Gender differences in developmental assets profile of college going youth: a report from India

Abstract

Background: Recent years have seen a paradigm shift in the way development during young age is considered where the focus of attention has moved from the deficit based approaches to one that of strength based. Among the various strength based approaches in youth development, developmental assets profile has achieved a prominent place. The present study is aimed at providing a preliminary evaluation of developmental assets on a group of young people from Kerala State, India. Methods: One hundred and forty (63 females, 77 males) participants were assessed on developmental assets profile survey. Results: Of the sample, 6.4%, 58.6%, 33.6%, and 1.4% of youth fell in the thriving, adequate, vulnerable, and challenged categories, respectively. Analysis of composite internal assets showed that 15.7%, 47.9%, 33.5%, and 2.9%, fell in the thriving, adequate, vulnerable, and challenged categories respectively. In the external assets scores, this was 22.1%, 49.3%, 27.9%, and 0.7%. Significant gender differences were found in the number of total internal, external, and total assets reported. Conclusions: The present study is one of the first studies attempting to assess the developmental assets profile of the college going youth in India and to analyse the gender differences on the same. This way, the study provides a preliminary, nonetheless important understanding about the developmental assets profile of a sample of college going youth.