RT Journal Article
T1 Does social capital travel? Influences on the life satisfaction of young people living in England and Spain
A1 Morgan, Antony
A1 Rivera de los Santos, Francisco José
A1 Moreno, Carmen
A1 Haglund, Bo
AB Background: This study used a social capital framework to examine the relationship between a set of potentialprotective (’health assets’) factors and the wellbeing of 15 year adolescents living in Spain and England. The overallpurpose of the study was to compare the consistency of these relationships between countries and to investigatetheir respective relative importance.Methods: Data were drawn from the 2002, English and Spanish components of the WHO Health Behaviour inSchool-Aged Children (HBSC) survey A total of 3,591 respondents (1884, Spain; 1707, England) aged 15, drawn fromrandom samples of students in 215 and 80 schools respectively were included in the study. A series of univariate,bivariate and multivariate (general linear modelling and decision tree) analyses were used to establish therelationships.Results: Results showed that the wellbeing of Spanish and English adolescents is similar and good. Threemeasures of social capital and 2 measures of social support were found to be important factors in the generallinear model. Namely, family autonomy and control; family and school sense of belonging; and social support athome and school. However, there were differences in how the sub components of social capital manifestthemselves in each country–feelings of autonomy of control, were more important in England and social supportfactors in Spain.Conclusions: There is some evidence to suggest that social capital (and its related concept of social support) dotravel and are applicable to young people living in Spain and England. Given the different constellation of assetsfound in each country, it is not possible to define exactly the precise formula for applying social capital acrosscultures. This should more appropriately be defined at the programme planning stage.
PB BMC
SN 1471-2458
YR 2012
FD 2012-02
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10272/18365
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10272/18365
LA eng
NO Morgan, A. R., Rivera de los Santos, F., Moreno, C., & Haglund, B. J. (2012). Does social capital travel? Influences on the life satisfaction of young people living in England and Spain. BMC Public Health, 12(1). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-12-138
NO The English and Spanish HBSC studies were funded by the Department of Health in England and the Ministry of Health in Spain.
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 13 jun 2026