Family Resources and Development of Social Competence in Disadvantaged Children in India

Family resources in terms of their qualitative (process) and quantitative (structure) nature influences the development of social competence in children/adolescents. Present study aims at exploring the relationship of family resource variables with three measures of social competence of 300 adolescent belonging to different socio-cultural status. Socio-culturally advantaged group samples were found to have healthy family environment, whereas, socio-culturally disadvantaged group perceived themselves as at disadvantages and were deprived in seeking positive intra-family support. However inspite of their disadvantages, they were found to be more self-competent. On the other hand, advantaged group adolescents were found to be more competent in the areas of peer and teacher related social competence. Product-moment coefficient correlation analysis revealed that parental education, occupation and family income were found to be significantly associated with positive peer and teacher related social competence in case of the samples belonging to the advantaged socio-cultural group. However, negative responses and outside family support was found to be positively associated with the development of disadvantaged group adolescent's self-related competence. In general, present study supports the hypothesis that Indian family system still continues to be considered as the major source of support for the adolescents, in spite of their growing tendency for independence, self-definition and autonomy.