Understanding Well-Being Data : : Improving Social and Cultural Policy, Practice and Research

• Superior document: New Directions in Cultural Policy Research
• Author: Oman, Susan.
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Series: New Directions in Cultural Policy Research
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (405 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

‘Following the data’ is a now-familiar phrase in Covid-19 policy communications. Well-being data are pivotal in decisions that affect our life chances, livelihoods and quality of life. They are increasingly valuable to companies with their eyes on profit, organisations looking to make a social impact, and governments focussed on societal problems. This book follows well-being data back centuries, showing they have long been used to track the health and wealth of society. It questions assumptions that have underpinned over 200 years of social science, statistical and policy work. Understanding Well-being Data is a readable, introductory book with real-life examples. Understanding the contexts of data and decision-making are critical for policy, practice and research that aims to do good, or at least avoid harm. Through its comprehensive survey and critical lens, this book provides tools to promote better understanding of the power and potential of well-being data for society, and the limits of their application.

Table of Contents

Intro -- Preface: A Personal Note on Why I Wrote the Book -- References -- Acknowledgements -- Praise for Understanding Well-being Data -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- List of Boxes -- Chapter 1: Introducing Well-being Data -- 1.1 Introduction to Understanding Well-being Data -- Subjective and Objective Data -- 1.2 Who Is This Book for? -- 1.3 What Is This Book Trying to Do? -- 1.4 Why Well-being Data? -- 1.5 How Are Data Cultural? -- 1.6 How Should I Use This Book? -- 1.7 Why Is the Book Written in This Order? -- The First Half -- Half Time -- The Second Half

References -- Chapter 2: Knowing Well-being: A History of Data -- 2.1 What Is Well-being? -- Traditions of Well-being Thought -- Hedonia: Most Simply Understood as Pleasure or Positive Feeling -- Eudaimonia: Most Often Understood as Purpose or Flourishing -- Common Definitions Used with Well-being Data -- Objective Well-being -- Subjective Well-being -- 2.2 Measuring Well-being to Improve Human Welfare: A Brief History -- 2.3 Audit Culture, Value and Public Management -- Social Policy -- So, What Is Value? -- Economics, Value and Human Behaviours -- What Is Social Value?

2.4 Conclusion: Well-being as a Tool of Policy -- References -- Chapter 3: Looking at Well-being Data in Context -- 3.1 Well-being Measurement (Other Data Are Available) -- 3.2 Accounts of Well-being -- Objective Lists -- Preference Satisfaction -- Mental States (or Subjective Well-being) -- 3.3 Everyday Well-being Data: Asking People Questions About Their Lives -- Questionnaire Data -- Interview Data -- Ethnographic Data -- Secondary Qualitative Data -- 3.4 Objective Well-being Data and Measures -- 3.5 The OECD as a Case Study of What Lies Behind Objective Well-being Data -- 3.6 Conclusion

References -- Chapter 4: Discovering 'the New Science of Happiness' and Subjective Well-being -- 4.1 Happiness Economics -- The Greatest Happiness? And Other Principles -- 4.2 Positive Psychology -- 4.3 Establishing a New Science of Happiness -- 4.4 What Is Subjective Well-being? -- How Is This Well-being Measure Subjective? -- What Well-being Means to People Is Subjective -- Definitions of Subjective Well-being -- 4.5 Subjective Well-being Measures for Decision-Making -- Evaluation Measures -- Experience Measures -- 'Eudaimonic' Measures -- Psychological Well-being

Worthwhileness and Overall Evaluation -- How These Measures Can Be Applied -- 4.6 Case Study: Subjective Well-being, by the Office for National Statistics' Design -- 4.7 Summarising What Measuring Subjective Well-being Does -- 4.8 Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 5: Getting a Sense of Big Data and Well-being -- 5.1 What Even Is 'Big Data'? -- 5.2 Big Data: A New Way to Understand Well-being? -- Why We Need to Ask Critical Questions of Data in the Context of Well-being -- Value -- 5.3 Are Big Data Even Actually New? -- The Darker Side of Historical Well-being Data and Commercial Gain

5.4 A Case Study on the Promise of Commercial Big Data