pre-school to middle school, which sets the unique opportunities offered by the
Northern Italian school system in an international context and reflects on the potential
threat from Italys changing political climate. Nonetheless, the authors are careful not to
diminish childrens agency, and show how peer-to-peer social interactions are as salient to
their educational development as support from parents and teachers, and create effective
rites of passage that maintain childrens wellbeing. Reynolds (1991) undertook a detailed
study of childrens time use in the Middle Zambezi Valley that used case studies of
precarious rural livelihoods to illustrate the impact of large-scale development projects
such as dams and game parks on peoples well-being. By intensively studying the activities
of 24 children her research provides an excellent example of how small facts speak to big
issues (Geertz 1973, p. 23), namely the impact of market-driven development strategies
on the wellbeing of rural populations. It is also a good example of mixing methods as
interviews and observations were combined with extracts from childrens diaries and
secondary data from district records.
There are many good examples of international participatory studies9 (e.g. Ungar 2003),
which address the related concept of childhood resilience (often defined as maintaining
subjective and psychosocial wellbeing in adverse circumstances, e.g. Masten 2001). For
example:
Day-in-a-life (Gillen et al. 2007, http://dayinthelife.open.ac.uk/index.cfm), which
filmed five days in the lives of 30-month olds in Peru, Italy, Canada, Thailand, and the
UK to explore cultural differences in development and learning in early childhood
9
See also Johnson et al. (1995) on environmental resources in Nepal; Woodhead (1998, 1999, 2001) on
child labour; Ennew and Plateau (2004) on physical punishment; and Boyden and De Berry (2004) on
reintegrating child combatants.
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International Resilience Project (Ungar and Liebenberg 2005, www.resilienceproject.

