IGNOU PROJECT ( MAPC )

SYNOPSIS APPROVAL
MPCE-016

Topic
Psycho-Social problems of Adolescent Girls related
to their Family life, Educational life and Emotional behavior

LEARNER’S NAME:MRS.BABITA SHARMA

ENROLLMENT NO:166536161
STUDY CENTRE: R.G.P.G.COLLEGE,MEERUT
REGIONAL CENTRE:NOIDA
MOBILE NO: 9760794949

E MAIL ID:superbghazals@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION

Women have been branded as mysterious creatures as well as devoted mothers and Self
Sacrificing wives during various periods of time through which the human civilization has evolved
from its primitive roots and advanced scientific and materialist culture.

Nevertheless, women have been neglected a lot in our social fabric. But it cannot be denied that
they have a defined and definite rote to play in society in general and family in particular. They
have been victims of humiliation, torture and exploitation, female infanticide, female foeticide so
on and so forth. Though, Social reformers worked in the direction of improving the condition of
the women and girl child in the nineteenth century, this work has not yet been completed even
today in the twenty first century.

In spite of great zeal and enthusiasm, the reformers achieved little success in breaking
the strong notion of women’s inferior secondary status. In general, many parts of India still witness
majority of women and girl children facing problems such as lack of awareness, under estimation
about their lower worth,being treated as second grade citizens Female child is still considered as
a burden on the family. Dowry system and parents’ reluctance in spending money on a girl child
is a social stigma from which the society is yet to get rid of.

Gender discrimination is practised in providing care to the girl child in the areas of health,
nutrition, education and distribution of work during early childhood years. This gets further
heightened with the advent of puberty. As a young girl is seen to become more vulnerable,
numerous restrictions are imposed on her as far as her movements and behaviour are concerned.
There is an intense training for her to learn her role as a wife and a mother.

1
 Operational Definition

Adolescence means “To Emerge” or “achieve identity”. This is a relatively new concept,
especially in development thinking. That adolescence is a period of storm and stress means, It is
developmental transition between childhood and adulthood. It is generally considered to begin at
about age ten and to end in the late teens that is 10-19 years as per the WHO guidelines.

Problems of young girls in today’s Scenario

In this study, problems would mean the difficulties that the adolescent girls experience in
the form of ill health, exploitations, abuse, run away tendencies, loneliness, hesitation, Inferiority
complex and so many other difficult situations experienced by them.

Above all, they face a lot of sexual harassment both physically and mentally.Lewd remarks
are made about their bodies and personality. Because of this, they suffer in society and at home
as well because nobody believes them or shares their agony.

The perceptions of the older generations act as a curse for them. The parents and grand-parents
act as a deterrent to their dreams of touching the sky. So sometimes they develop a negative
attitude towards parents and start hiding things.

Adolescents are extremely sensitive and small things may hurt them a lot. This may be
because of hormonal changes and newness of events. Some adolescents learn to handle a
situation once they experience such event.They observe what happens in a particular situation
and thus, learn the appropriate way to deal with the situation if it arises again.

Psychosocial Problems of Adolescents

(Pertaining to psychological development of individual

in relation to his or her social environment)

In this study, psycho-social problems would be studied in relation to the following-

1. Attitude towards parents and teachers-

Studying the extent, degree or severity of problems, which the adolescents experience
with her father or mother, it comes to the fore that apart from physical and hormonal
changes taking place during adolescence, there is a lot of significance of processes like
identity and self esteem. The adolescents tries to establish their our entities apart from
their parents.

They (Both Boys and girls) want to evaluate themselves all the time. They compare
themselves with their role models i.e. some persons from different fields of the society
who have achieved something great and try to act and live like them.

2. Feeling of loneliness – This term refers to feelings of adequacy versus inadequacy and
subjective estimations of peer status. There is a lot of peer-pressure on adolescents. They
want to spend more and more time with their friends. There are issues of bad company,

2
 late night out parties which elders may not approve while adolescents may like them a
lot.
3. Social media – Most of the time, adolescents are active on social media. Their continuous
presence on social media may not be liked by their parents. They do not like the idea of
parents monitoring their accounts. There may be conflicts between parents and children
in this regard.
4. Social relationships and Psychological adjustments – These terms mean family
settings and family-relations, peer-activities and their involvement, and personal
perception of self and environment.
5. Emotional challenges – Emotions are very strong in adolescents. Adolescents are yet to
learn how to express their emotions socially, in an acceptable way, as they are in a
process of acting according to their own impulses and are searching their identity.

