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Here is an essay on ‘Socially Disadvantaged Children’ for class 11 and 12. Find paragraphs, long and short essays on ‘Socially Disadvantaged Children’ especially written for school and college students.
Essay Contents:
- Essay on the Meaning of Socially Disadvantaged Children
- Essay on the Characteristics of Socially Disadvantaged Children
- Essay on the Special Learning Characteristics of SD Children
- Essay on the Identification of Socially Disadvantaged Children
- Essay on the Etiology of Socially Disadvantage Children (Causes)
- Essay on the Nutritional Deprivation of SD Children
- Essay on the Problems of SD Children
- Essay on the Remedial Measures for SD Children
- Essay on the Educational Provisions for SD Children
- Essay on the Educational Guidance and Counselling for SD Children
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Essay # 1. Meaning of Socially Disadvantaged Children:
Educators categorise them somewhat arbitrarily into one or more of the following areas of deprivation: economic, racial, geographic, social, cultural, cognitive, and/or emotional. Historically one can identify the roots of this population in terms of their educational needs, but it was not until the mid- 1960s that writers such as Reissman and Havighurst and their turns at defining the characteristics that constitute this deprived, educationally deprived, underprivileged, disadvantaged, lower class, and lower social-economic group, could all be used interchangeably. This is reflected in his class’s book. The culturally deprived child. These children have some strength not only deficiencies.
There is a need to develop qualities within this population such as physical orientation, hidden verbal ability, creative potential, group cohesiveness, informality and sense of humor.
The term ‘Disadvantaged’ mean children, who come from socio-economical backward section of the community who cannot profit from school because of deprivation of one sort or another, and children who are seen in interior tribal and rural areas of country where educational facilities have not reached in the way we find them in a metropolitan area.
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In other words, the term disadvantaged would include, children who not only belong to the above criteria but children who are exposed to disadvantaged schools in the rural and slum areas. Hence, both the ecology of the family and the ecology of the institution contribute to educational deficits of the disadvantaged.
Again, cultural deprivation refers to a complex set of conditions which create intellectual deficiency in a child. These conditions include unstimulated environment, lack of verbal interaction with adults, poor sensory experience and other deleterious environmental factors associated with poverty.
However, the term ‘deprived’ or ‘disadvantaged’ or ‘culturally different’ was used to indicate who are marked by the following there general characteristics during their school life:
1. Progressive decline in intellectual functioning,
2. Cumulative Academic Achievement Deficits, and
3. Premature School termination or higher drop-out rate.
Essay # 2. Characteristics of Socially Disadvantaged Children:
Keeping this nature of learning process aside, the gap between a culturally disadvantaged child and a normal child begins to grow with age and exposure to classroom learning. A wide gap was found between the Blacks and middle class whites when achievement, tests and verbal ability were taken into account. Actually it is not stimulation but the quality of stimulation that is important. The verbal milieu in which the middle class children grow up corresponds much more closely to school learning situation. Middle class children have a superior quality of both verbal and non-verbal stimulation at home. Again the stimulation is very distinct and the reinforcement system is of a delayed kind.
The social and cultural disadvantage is not crystal clear in India. All low income group children are not necessarily at a disadvantage. The children of higher SES have culture superior to those of the low caste Harijans who are given the same low social-economic status. The distance between Brahmins and Harijans has widened due to the cumulative effects. There are empirical findings which supports the cultural effects of high casts home.
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A marked difference was felt among the students of different social-economic groups so far as intellectual capacity was concerned. It is true that better economic conditions, education and occupational status of the parents were the most significant contributory factor for the intellectual development of the children. Researchers place emphasis on stimulating environment in early life for intellectual growth of children.
The following are the main characteristics of socially disadvantaged children:
(1) Poor Academic performance
(2) Cognitive deficiencies
(3) Apathetic, unresponsive and lack initiative
(4) Lower achievement
(5) Basic Intelligence
(6) Socially Disadvantaged, and
(7) Intellectual performance.
(1) Poor Academic Performance:
These children show poor academic performance of high drop-out rates, reading and other learning disabilities and have adjustment problems. Socio-economically backward children practically show every such index. They have lower grades, their health is poor, and they have deficiencies in the two most skills reading and language, necessary for success in school. They have minimal training in disciplined group behaviour and educationally they are less ambitious.
Children for such environments are apt to have various linguistic disabilities. They also show incapacity in cognitive processes such as—the ability to observe and stating sequences of events, perceiving cause and effect relationship, classifying concrete objects, attributing responsibility to self and in general have poor self-concrete. The combination of non-verbal orientation and an absence of conceptualisation very well account for their intellectual deficits and deficit in cognitive skills or in Piagetian terminology, formal logical thinking is absent in all such children or appear very late in the development.