org), which examined how young people grow up well in 14 challenging environments, despite exposure to what local informants characterized as atypical levels of risk,
using culturally appropriate methods such as talking circles, and
Negotiating resilience study, which applied the day-in-a-life methodology to the lives
of 1315 year olds in matched sites in Canada, China, India, South Africa and Thailand
who are making successful transitions between two (and possibly more) culturally
distinct worlds (Didowsky, pers. comm.)
All these studies seek relatively unmediated access to childrens perspectives and experiences (for example, by using video diaries), and involve children and/or significant adults
from their families and communities in interpreting the data. For example, teenage participants in Negotiating Resilience are asked to discuss both their own video tape and a
tape from a child of the same gender in a paired research site and reflect on any similarities
or differences (e.g. Saskatoon in Canada and Cape Town in South Africa were paired as
both contain young people in ethnically-based informal settlements). This encourages
participants to interrogate their own ideas about what constitutes wellbeing, in the context
of examples from another country where similar challenges are responded to in a very
different way.
As discussed earlier in the paper, a key finding from participatory research with adults
in developing countries is that the quality of interactions and relationships matter as much
to peoples wellbeing as the quality of their assets. This is especially true of family and
community relationships which are both intrinsically and instrumentally valuable (Devine
et al. 2007) and have positive and negative dimensions (Wood 2003). Johnston (2006)
generated similar data with children when she used participatory poverty trees in a
collective exploration of childrens ideas about the causes (roots) and outcomes (fruits)
of poverty. For example, Johnston found that the quality of family relationships featured in
childrens definitions of poverty, and having parents who were absent or still very young
was identified as one of the causes of poverty. Incidentally, the similarity of responses to
questions about poverty and wellbeing in developing countries seems to support Jones and
Sumners premise that the distinction between the two concepts is perhaps overdrawn
(2008). It suggests that the concepts may be linked in the minds of both researchers and
respondents through a positive/negatively connoted dualism [of] well-being/poverty
(Neff and Olsen 2007, p. 12), in the same way that when people are asked to describe the
experience of wellbeing, they invariably list the resources required to attain it.
Fattore et al. (2007) also used group dialogues, combined with individual interviews and
self-directed task-oriented projects (for example, keeping a visual journal) to understand
what Australian children (aged eight to 15) saw as positive well-being. The goal of the
study was to identify new or important indicators to monitor the well-being of Australian
children, for example, feeling valued and secure in relationships, being a moral actor in
relation to oneself and others, and being able to make choices and exert influence in
everyday situations. Young Lives similarly used participatory methods to explore childrens
wellbeing (Crivello et al. 2008) through group exercises and individual interviews with
children and adults, which built on their previous participation in the group exercise. The
exercises produced voluminous data on important components of wellbeing during piloting, especially from older children and caregivers, and showed surprising regularity across
respondents and contexts (for example, community focus groups vs. individual interviews).
Key themes that emerged in all countries were the importance of family support, education
and recreation, good social relationships, and good behavior. The inclusion of good
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behavior may relate both to its role in facilitating smooth social relationships, and problems in the translation of wellbeing, which often gave it a strong moral tone. Common
indicators of illlbeing were also predominantly social and respondents even described
material indicators such as dirty clothes or irregular meals as reflecting a lack of care and
support (Table 3).
As an illustration of the potential of this approach, we describe a wellbeing exercise
conducted with boys aged 1113 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (October, 2007). The example
underlines the importance of comprehensive note taking as the most surprising insights
came during the discussions of each childs presentation (described below). According to
the researchers notes, the first child to present (a 12 year old boy) was an orphan. He
emphasised that a child that is doing well has both parents. He has a house with many
rooms, CD [player], and TV. He has a good variety of food prepared for him by his parents.
The child goes to entertaining places with his parents. He goes to a school that has a field
and equipment for kids to play on such as a shertete (slide), jiwajiwe (swing), and merrygo-round. The school is not far [from his home], it has good classrooms and clean toilets
for boys and girls separately; and it also has a library. The presenter characterised a boy
who is not doing well as having no parents and living alone. The roof of his house has
holes so during the rainy season, water goes into the house and as a result the boy gets sad
and cries. He doesnt go to school and does not have any food to eat because his parents are
dead.
The other participants raised a number of questions about the boy who was doing badly,
for example, why isnt he helped by relatives or neighbours? (answer: people do not get
close to him because he has dirty clothes), why cant he do paid work such as shoe
shining? (answer: there is no-one to buy the boy polish for the shoe shining), why cant
he get help from an NGO? [Non Governmental Organisation] (answer: no-one gets close
to him so he doesnt have any access [] no-one can prove his problems to the Kebele
[local authority] or NGOs). One participant observed that the child who was doing well
didnt have a school bag to carry his books, which seemed incongruous, but the presenter
responded does living well means being rich? No, living well does not mean being rich.
The two most important indicators for wellbeing ranked by the participants were getting a
good education, because education is key to achieving wellbeing, and having a good
family that can advise the children. Getting a balanced diet was only slightly less
important because if a boy does not get a balanced diet he would not understand what he
learns. The four indicators of illbeing generated during this exercise (being an orphan,
lacking family support or proper follow-up, leaving school, and bad behaviour) were
considered equally important and interlinked, for example, leaving school led to bad
behaviour as a child who does not learn will finally be a thief. The participants were also
asked how the situation of the child who had the worst life could be improved. Apart from
one mention of basic needs, their responses centred around relationships (advice and moral
education, receiving care and support from family, having positive role models and
avoiding bad boys, and good relationships with family and neighbours) and the childs
own agency (studying and working hard, being obedient, sensitive to others needs, and
disciplined) (Wellbeing exercise, October 2007).
2.4 Studies with Children Using Mixed Methods
Developing wellbeing indicators based on childrens experiences and perspectives is beneficial from an analytical as well as an ethical perspective as children are usually the best
source of information on their daily activities (Ben-Arieh 2005). They can also provide
123
Poverty & unfulfilled

needs
Not attending school
& starting work
young
Orphaned or
separated from
parents
Family conflict
Disobedience
Family illness
Child illbeing
Household not poor (father has good job)

& owns books & consumer goods
Have everything they need & eat good
food
Has neatly combed and plaited hair,
clean clothes and person
Happy, joyful, always smiling &
pleasant, not shy or guilty
Bright & physically active, healthy &
good looking
First class student
Mixes well with others, & doesnt fight;
generous to others & not snobbish
Plays in the drains, kills birds, steals &
has a bad name
Appears dull & is too shy to talk to
people, always weeping
Doesnt bathe (or only once a week) &
smells of urine
Looks dirty with uncombed hair & torn
clothes
Father doesnt support the household so
mother has to work
Household doesnt have money,
sufficient clothes, or a television,
Father drinks & beats mother, family
members always fighting
Behind at school & cant read well
Doesnt eat regular meals, unhealthy &
frequently ill
India
Drugs, alcohol & gangs

Poverty
Lack of basic services
Poor food
Beatings from parents
Being an orphan or neglected by
parents
Sexual abuse (girls)
Supernatural beings
Family, love & support of parents

