A Study about Social Values and Psychological Well-Being in Young People: Implications for Educational Social Work

Education represents one of the pillars of well-being in any state or society. In turn, educational social work is a profession that intervenes in people's psychosocial relationships and, in particular, plans different social programs that try to apply successful itineraries in young school children. Social workers acting in the field of education should know what social values interact in young people and the differences that exist based on their sex and age. To this end, an investigation is presented that aims to analyze the psychological well-being of young people in relation to their social values. A quantitative, descriptive, correlational and ex post facto study was carried out, with 385 Spanish youth between 13 and 19 years old. It is concluded that young people prefer values of self-direction, conformity, hedonism and security. Likewise, there is a correspondence between high scores in the dimensions of psychological well-being: self-acceptance, positive relationships, autonomy, domain of the environment, personal growth and purpose of life with high scores of the values benevolence, security, conformity, tradition, achievement, stimulation and self-direction. This relationship takes special relevance in the intervention methods carried out from the Educational Social Work.