Review of Related Literature

Following are some reviews and opinions related to the proposed study :

As Gibran (2016) stated, “The children are perfect extension and expression of the couple’s love
and caring. The basic requirement is stable parents who are sensitive to the child's emotional
needs and who provide appropriate interaction and opportunities for play and consistent
discipline, supervision and support.”

According to United Nations Child Rights Convention (2014), children should enjoy right to
survival, education, good health, free expression, and to be heard and to enjoy their own
language. The children whose needs are not met, have the risk of abnormal social, emotional and
cognitive developmental processes.

“Eleven-year old cannot be bought” said Brown and Gilligan (2015), They are articulate
resourceful and know their own minds. But age eleven seems to be the last year when many girls
are in charge of their feelings and lives. As girls move into adolescence their relationships often
become characterized by dissociation and disconnection from themselves and others. As these
girls move into womanhood, they often do not remember, tend to forget or even cover-up what
they experienced and knew as girls. (Brown and Gilligan 1992). These researchers found that,
this time, most girls begin to switch from an authentic voice to an acceptable or perfect girl/nice
girl” voice.

Indirect Evidence has also shown that adolescent daughters are at greater risk of depressive
disorders and symptoms more than the sons when their mothers are depressed. (Sheeber, Davis
& Hops 2002.)

In a study of Korean women’s career choices and their relationships with their mothers,
Song (2001) reviewed literature from the United States and abroad. She Concluded that mothers
play a crucial role as models and are highly influential in their daughters’ perceptions of
themselves and their sex-role attitudes. For example, women who model subservient role pass
along negative self-image to their daughters.

3
Orenstein (2014) interviewed approximately 25 adolescent girls, individually and in groups, as
well as their parents and teachers, to collect their thoughts on issues affecting adolescent girls in
schools, Her interviewer came from two state schools, from different backgrounds of the Same
town.

The two schools were markedly different in the socio-econmic and minority status of
attending students. Using an open ended interview format, Orenstein and her participants
explored issues such as relationship with boys,and parents and teachers not listening to the girls
and not adopting appropriate and acceptable behaviour for girls for their future orientation.

Overwhelming, even girls who spoke of themselves with grit and independence, were
silent in the classroom, preferring to be silent than being wronged and humiliated.

Sewell and Hauser (1993) Showed that parents’ educational expectations have significant
effects on junior students’ academic performances.

Social Capital theory emphasizes the participation of parents in education and children's learning
behaviour and achievement. Parents with higher social economic status usually participate in their
children’s school absence and other risky behaviors, and improve the children’s academic
performance (Coleman 1988)

Empirical studies showed that parental educational participation, such as discussing school things
with children, checking their home-work, and participating in school activities, could improve
children’s academic performance (Pong et al, 2005)

In spite of the different theoretical perspectives, most researches pay attention to the paths and
mechanisms of how the social and economic status of a family affects children’s academic
achievements.

Among these, Human Capital Theory stresses the role of the economic resources of family and
educational investment in children’s education, and Social Capital Theory pays more attention
to the role of parents’ educational level and participation in children’s academic performance. The
perspective of school quality argues that the social and economic status of a family affects
children’s academic performance and chance of continuing schooling through effective school
qualities.

Actually, the impacts of any type of factors cannot exist independently. All family economic
resources, family environment and school qualities are important. The issue is that all of them are
exogenous factors which only take effect through students’ behaviour that is through childrens’
academic achievements.

Analysis Framework And Research Hypothesis

Based on existing studies, this article aims to explore the mechanism and paths of the impact of
family socio-economic status on the children’s academic achievement at the micro level. By
organising the existing literature, combined with the situation of education in different-schools and
cultural differences, the following analysis is proposed-

4
 (Difference in educational opportunities)

Family’s social and child’s leaning child’s academic

economic status behaviours achievement

(parents educational participation)

The daily experience shows that the impact of family’s socio-economic status on children’s
academic achievement is not direct, but rather through these two paths-

1. Families with relatively high socio-economic status will strive to secure educational
opportunities for their children, such as, those provided by key-schools and markets in the
system, which, in turn, will affect their academic achievements.
2. Family’s socio-economic status affects children’s learning behaviour and academic
performance by affecting parents’ educational expectations towards children and their
educational participation.

So, mainly these are significant differences in the educational, emotional and behavioural
things in both the families and their children which we study in our research that both the
schools i.e.a private school ( for example, Sophia Girls School,Meerut Cantt) and a
government school ( like Raghunath Girls Inter college, Meerut ) are different in their
curriculum and both affect the girls differently at the psychosocial and emotional level.