Education, incl. materials for study
& recreation
Well-kept & fashionable clothes
Good behaviour
Nice house with TV
Working to support family alongside
education
Peru
Education (beatings, difficult

subjects, studying hard)
Quarrelling with family &
friends
Neglect by parents
Flooding & rubbish in
neighbourhood
Health
Good local services
Consumer goods, motorbike,
money
Studying abroad or teaching
in the future
Vietnam
The data in the table is drawn from activities with children aged between 5 and 7 and 11 and 13 and focus groups with parents and other community members conducted
during the pilot (Spring 2007)
Good harvest,
fulfilling basic
needs
Education &
recreation
Health
Supportive family
Good social
relationships
Religion & good
behaviour
Child wellbeing
Ethiopia
Table 3 Summary of findings from Young Lives Country Pilot reports, Summer 2007

21
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L. Camfield et al.
reliable information on other aspects of their lives and children as young as seven can
engage with abstract concepts such as children and human rights (Melton and Limber
1992). For this reason the Psychosocial Working Group (http://www.forcedmigration.
org/psychosocial/PWGinfo.htm) used child-focused qualitative methods to develop a culturally appropriate measure of psychosocial wellbeing for use in post-conflict Afghanistan
(2005). Davis et al. (2003) initiated the process by combining intensive participatory
methods with children (the Childrens Ideas Project) and focus groups with parents and
grandparents to learn how war-affected children in Kabul experience and understand their
situations. Wellbeing was understood by respondents in four separate senses: as an ideal, as
hoped-for achievements, as a standard for the important things in childrens lives, and as
the qualities that children should develop (ibid, p7), and was centered on the local concept
of Tarbia which refers to childrens manners and the quality of their relationships with
others. A second study two years later (PWG 2005) developed and administered a 23-item
questionnaire based on Davis et al.s findings, which was used with children and adults to
assess the effect on psychosocial wellbeing of three types of intervention (psychosocial,
water, or a combination of psychosocial and water) and was combined with qualitative and
participatory research and a sub-study on means of coping. The value of a mixed methods
approach is illustrated by the fact that the quantitative and qualitative research presented
contrasting results. Both considered the combined intervention the best, but the quantitative
measure rated water only as almost as effective as the combined and psychosocial only
as ineffective, while the qualitative results supported the value of both. For example,
children said that the psychosocial intervention helped them communicate with parents and
reduced beatings by teachers. The qualitative results also highlighted the gendered nature of
risk and coping and enabled exploration of the differences between the sites identified in the
quantitative results, which were hypothesized to relate to their internal cohesion and level of
initiative in helping children.
Another example of combining qualitative and quantitative comes from Young Lives
where econometric analyses of panel data from Ethiopia demonstrate that children who lost
one or both parents early on are not only resilient, but may have better cognitive and
educational outcomes than their peers (Himaz and Camfield 2009). This surprising finding
challenges the homogeneity of the administrative category orphans and other vulnerable
children (Meintjes and Giese 2006) and draws attention to the importance of timing in
predicting the effects of key events. Young Lives integrated data set enables the processes
behind it to be explored with descriptive statistics and qualitative case studies using data
from multiple sources (see Crivello et al. 2008).
3 Conclusion
While the authors perspective on mixing methods can be summarized as whats the
alternative? it would be unwise to ignore the challenges this involves, especially on
international collaborative projects. Some methodological cautions with using qualitative
methods in studying wellbeing in developing countries include their lack of credibility with
certain audiences (for example, local policy makers) who may be more familiar with
aggregate statistics. It can be difficult to find local researchers and translators with qualitative experience, due to the absence of qualitative research infrastructure in developing
countries, and consequently data collection is costly. Even qualitative researchers who
speak the local language/s cannot participate in every research interaction during a large
scale project, which means interpreting some field data second-hand. This is a challenge
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23
even when the data is transcribed and accompanied with detailed field notes. A further
potential loss of meaning occurs from working through an interpreter or with translated
data, which means that is difficult to share qualitative data through data archives. Finally,
qualitative approaches generate an enormous amount of data for analysis and even with
