Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing

Pages: 968-973
P. Ramalingam (UGC-Academic Staff College, Pondicherry University, Puducherry)
R. Parthasarathy (Project Director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Puducherry)

After laying the foundation of Indian School Psychology Association (InSPA) in collaboration with the experts of International School Psychology Association (ISPA) in 2011, it occurred to the coordinator of these meetings P. Ramalingam to engage the experts from the two associations to impart first-hand training to school administrators and school counsellors in India. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), an ambitious project of the Government of India to universalize elementary education, provided the most suitable platform in various ways. Training modules were prepared on international guidelines so as to suit to the Indian context. There were 60 participants in the training: 15 higher secondary school principals and 30 high school head masters of the Union Territory of Puducherry, and 15 school counsellors and teachers from various parts of India. They had the opportunity to acquire knowledge in various aspects related to School Psychology, such as building capacity, developing shared vision between the school administration and the teacher, along with the need to provide primary, secondary and tertiary prevention. Focus was on skills in School Psychology, lecture cum interaction, demonstration and role play, skill practice and material preparation, practice workshop with primary and secondary school children, assignments and tests. Interactive technical sessions were scheduled for five days and the feedback received from the participants of this innovative international collaboration was highly satisfactory. There was so much enthusiasm in the community that a School Psychologist Training Institute has been envisioned to conduct such programmes regularly to advance the cause of School Psychology.

Pages: 981-988
Sonia Sharmin (Department of Sociology, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh)

This paper attempts to investigate the application of Harm Reduction Model that is largely in practice, in the context of Bangladesh. The Injective Drug Users (IDU) is considered to be most susceptible to blood borne diseases and Harm Reduction approach is vital in containing the epidemic of such contagion and depleting the threat eventually. This paper applies mixed methods to identify the commitment and activity of Drop in Centers (DIC's) of major NGOs, which are locally and globally funded, with the support of local government to attain the Health Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of 2021. The paper is investigative to the operational effectiveness of Harm Reduction Model and suggestive to social policy development.

Pages: 993-999
Anubhuti Dubey (Department of Psychology, D. D. U Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur, UP)
Laxmi Vajpeyi (Department of Humanities, B.B.D. University, Lucknow, UP)

Self awareness or knowing one's emotions forms the key stone of emotional intelligence. People who excel in this are able to bounce back quickly from life's setbacks and upsets. Diagnosis of a chronic illness like diabetes is one such setback that upset the whole frame of reference of the victim. Therefore, the present investigation was aimed to find out the role of emotional intelligence in effectively coping with diabetes and evaluating quality of life. 150 female diabetic patients having type II diabetes were given the scales of emotional intelligence, coping and quality of life. The emotional intelligence was measured by the Hindi version of EI (Schutte et. al., 1998) contains two sub scales measuring ability to monitor and regulates emotion in oneself and in others. On the basis of EI scores the patients were divided into high and low EI self and High and low EI others. The ANOVA findings suggested High EI self and EI Others patients were using more active and adaptive coping strategies and less maladaptive coping strategies as compared to patients having low EI self and EI others. Both EI self and EI others have also significantly predicted physical, psychological and social quality of life. In addition, for fostering emotional intelligence a coaching schedule was introduced to low emotionally intelligent group of participants and results of pre and post coaching scores of EI indicated that for monitoring and regulation of EI self was increased. The implication of these finding for diabetic patients has been discussed.

Pages: 1006-1010
Deepa Ghosh (Department of Psychology, Netaji Subhas Mahavidyalaya, Udaipur, Tripura)

The aim of the study was to standardize an eve teasing scale for measuring attitude of the boys towards eve teasing. The sample size was 100. The original questionnaire consisted of 37 statements. After item analysis, only 21 significant items (p<0.01; p<0.05) were kept in the Eve Teasing Scale for boys (ESB). Accordingly, ESB was applied to the 100 students of different colleges of Tripura. Following the standard rationale each item was scored and the scores were summated for each of the seven categories. Then, the inter category of coefficient of correlations were determined and the said correlation matrix was utilised to factorial study utilising Principal Component Factor Analysis. The factorial study reveals that the total of 21 items were clearly Clustered into two factors. Factor I consist of three categories viz. girl's responsibility, improper socialisation and media's role and factor II consists of four categories viz., consciousness about the problem, feeling of security, lack of knowledge, boy's responsibility. The result of Principal Component Analysis of factorial study indicates that the eve-teasing scale has a good amount of construct validity. Then the reliability coefficient was determined by applying the Spearman Brown prophecy formula. The reliability coefficient of the factors I and the factor II were 0.788 and 0.841 respectively which designate the test as a reliable one. Later ESB was applied to a group of 280 male college students. Results (Mean=11.153; SD= 3.829) reveal that boys of colleges have predominantly favourable attitude towards eve teasing. Further the results provide some interesting cues about the concerned phenomena.

