Join us to learn about findings from an exciting new study investigating whether urban, middle-class adolescents growing up in globalizing India losing their traditional identities and values, and how might changing identities and values impact their well-being.
This repeated cross-sectional study examined these questions in two samples of adolescents (n=1363, 45% female; n = 1052, 48% female, ages 12-16) collected in 2005 and 2017 in the same city and schools in Western India. Results showed (a) adolescents identified more with minority-world identities and values, and less with traditional ones in 2017 vs. 2005; (b) adolescents, regardless of time, differentially identified more with traditional vs. minority-world identities and values; and (c) females were less traditional and happier in 2017 vs. 2005. At both times, well-being was positively predicted by adolescents’ traditional cultural identities. Implications for prevention will be discussed.
About the Speaker
Robert W. Roeser is a Bennett Pierce Professor of Caring and Compassion and a Professor of Human Development and Family Studies in the College of Health and Human Development at Penn State. He received his Ph.D. from the Combined Program in Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan (1996) and holds master’s degrees in religion and psychology (Holy Names College), developmental psychology and clinical social work (University of Michigan). He has held faculty appointments at Stanford University, Portland State University, and Penn State University.
Dr. Roeser’s main research interests are in the areas of human motivation, identity, and learning; adolescence and early adulthood, schooling as a central cultural context affecting students’ academic, social-emotional and identity development; and the implementation and impacts of mindfulness and compassion training programs on parent, teacher and student outcomes with respect to health and wellbeing, teaching and learning, and the creation of compassionate and equitable learning environments in schools. He also has a deep scholarly interest in indigenous Asian Indian psychologies and related forms of pedagogy, and conducts developmental and educational research in India on efforts at holistic human development and holistic education based on these indigenous ideas.
