МЛАДИ КАО РЕСУРС ДРУШТВЕНОГ РАЗВОЈА: ПЕРСПЕКТИВА СТУДИЈЕ О КОРИШЋЕЊУ ВРЕМЕНА
YOUTH AS A RESOURCE FOR SOCIETY DEVELOPMENT: THE PERSPECTIVE OF TIME USE STUDY

Summary/Abstract: In this paper we analyze the main findings of the empirical study on high school students’ everyday life, part of which is the time use study, conducted for the first time on Serbian youth. The aim is to examine what these findings suggest about the quality of young people’s daily socialization experiences and developmental opportunities pro within different socio- cultural contexts of their daily routine. The basic idea is that young people’s choices concerning the way of spending time significantly shape relevant developmental experiences, which affect the success of their transition to adulthood and the process of social inclusion. It is empirically proven that young people’s decisions to invest time (or not) in certain kinds of activities have major impact on their opportunities for positive development and thus their future well-being. This is also relevant from the perspective of society’s well-being since the time youth spend in productive and pro-social activities is often seen as a human capital production (measurable inputs to society’s economy), as well as the formation of socially responsible citizenship, committed to conventional values and social praxis. Thus, the time use studies often serve as the empirical basis for creating and evaluating social policies in different fields. We also consider the implications of our study findings from the perspective of goals and measures of recently developed National Youth Strategy of the Republic of Serbia and a new youth policy based on it. The first focus of analysis concerns the youth educational activities, as they are considered to be the most productive category of time use. The data obtained by the 24-hour time diary method show that Serbian high school students devote a considerable amount of time to school learning, with an average time per day similar to average for European countries and twice the time spent on studying by their peers in the U.S. In the light of relatively poor performance of our students on the national and international assessments of educational outcomes, it is once again suggested that the key problem of educational system regards the nature of competencies that are (dis)favored by the curriculum content and the prevailing teaching and learning methods. In this sense, we believe that the emphasis on the need for cross-sectoral cooperation and close links between education and youth policy is one of crucial points of the National Youth Strategy, especially in terms of defining and monitoring the indicators of key competencies.

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