Rational behind the study

An overview of the survey of literature reveals that so far no serious effort has been under
taken to study about psycho-social problems of the adolescent girls, related to their families,
family life, educational life and emotional behaviour. Therefore, it is very important to conduct
a research in these fields.

We have a standardized famous tool of TAT (Thematic Apperception Test) which we have
used in this research study.

Statement of the problem

The statement of the problem is “PSYCHO-SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF ADOLESCENT GIRLS

RELATED TO THEIR FAMILY LIFE, EDUCATIONAL LIFE AND EMOTIONAL BEHAVIOUR.”

Objectives of the study.

We have the following main objectives related to the proposed study-

1. To study the psycho-social problems of the adolescent girls related to their family life,
2. To study the psycho-social problems of the adolescent girls related to their educational
life,
3. To study the psycho-social problems of the adolescent girls related to their emotional
behavior, and

5
4. To study the impact of the socio-economic status of the families upon the pscho-social
behaviour of the girls studying at both the schools.

HYPOTHESIS OF THE STUDY

The following hypothesis are formulated for the proposed study :

1. When compared, girls will definitely differ on the basis of their place of residence (i.e.
being from rural areas or urban areas) with regard to their attitude towards parents and
teachers in handling their psychological problems, social relationships and psycho-social
adjustment in their family life.
2. Girls, who started their educational career with kindergarten and whose parents were
educated, probably perform better in their classes than their counter parts,who have
started schooling late and /or whose parents are less educated.
3. Girls who were studying in English medium, were found to be more open and much
more social in their nature in comparison to their counter parts i.e. the girls from Hindi
medium schools.
4. Girls whose socio-economic status is better or who have numerous educational options
and whose parents are well qualified, carry different qualities of educational, social and
thinking patterns as compared to the girls from poor families or born to the less educated
parents .

Or

We can say that parents’ socio-economic status certainly affects socio-economic life of their
children. The higher the socio-economic status of the family is, the higher the degree of
educational achievements of their children.

METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY

Research-Design

The present study will be designed to study about psycho-social problems of adolescent girls
related to their family life, educational life and emotional behaviour.

Research-Method

Evaluative research technique of descriptive Research will be employed to carry out this piece
of research-work

Population

R.G Inter college ,Meerut (a government school) and Sophia girls school,Meerut Cantt. (an
I.C.S.E private school)

Girls students, who are enrolled in class IXth in Meerut will constitute the population of the
study for the present investigation.

6
 Sample and Sampling techniques

Sixty (60) girls from from two sections, IXthA and IXB of R.G Inter College,Meerut, and sixty
(60) girls from IXth science and commerce groups of Sophia Girls School,Meerut Cantt, who
were enrolled in class IX in schools will constitute the sample. Simple random sampling
techniques will be adopted to draw the sample from the classes by which every unit of the
every class will be provided equal chance of inclusion in the sample.

Inclusions and Exclusions

1. Only government and private school girl students who enrolled themselves in class IXth
standard in Meerut will be included in the study.
2. Only 60 girl students from R.G Inter College, Meerut (a govt school) and 60 girls from
Sophia Girls School,Meerut Cantt ( a private school) who enrolled themselves in class
IXth standard in Meerut will be included in the study.
3. The age group of the sample will be restricted to 13-15 years only.
4. Disabled children and the students not interested in participating will be excluded from the
study.

Tool used for data collection

In order to understand clearly the concept of adolescence and issues related to it,a well structured
questionnaire and a well standardized tool (TAT test) is used.

Methods of data analysis

In this study, univariate and bivariate tables will be prepared. The data will be analyzed by using
simple statistical tools such as averages and percentages. The analyzed data will be used to
prepare the data (report) from which ineferences will be drawn and conclusion will be arrived.

REFERENCES

1. Gibran.K (2016). The prophet, Jaico publishing house, New Delhi.

2. http//www early childhood australia. Org.au/learning-hub/educator-resources/children-
rights.
3. Brown, L.M and Gilligan, C (2012). Meeting at the crossroads :- women’s psychology and
the girls development. Harvard university Press.
4. Orenstein, P (2014), school girls young women , self-esteem, and the confidence gap.
New-york, doubleday, 1995.
5. Orenstein, P, (2015). Psychology : The study of human experience, New-york, Harcourt
Brace jovernovich.

6. The journal of Chinese sociology volume 5. Article no 13 (2018). “How does family
background affects children’s educational achievement.”

7
8