Social Change and Perception of Change in Child Rearing Practices in a Suburban Indian Village (An Old and Rare Book)

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This report deals with one aspect of a village study of Child Rearing Prac tices The Department of Child Development and Family Relations of the Faculty of Home Science. Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, established its programme of postgraduate studies in 1955. In 1960, the Faculty received grants from the Ford Foundation for the further development of postgraduate studies and research in the various areas of Home Science. As a part of this development programme, a team of Visiting Professors came to Baroda in 1961. Dr. Thomas Poffenberger was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Child Development and Family Relations from November 1961 until January 1965. It was under his direction that the over-all village project was undertaken. The research staff consisted of Mrs. Shirley B. Poffenberger, Shri Bihari Pandya, Misses Rupa Patel, Smita Patel, Tarulata Parekh, Katy Mohta and Shri Manu bhai Patel. The work of the project was carried out by this team. They did the interviewing, prepared the tabular data and helped in preparing the report. Miss Vidya Dave and Miss Renuka Mehta gathered information related to children's education. Some of the initial interviewing was done by Shri Haribhai Patel. Miss Karen Kaye prepared the first draft of some of the tables and excerpted comments from the interviews.

Needless to say, the project could not have been carried out without the cooperation of the village and their leaders, they were not only the subjects of the study but took an active interest in the project and many of them became good friends of the staff.

During the school year of 1961, a series of seminars in the Department of Child Development, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, resulted in the decision to select a village as a laboratory for the study of rural child rearing practices and family dynamics. From the summer of 1962 until the summer of 1967, a number of projects were conducted in the village. One of these was designed to determine attitudes of village parents about changes they believed to be taking place from the standpoint of child rearing practices. The present report analyzes data gathered related to that particular project along with information indicating the type of general social change that has taken place in the village since about 1900.

The study was sponsored by the Research Programmes Committee of the Planning Commission and financed by a grant from it. However, the material presented and opinions expressed are those of research team only.

The monograph has five parts, Part I presents the methodology used in the study. Part II gives a brief overview of the historical development of significance to social change. Part III presents the cultural context in which children are raised in the village. Part IV contains the responses of the sample to questions that attempted to determine how village parents viewed changes in child rearing practices. Part V is a commentary on the village and interpreta tion of pertinent findings.

As background for the study of child rearing practices, basic data were gathered on each of the major institutions of the village. These included the social, political, economic and religious institutions as well as information on the school system. Historical information was also collected from a number of sources. Much of the data indicated aspects of change and this material was used in Part II and Part III of this report. The major objective, however, is to present the results of interviews with village people conducted in an attempt to determine what changes they believed were taking place in child rearing practices and how they felt about these changes.

The study of child rearing practices in the village was undertaken with the assumption that it would be one way of studying changes in cultural values. It was assumed that child rearing practices are both cause and effect. The methods parents use in rearing children may be regarded in part as the influence of the cultural group in which they live and to which they must adjust. To be accepted by other group members, parents may be expected to conform in the way they rear their children as well as in other behavior patterns. On the other hand, the types of child rearing practices have an influence on the kind of personality the child will have as an adult. A sub cultural group undergoing change may be expected to reflect this change in the attitudes and values that it attempts to inculcate in the younger members of its group. Changes that take place in the institutions affecting the village may be expected to influence child rearing practices. For example, as agriculture becomes less significant as an occupation and other kinds of work take its place as a way of earning a livelihood, it would be expected that child rearing practices which are functional in terms of the new work forms would begin to replace those more characteristic of the old.

In the village under study, rapid change has taken place in the last few years, largely as a result of increasing urban and industrial influence. These changes have in turn brought about changes in all aspects of village life including the behaviour of both children and adults and their relationships with each other. Our objective was to determine how villagers perceived these differences. If in fact, the kinds of changes in child rearing practices reported by the sample are actually taking place, it can be assumed that these changes will have an effect on children in terms of their attitudes and behaviour in their adult life. It is through this process that changes take place in the basic personality of a people. It is, however, not within the realm of this report to speculate on the eventual results of change from the standpoint of personality dynamics. Any meaningful hypothesis in this regard can only follow a detailed and careful study of all the available data gathered in the larger study.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages