Suman Verma

How children and adolescents spend time across the world : Work, play, and developmental opportunities

The authors review studies on time use of children and adolescents around the world and discuss developmental implications of population differences. Industrialization and schooling are linked to dramatic declines in time spent on household and wage labor. This labor is often unchallenging, sometimes hazardous; developmental benefits often do not increase above a limited number of hours; hence, reduction in these activities opens time for activities that may be more developmentally beneficial. Adolescents in East Asian postindustrial societies spend this freed-up time in schoolwork, a use associated with lower intrinsic motivation but high achievement and economic productivity. Adolescents in North America spend more time in leisure, associated with greater self-direction but of an uncertain relation to development. Age, gender, and socioeconomic differences in activities and with whom time is spent are also considered.

The world's youth adolescence in eight regions of the globe

1. The kaleidoscope of adolescence: experiences of the worlds youth at the beginning of the 21st century B. Bradford Brown, Reed W. Larson and T. S. Saraswathi 2. Demographic trends affecting youth around the world Elizabeth Fussell and Margaret E. Greene 3. Adolescence in sub-Saharan Africa: an image constructed from Africas triple inheritance A. Bame Nsamenang 4. Adolescence in India: street urchins or Silicon Valley millionaires? Suman Verma and T. S. Saraswathi 5. Adolescence in China and Japan: adapting to a changing environment Harold W. Stevenson and Akane Zusho 6. Youth in Southeast Asia: living within the continuity of tradition and the turbulence of change Madelene Santa Maria 7. Arab adolescents facing the future: enduring ideals and pressures to change Marilyn Booth 8. Adolescents in Russia: surviving the turmoil and creating a brighter future Anna Stetsenko 9. Adolescence in Latin America: facing the future with skepticism Carlos Welti Chanes 10. Adolescents in Western countries in the 21st century: vast opportunities - for all? Jeffrey Jensen Arnett 11. Adolescence in global perspective: an agenda for social policy T. S. Saraswathi and Reed W. Larson.

School stress in India: Effects on time and daily emotions

Like adolescents in East Asia, Indian middle-class adolescents face a highly competitive examination system. This study examines the influence of school demands on the daily time use and subjective states of Indian young people. One hundred urban, middle-class, 8th-grade students carried alarm watches for 1 week and provided 4764 reports on their activities and subjective states at random times, following the procedures of the Experience Sampling Method. These adolescents were found to spend one third of their waking time in school-related activities, with girls spending more time than boys. Schoolwork generated negative subjective states as reflected in low affect state, below-average activation levels, lower feeling of choice, and higher social anxiety. These negative states were most frequent during homework. The trade-off faced by Indian adolescents were evident in the findings that those who spent more time doing homework experienced lower average emotional states and more internalising problems, while those who spent more time in leisure experienced more favourable states but also reported higher academic anxiety and lower scholastic achievement.

Men's work and family lives in India: the daily organization of time and emotion.

This article examines daily patterns of work and family life for a sample of middle-class men in northern India. One hundred fathers of 8th graders provided information on their hour-to-hour time use and subjective states, by means of the experience sampling method. They reported little time spent on family work but substantial amounts of time with their children and thinking about their families. At their jobs, they reported high levels of attention but more negative emotion. By contrast, the home sphere elicited lower attention, more favorable affect, and more feeling of choice. Unlike for American samples, little relationship was found between experience at work and home, including little influence of mens work emotions on the family in the evening. These findings reflect how strong traditional family roles in India shape mens daily lives.

Are Adolescents More Emotional? A Study of the Daily Emotions of Middle Class Indian Adolescents1

This study evaluates the hypothesis that adolescence is a time of greater emotionality, focusing on urban middle class Indian youth. A sample of 100 8th graders and their parents provided 13,674 reports on their experience when signalled at random times by alarm watches over one week. Consistent with the hypothesis, the adolescents reported significantly more negative states and extreme positive states than both their mothers and fathers. Further analyses indicated that the negative emotional states of adolescents were related to school stress and inversely related to family and peer variables. These factors may contribute to adolescent emotionality. Significant inverse correlations between rates of negative emotions and mental health indicated that frequent negative emotions among adolescents should not be dismissed as normative.

In defence of children

Abstract The Convention on the rights of the child has not made much of a difference to the existing conditions of children in India. Moral energy and a socio‐political vision is required by not only the government, but all concerned to improve the status of the child in India. There is a need to focus on child rights issues related to creating public awareness, attitudinal change, political commitment, mass sensitisation and reaching the unreached. An appropriate action strategy is suggested for the restoration of the rights of children in India.