Time use in daily activities of working class children from 9 to 12 years of age

Abstract

This is a cross-sectional, descriptive, quantitative study, performed at four public schools from a medium sized municipality located in the country area of the State of São Paulo. This article aims to describe how working class children use their time in everyday activities. The data was collected through the Activity Log – children’s version, an instrument developed by the authors to collect information about the use of time by that population. The statistical software SPSS®, version 21, was used for the analysis of the results, which pointed that most of the children’s time during the week and weekends was dedicated to basic daily activities related to self-care, household chores and taking care of other children. The results also indicated a balance among working time, free time and self-care time. The study verified the necessity of greater investment on leisure activities, complementary education and sports activities, and its findings reaffirm what the literature has been pointing, that is, greater investment and attention from the government authorities to periphery and low income children’s population.