(2) Cognitive Deficiencies:
The cognitive deficiencies are again complicated by their pattern of motivation and attitudes. Psychologists explain that these children have a feeling of alienation induced by family climate and experience combined with a debilitatingly low self-concept. The intend to question their own worth to fear being challenged and to exhibit a desire to cling to the familiar. They have many feelings of guilt and shame. These children are wary and their trust in adults is limited. They make trigger like response and are hyperactive.
(3) Apathetic, Unresponsive and Lack Initiative:
They are apathetic unresponsive and lack initiative. It is difficult for them to form meaningful relationships. Although these characteristics are rooted in early childhood family background and social class membership of the family etc. Yet the attitudes of the teacher and the curriculum in the school increase the alienation of these children. Very often there is a communication gap
between the teacher and the students, the objectives of instruction and the actual evaluation of instruction in terms of pupils performance as well as discontinuities in the meanings attached to verbal cues employed in teaching and curriculum materials and the meanings which these children have acquired in their out of school experiences.
(4) Lower Achievement:
The lower achievement of disadvantaged children could be attributed to at least five causes: malnutrition, genetic, lack of stimulating early experience, social motivation and cultural values. In addition, the cognitive style or strategy adopted by a group may account for the lower performance of the disadvantaged children.
(5) Basic Intelligence:
Many the results supported that with exception to basic intelligence where group difference did not occur between different castes groups, the low caste children did show deficits in personality information processing modes, and intellectual achievement. And the deficits also indicated progressive or cumulative retardation in most of the measures. Hence in our cultural background memberships in low caste and low income family do predispose children to an impoverished environment and the consequence of this deprivation are cumulative over time.
(6) Socially Disadvantaged:
Children from low socio-economic status (SES) – Socially disadvantaged home drop out form schools. Wastage and stagnation is a characteristic of the socially disadvantaged group. Drop out is solely due to cultural disadvantaged characteristics of low cast and rural background. The facts suggest that everything else remaining same the greater drop-out rate is influenced by cultural disadvantage or deprivation. There are various causes of drop-outs but membership a low casts/low income group mostly makes on drop-out-prone in school. Similar trends are seen in all states in India.
(7) Intellectual Performance:
Within the deprived community the girls appeared to be comparatively better than the boys in intellectual performance. There is a curvilinear relationship between sex and arithmetic reasoning and arithmetic fundamentals across grade levels. But in readings comprehension and reading vocabulary than boys across all grade levels children girls did better having physical/orthopaedic problems did not show consistent poor performance in the cognitive tasks.
The research findings permit us a general statement i.e., all groups of disadvantaged rural students are characterised by poor cognitive competence and educational achievement. We essentially came to the same conclusion whether we analyzed the result in terms of organismic variable such as- sex race grade levels or by dichotomising the Ss on the basis of some basis of some behavioural characteristics social emotional physical. Differentiation on the basis of physical characteristics offered some meaningful about rural disadvantaged children especially of their educational retardation. Obviously sensory impairments and general malanutritional factors do inhibit school learning.
Essay # 3. Special Learning Characteristics of SD Children:
Special learning characteristics of the socially deprived or disadvantaged student might include many of the following:
(1) Orientation towards physical and visual rather than to the oral;
(2) Content-centred rather than introspective;
(3) Problem-centred rather than abstract centred;
(4) Inductive rather than deductive;
(5) Spatial rather than temporal;
(6) Slow, careful, patient and persevering rather than quick, clever, facile, and flexible;
(7) Inclined to communicate through actions rather than words;
(8) Deficient in auditory attention and interpretation skills;
(9) Oriented toward concrete application of what is learned;
(10) Short attention span;
(11) Characteristic gaps in knowledge and learning;
(12) Lacking experiences of receiving approval for success in tasks. Meeting the needs of the disadvantaged child is relatively new educational approach.
Although Riessman has made great efforts to identify some characteristics that might be construed as potentially positive qualities he also is cognisant of the negative criteria. The disadvantage children differ from advantaged class in only six areas self-concept motivation, social behaviour language intellectual functioning and physical fitness.