Pages:1018-1023
Ranjana Singh and Sonia Rani (Department of Psychology, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, Haryana)

The present study examined the relationship between parenting styles and personality. Sample comprised of 400 students (226 females +174 males) between the age group of 17 to 22 years (mean age-19.5 years) studying at various colleges of Haryana. Tools used for data collection were the (1) Parental Authority Questionnaire, (2) 16 Personality Factors Questionnaire, chosen after a comprehensive review of related literature. Subjects were contacted in groups and data was collected. The responses were scored and statistically analyzed. Pearson's correlation was calculated. Results indicated that Permissiveness dimension of Mother's parenting style is found negatively and significantly correlated with Abstractedness and Self Reliance. Authoritarian dimension is found negatively and significantly correlated with Emotional Stability, Dominance, Abstractedness and Self Reliance, but correlated positively with Rule Consciousness and Sensitivity. Authoritative dimension of Mother's parenting style is found positively and significantly correlated with Reasoning, Rule Consciousness and Perfectionism, but correlated negatively and significantly with Dominance, Liveliness, Social Boldness and Abstractedness. Permissiveness of Father's parenting style is found positively and significantly correlated with Rule Consciousness, Sensitivity and negatively and significantly correlated with Abstractedness. Authoritarian dimension of Father's parenting style is found positively and significantly correlated with Reasoning and Sensitivity, but correlated negatively and significantly with Emotional Stability and Dominance. Authoritative dimension of Father's parenting style is found positively and significantly correlated with Reasoning, Rule Consciousness and Perfectionism and negatively and significantly correlated with Dominance, Liveliness, Abstractedness and Privateness.

Pages: 1029-1032
Harprit Kaur and Manjot Kaur (Department of Psychology, Punjabi University, Patiala)

Gender mainstreaming may well be the most basic strategy for the promotion of gender equality as was recognized by experts at Beijing in 1995. While it is the ultimate tool, but it encompasses a range of strategies which must cut across differential developmental stages, and consequently address the related significant areas. The first evidence of gender inequality is the early socialization; and hence the mainstreaming too must begin by recognizing the gender biases in the earliest parent child interactions. Parents are the most influential and effective socializing agents during the course of development (Sirohi & Chauhan ,1991). Researches show that family environment and child rearing practices, significantly affect the child's thinking, feelings and behaviour, and hence create the basic framework within which the consequent adult approach to life is determined. The whole personality of child can be moulded by parental interactions. Parenting style refers to a privilege or responsibility of parents to prepare the child to get along in the society according to cultural norms (Veeness, 1973). Further, the child's own perception of parental attitudes plays a very crucial role in his / her personality development (Rohner, 1990). So the child's perception of parental attitude towards himself /herself is of great concern in the dynamics of behavior. It provides new avenues of research for deeper probe in the domain of how gender inequalities get perpetuated; and are maintained as the gender stereotypes may become an inherent part of psyche by internalizing parental gender based interactional patterns. The present paper aims to analyze the parental relationship as perceived by boys and girls, with specific reference to their perception of fathering and mothering. The aim is to highlight the differences in the child parent relationship due to the gender of the child, with the ultimate purpose of identifying the domains which need to be addressed to mainstream gender equality as early as possible. For this purpose a sample of forty teenagers (twenty boys and twenty girls), with a mean age of 15 years, matched on age, education level, and socio- economic strata, belonging to intact families; were evaluated using Parent -Child Relationship Scale by Rao (1971), across ten domains of parenting, separately for mothering and fathering. The data was statistically analysed to understand the perceived perceptions for relationship with father and with mother across the domains, as also gender differences in the parental interaction styles. The results of the study and its implications for long term gender biases, gender based self perceptions, and acquisition of gender based adult interactional patterns will be discussed in the paper. Its significance for mainstreaming gender equality will be highlighted.