qualitative data analysis software it is hard to share analysis across the team and ensure
transparency and accountability in the conclusions drawn.
More participatory work presents further challenges and some authors have expressed
discomfort with its recent entry into the mainstream, emphasizing that participatory
methods can also be top-down and extractive. Other concerns are that the emphasis on
community consensus rather than individual priorities may provide cultural context at the
expense of individual experience, emphasise public goods over private (e.g. services rather
than family relationships), or marginalize minority interests. There is often a pronounced
framing effect from its link to development practice, and starting from poverty may
miss the opportunity to understand peoples lives in their own terms. Finally, there are
great variations in the quality of participatory research and the extent of participation that
are not always apparent from the project reports. The challenges described in relation to
qualitative methods also affect studies using mixed methods where researchers have to
overcome unhelpful dichotomies (for example, between hard and soft data), intellectual-stereotyping, and disciplinary conflicts, which are often exacerbated by institutional
structures. Finding researchers with a sufficiently broad skill-set is also challenging
(especially in the study countries); as is the meaningful combination of data in analysis
when the data collection was underpinned by different epistemologies. The need to
evaluate and reconcile findings from different methods also necessitates a common means
of establishing validity, which may require more inclusive criteria (see Sumner and Jones,
this issue).
The examples provided in the paper demonstrate the value of qualitative research in its
own terms, despite the above challenges, but have they answered the more pressing
questions of what researchers more familiar with quantitative methods can learn from
qualitative approaches, and how they can use them in their work? We advocate a pragmatic
approach that engages on three levels:
(i) with qualitative literatureethnographies, social history, reportage, novelsto gain a
fuller understanding of peoples contexts and influences;
(ii) with the skills and knowledge of multi-disciplinary teams, which involves
understanding and respecting the world view of other researchers as well as
respondents; and
(iii) with qualitative methods, which used strategically can both enrich and improve the
accuracy of quantitative data.
For example, if a researcher wanted to adapt a measure of childrens subjective wellbeing
for use in schools in Addis Ababa, a good place to start might be Poluhas detailed
ethnography of the Ethiopian school system (2004), or Tekolas research on the experiences of children in Addis Ababa (2008), or findings from any of the cross-sectional and
longitudinal studies that have worked in this area (e.g. Young Lives, WeD). The measure
would need to reflect the different competencies and experiences of school-aged children
and the characteristics of the setting where it was administered. It would need thorough
pre-testing to ensure the validity of the content and method of measurement, and it might
be prudent to check conceptual validity (Herdman et al. 1998) through exploratory qualitative work. Cognitive debriefing would be helpful and might throw up unanticipated
problems, which would be resolved through discussion with key informants and local or
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L. Camfield et al.
country-specific researchers who could set responses in their cultural context. Finally,
when interpreting the data it might be useful to complement it with other sources,
especially qualitative sources, so that the dynamics, complexity, contradictions, and
diversity of peoples positions can be understood in a nuanced way. It is likely that
personal and family health, community involvement, and cultural capital may all contribute to well-being and that transport, insecurity, vulnerability and family worries may all
contribute to ill-being [] but these are each in turn construed differently from place to
place and from time to time (Neff and Olsen 2007, p. 18).
Acknowledgements The authors thank the participants in WeD and Young Lives research, as well as the
country researchers who generated much of the data referenced in this paper. Elaine Chase provided
invaluable comments on an earlier draft of the paper. In relation to WeD, the support of the UK Economic
and Social Research Council (ESRC) is gratefully acknowledged. Young Lives is funded by the UK
Department for International Development (DFID) and based on a collaborative partnership between the
University of Oxford, Save the Children UK, The Open University, UK, and a series of prominent national
research and policy institutes in the four study countries.
Appendix 1
Table 4 Comparison of the characteristics of wellbeing, illbeing, and poverty found by selected participatory studies in rural and urban communities in developing countries (Camfield 2006)
WeDa
Bangladesh, Ethiopia,
Thailand, Peru
Moore et al. 1998

South Asia
Consultations with the

Poor 2000b
Over 50 developing
countries
Brock 1999c
12 developing
countries
Security (civil peace, a

physically safe and
secure environment,
personal physical
security, lawfulness
and access to justice,
security in old age,
confidence in the
future)
Clean environment
Basic infrastructure and
services
Community relationships
Neighbourhood violence
Infrastructure and services

Basic infrastructure Govt.
and NGO services
Home
Good house (e.g. water and
electricity, furniture)
Secure access to
housing (urban)
Quality of home
Domestic violence
Economic security/Material wellbeing

Economic stability/need
satisfaction through
livestock and farming and/
or business activities and
employment
Land and other assets
123
Material wellbeing:
Land/assets
having enough
Diverse sources of
(food, assets, work)
income
Type of job (urban)
Food sufficiency
Household
structure (e.g.
adult male
labour)
Access to employment
Work and working
conditions
Money and assets
Land
Access to natural
resources
Food security
Resilience in response to
seasonality and shocks
25
Table 4 continued
WeDa
Bangladesh, Ethiopia,
Thailand, Peru
Moore et al. 1998

South Asia
Consultations with the

Poor 2000b
Over 50 developing
countries
Brock 1999c
12 developing
countries
Bodily wellbeing: being

and appearing well
(health, appearances,
physical environment)
Psychological wellbeing
(peace of mind,
happiness, harmony,
including a spiritual
life and religious
observance)
Health
Peace of mind
Education and Health (physical and mental)

Health (self and children)
Education
Education (self and children)
Respect
Respect
Good appearance
Respect and acceptance

from others
Freedom from responsibility, independence

Independence (specific
periods and relationships)
Freedom of choice and

action
Having choices; not being

in relationships of
dependency
Feeling able to act and
have some control over
the outcome
Family relationships, community relationships

Relationships within the
household and extended
family
Having a partner
Childrens physical, socioeconomic and moral
wellbeing
Social wellbeing (being

able to care for, bring
up, marry and settle
children, peace,
harmony, good
relations in the family/
community)
The WeD data in the tables has been compiled from the country reports of the exploratory phase,
supplemented by re-analysis of translations of the original interviews. They represent the most common
responses, determined by qualitative and quantitative analyses and for ease of comparison, they have been
grouped into the categories of Family and Community relationships (also friendship, sociability, good
character/ behaviour, preserves social harmony, helping/ supporting each other, participating in community
development), Economic security/ material wellbeing, Education, Health (physical and mental), Freedom
from responsibility, independence, Achievements, Respect, Access to infrastructure and services, Home, and
Religion, which appeared in the original country reports
The Consultations with the Poor (Narayan and Walton 2000; Narayan et al. 2000) identified economic
(risk and vulnerability) and non-economic (empowerment and participation) dimensions to wellbeing.
Sources of wellbeing were grouped under five domains, Material, Physical, Security, Freedom of choice and
action, and Social wellbeing, which partially reflect the structure of international measures of wellbeing such
as the Personal Wellbeing Index (Cummins et al. 2001)
c
Brocks review (1999) foregrounds the experiential aspects of poverty which impact on peoples agency
and mobility; for example, fear, insecurity, dependence, shame, hopelessness, and powerlessness. Participants recounted not feeling accepted or respected by others, and feeling powerless in front of officials.
Changes in their environment or bodies that seemed to be beyond their control made them feel vulnerable
and reduced their confidence and agency
123
26
L. Camfield et al.
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Laura Camfield Social Indicators Qualitative Research PDF

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Laura Camfield Social Indicators Qualitative Research PDF

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Soc Indic Res (2009) 90:531

Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries: Reviewing

Accepted: 13 August 2008 / Published online: 12 September 2008

Keywords Wellbeing Mixed methods Qualitative Developing countries

Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries

values, aspirations, and experiences of happiness or unhappiness are now measured

Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries

As an integrative or umbrella concept, wellbeing provides the opportunity to combine

Holistic & flexible, indepth, usually arising

Interviews; narratives, e.g. E.g. understandings of a

e.g. WeD, Young Lives,

Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries

Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries

1.2.2 Mixed Method

2 Examples of Qualitative and Mixed Methods Approaches to Wellbeing

Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries

2.2 Studies with Adults Using Mixed Methods

Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries

Score 4 out of 6, 30% weight, mentioned

I am not skilful, knowledgeable, and sociable

Score 4 of 6, 20% weight, mentioned 16

I am not benefiting from my life because no

Score 6 out of 6, 10% weight

I am getting physically weak and old

2.3 Studies with Children Using Qualitative Methods

Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries

International Resilience Project (Ungar and Liebenberg 2005, www.resilienceproject.

Poverty & unfulfilled

Household not poor (father has good job)

Drugs, alcohol & gangs

Family, love & support of parents

Education (beatings, difficult

Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries

Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries

Moore et al. 1998

Consultations with the

Security (civil peace, a

Infrastructure and services

Economic security/Material wellbeing

Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries

Moore et al. 1998

Consultations with the

Bodily wellbeing: being

Education and Health (physical and mental)

Respect and acceptance

Freedom from responsibility, independence

Freedom of choice and

Having choices; not being

Family relationships, community relationships

Social wellbeing (being

Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries

Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries

Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries

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