Youth in Contemporary India ― Images of Identity and Social Change

This book endeavors to be a study of identity in Indian urban youth. It is concerned with understanding the psychological themes of conformity, rebellion, individuation, relatedness, initiative and ideological values which pervade youths' search for identity within the Indian cultural milieu, specifically the Indian family. In its essence, the book attempts to explore how in contemporary India the emerging sense of individuality in youth is seeking its own balance of relationality with parental figures and cohesion with social order. The research questions are addressed to two groups of young men and women in the age group of 20-29 years-Youth in Corporate sector and Youth in Non Profit sector. Methodologically, the study is a psychoanalytically informed, process oriented, context sensitive work that proceeds via narrations, conversations and in-depth life stories of young men and women. Overall, the text reflects on the nature of inter-generational continuity and shifts in India.

This book endeavors to be a study of identity in Indian urban youth. It is concerned with understanding the psychological themes of conformity, rebellion, individuation, relatedness, initiative and ideological values which pervade youths’ search for identity within the Indian cultural milieu, specifically the Indian family. In its essence, the book attempts to explore how in contemporary India the emerging sense of individuality in youth is seeking its own balance of relationality with parental figures and cohesion with social order. The research questions are addressed to two groups of young men and women in the age group of 20-29 years-Youth in Corporate sector and Youth in Non Profit sector. Methodologically, the study is a psychoanalytically informed, process oriented, context sensitive work that proceeds via narrations, conversations and in-depth life stories of young men and women. Overall, the text reflects on the nature of inter-generational continuity and shifts in India.

Parul Bansal, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi. She is also currently the Head of the Department. She received a BA in psychology from Lady Shri Ram College for Women and a Masters Degree and Doctorate from the University of Delhi. Her PhD research focuses on psycho-social processes of identity development in urban Indian youth using biographical and narrative method. Her academic and research interests are in subfields of Psychology of Self, Personality and Identity, Social and Cultural Psychology, Psychology of Human Development, Qualitative research methodology, Psychoanalysis and Mental Health. She understands Psychology as a broad discipline, largely but not solely empirical, very fuzzy at the edges where it merges with sociology, neuroscience and humanities and just as much a discursive construction as any other area of knowledge. In her teaching, she endeavours to imbibe in students an active curiosity in understanding and critiquing ideological issues in Psychology and foster interest in theoretical and methodological pluralism. She was awarded Shashi Kala Singh Gold Medal for topping in M.A. in University of Delhi. She has also received ICSSR Doctoral Fellowship to conduct her PhD work.