Assessing Social-support Network Among the Socio-culturally Disadvantaged Children in India

Social support has a direct as well as an indirect effect in satisfying the children's need. Present study aims at assessing the social support network and the satisfaction of the children's needs belonging to high and low socio-cultural status families. A total of 300 children of grade 8, 9 & 10 belonging to different socio-cultural environment (advantaged & disadvantaged) were taken as samples. Present study revealed that the children from advantaged socio-cultural environment were found to have healthy and enriching family climate. Whereas, the children from socio-culturally disadvantaged environment were deprived of getting necessary interpersonal and intra-family support as compared to their counterparts. Yet, these disadvantaged children were found to be getting more outside family support. Inspite of getting negative support and responsibilities from their families, the need satisfaction rate was found to be more in case of disadvantaged children. The study also found out that girls were receiving more negative response from their family members than the boys. However, this paper confirms the continuous positive social support (both outside/inside family) in satisfying children's needs in the Indian social system.