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Examining Adolescent Leisure Time Across Cultures: Developmental Opportunities and Risks: New Directions for Child and Adolescent Developmnet #99
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More About This Title Examining Adolescent Leisure Time Across Cultures: Developmental Opportunities and Risks: New Directions for Child and Adolescent Developmnet #99

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To gain deeper insight into the developmental opportunities and risks that adolescents experience in their free time, this volume explores adolescents' daily leisure experience across countries. Each chapter describes the sociocultural contexts in which adolescents live, along with a profile of free-time activities. Collectively, the chapters highlight the differences and similarities between cultures; how family, peers, and wider social factors influence the use of free time; which societies provide more freedom and at what costs; and how adolescents cope with restricted degrees of freedom and with what consequences on their mental health and well-being.

Adolescence worldwide is a life period of role restructuring and social learning. Free-time activities provide opportunities to experiment with roles and develop new adaptive strategies and other interpersonal skills that have an impact on development, socialization, and the transition to adulthood. Leisure provides a rich context in which adolescents can gain control over their attentional processes and learn from relationships with peers, but it also has potential costs, such as involvement in deviant and risk behaviors. This volume is a valuable contribution to the research and discussion of this critical topic.

This is the 99th volume in the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development.

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EDITORS’ NOTES (Suman Verma, Reed Larson).

1. Korean Adolescents’ “Examination Hell” and Their Use of Free Time (Meery Lee).
Examination stress contributes to the scarcity of active leisure and increased rates of depression and aggressive behavior among Korean adolescents.

2. Japanese Adolescents’ Free Time: Juku, Bukatsu,and Government Efforts to Create More Meaningful Leisure (Hitoshi J. Nishino, Reed Larson).
Japanese culture has stressed the use of free time for disciplined selfdevelopment activities, but efforts are under way to give adolescents more time for relaxed and creative leisure.

3. Cultural Continuity Amid Social Change: Adolescents’ Use of Free Time in India (Suman Verma, Deepali Sharma).
Indian adolescents’ leisure activities reflect a confluence of tradition and modernity and continue to be divided along lines of class, setting (urban versus rural), and gender.

4. Adolescents’ Leisure Time in the United States: Partying, Sports, and the American Experiment (Reed Larson, Sean Seepersad).
Partying and sports, common leisure choices for American youth, illustrate the risks and opportunities that go with American teens’ large quantity of free time.

5. Adolescent Leisure Across European Nations (August Flammer, Brigitta Schaffner).
European adolescents’ large amounts of free time are shaped by differences in culture, wealth, and school schedules across nations.

6. Italian Adolescents and Leisure: The Role of Engagement and Optimal Experience (Antonella Delle Fave, Marta Bassi).
Leisure activities in which Italian adolescents experience a balance of challenge and skill provide optimal conditions for development.

7. Contextual Constraints on Adolescents’ Leisure (Rainer K. Silbereisen).
This concluding chapter focuses on the contextual constraints in adolescent leisure and synthesizes the similarities and differences across cultures. The author puts forward developmental implications for research and policy.

INDEX.

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