Pages: 1042-1048
Deepa Ghosh (Department of Psychology, N. S. Mahavidyalaya, Udaipur, Tripura)

The present study was conducted to compare the level of self-esteem, academic achievement need and depression of the tribal and non-tribal Higher Secondary school students of Tripura. This study further examined the relationship between self esteem, academic achievement need and depression. The sample comprised of 120 higher secondary school students aged from 16-18 years. Among them 60 were tribal students (Boys:30; Girls: 30) and 60 were non-tribal students (Boys:30; Girls:30). Self-esteem scale by Singh and Srivastava; Academic Achievement Need Scale by Tanwar and Amalnerkar and Beck depression Inventory by Beck were used to collect the data in the present study. The Sample was randomly selected from 6 government higher secondary schools of sub-urban areas. The data were analyzed with t-test and correlation. Findings revealed significant differences between the tribal and non-tribal students on the level of self esteem, academic achievement need and depression. Tribal students possess low self-esteem, low academic achievement need and more depression in comparison to the non-tribal students. Significant relationships are found between the variables of the study. The findings confirm the research hypotheses. The result of the present study can be used retrospectively for ensuring psychological intervention to improve the self-esteem and academic achievement need of the tribal students otherwise the motto of the government about tribes' upliftment would be a distant possibility.

Pages: 1054-1056
Roghieh Nooripour (Family Counseling Department, Shahid Beheshti University, G.C., Tehran, Iran)
Ali Zadeh Mohammadi (Family Research Institute, Shahid Beheshti University, G.C., Tehran, Iran)
Mehrollah Sargolzaei (Department of Psychology, Payame Noor University, Zabol Branch, Zabol, Iran)

Every year many students are leaving their homes to go college. This brings new opportunities for individuals, but will face them to challenges and pressures like homesickness. India Universities in Asia attract large population of Iranian students and many Iranian graduated students in India Universities are working in Iran. This study examined the relationship between self-efficacy with Iranian students' homesickness in India. Research method was descriptive and study population was all male and female students who are currently studying in India. Through available sample, 100 male and female students (77 boys, 23girls) at Banaras Hindu University, JNU and Delhi University responded to questionnaires on February 26 (International Students Day at these universities). For data collection, Schwartz Self-efficacy questionnaire (1999) and Van Vilet's Homesickness Scale (2001) were used. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze data, and the data were analyzed by Pearson correlation test. The findings suggested that self efficacy has significant and reverse relationship with "Nostalgia for family" and "loneliness" of homesickness's components, and has direct and significant correlation with "adaptation" of homesickness, finally there was no significant correlation between self efficacy and "the desire to return home"(p<0.05). By using of results of this research and studies have been conducted on homesickness, we can identify individuals at risk for mental breakdown which has significant correlation with poor academic and social performance in university to do timely actions for interventions in controlling stress and prevention from depressive symptoms and self-handicapping.

Pages: 1061-1066
Bhaswati Patnaik, Rojalin Samal, and Aradhana Panigrahi (Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Odisha)

The present study was aimed at assessing attitude of parents towards the education and schooling of their children. The study analyzed the data from 145 parents, who had one or more than one school going children. Out of these, 116 parents belonged to tribal families and 29 families belonged to non-tribal families. The age range of the sample was 25-35 years, and they all belonged to Santoshpur village of Sundargarh district consisting largely of tribal population. A 23-item questionnaire was used for collecting data along with personal interview. The respondents were required to indicate their agreement or disagreement with each of the statements about children's education in a four-point Likert type scale, where 1 denotes strong disagreement and 4 denotes strong agreement. Mean scores were calculated separately for tribal and non-tribal samples, and for male and female respondents. The't' test was used to examine the significance of difference between tribal and non-tribal communities as well as across gender with regard to their attitude towards children's schooling and education. The findings showed that the overall attitude of the respondents was moderately favorable and positive towards schooling and education of their children. The results also indicated that there was no significant difference in the attitude of tribal and non- tribal parents. Gender difference was also found to be non-significant. The difference between tribal and non-tribal respondents was evident in their future plans to provide facilities for higher studies for their children. The study suggested that, although government endeavors at universalizing education has resulted in creating mass awareness and positive response towards schooling and education, there is a lot of scope for improvement in this regard. Future implications of the present study for policy formulation as well as for further research were pointed out.