Essay # 4. Identification of Socially Disadvantaged Children:
The term ‘disadvantaged’ is used to indicate the following observable behaviour:
1. Progressive decline in intellectual functioning in school.
2. Cumulative academic achievement deficits.
3. Premature school termination and high dropout rate.
4. Reading and learning disabilities.
5. Poor language learning.
6. In adequate social learning and observing in the absence of model.
7. Low attention span and distraction in learning.
8. Lack of proficiency in higher form of cognitive learning and transfer.
9. Lack of abstract and state sequence of events in a learning situation.
10. Inability to classify and form logical concepts, incapacity to verbalise events and solutions.
11. Lack of analytic ability which is essential for learning.
12. They show belief in external factors, i.e., luck chance, late etc. rather than their own self and activity.
13. They cannot delay gratification immediate tangible and non-contingent rewards are their need.
14. They have a high sense of avoidance for failure than striving success.
15. They have poor self-concept, low achievement aspiration and low need achievement including lack of desire for self-actualisation.
16. Their general behaviour lacks intrinsic motivation. Insecurity and anxiety are very obvious.
Essay # 5. Etiology of Socially Disadvantage Children (Causes):
Cultural deprivation or disadvantaged arise due to a complex set of conditions which create intellectual deficiency in a child. Some of these conditions are attributed to unstimulating environment, lack of verbal interaction with adults poor sensory experience and other deleterious environmental factors generally associated with adults poor sensory experience and other deleterious environmental factors generally associated with poverty low social status, malnutrition, broken homes.
It relates to the following areas of socio-cultural experiences:
(1) Housing conditions,
(2) Home Environment,
(3) Economic Conditions,
(4) Food and Nutrition,
(5) Clothing,
(6) Educational Experiences,
(7) Childhood Experiences,
(8) Rearing Experiences,
(9) Parental Characteristic,
(10) Interaction with parents,
(11) Motivation Characteristics,
(12) Emotional Experiences,
(13) Travel and Recreation and
(14) Socio-cultural Experiences.
Essay # 6. Nutritional Deprivation of SD Children:
Poverty may effect intellectual development through physical conditions i.e., malnourishment. Poverty is all pervasive in India and is responsible for social and education pathology. There is a cultural of poverty characterised by the legacy of psychological distortion which manifests itself in profound alienation form larger society and people, feeling in powerlessness and meaningless in struggles.
When we live in a society, of self-advertisement and propagation, these people remain only conscious of their deprivation. Our attitudes further brutalises the poor and the under privileged. Psychological poverty, intellectual and effective poverty nutritional and biochemical deficiency institutional poverty- predispose a lower SES child more than anyone else for educational under achievement.
Essay # 7. Problems of SD Children:
Different studies on disadvantaged children brought another factor to the forefront. It was found that crucial handicap of socially disadvantaged children is language.
Acquisition and use of language need the functioning of three psycholinguistic process:
(i) Receptive process,
(ii) Associative process, and
(iii) Expressive process.
Despite controversies in this regard, all researchers agree that the socially disadvantaged child possesses a linguistic system which is different from that of the socially advantaged child.
(1) Language Difficulties:
The language difficulties may be the result of one or all or any combination of the following factors:
(a) A different linguistic environment,
(b) A different language acquisition device,
(c) A different set of psycholinguistic abilities,
(d) Economic, educational and place or residence variables,
(e) Poor and uneducated families.
Language experts felt that an inadequate linguistic environment makes a poor input language acquisition device and hence retards language perception and production. The development of linguistic awareness and language learning are hampered in an environment where there is very little linguistic interaction.
(2) Nutritional Deficiency:
Besides language difficulties, nutritional deficiency is another potent factor for socially disadvantaged a child which is considered as the greatest deterrent to physical health. Studies report that malnourishment has a serious effect on physical anomalies and deficiencies on intellectual performance of low SES children. They are inferior to advantaged children in discrimination learning. According to Livingston, “Malnutrition given rise to mental apathy, a shortened span of attention, reduced mental powers and increased drowsiness, etc.”
(3) Motivational Problems:
Many of the deficits observed in the socially disadvantaged are more motivational rather than intellectual and cognitive. The underprivileged children display some significant motivational problems which determine a major aspect of their behaviour patterns.
(i) The show belief in external factors i.e., luck, chance fake etc., rather than their own self and activity. This inability attributes causality to one’s own behaviour accounts for poor motivation in any task.
(ii) They cannot delay gratification. Immediate tangible and non-contingent rewards are their need.
(iii) They have high sense of avoiding failure than striving for success.
(iv) They have poor self-concept, low achievement aspiration, and need achievement including lack of desire for self-actualisation.
Essay # 8. Remedial Measures for SD Children:
Certain remedial measures have been recommended. It is true that deprivation does exist among the socially disadvantaged children due to predominantly.
1. Inadequate early socialisation,
2. Mark of oppression,
3. Organic deficits,
4. Inadequate social environment, and
5. Culture conflicts and educational deprivation.
The following objects should be taken into consideration for enrichment programmes on remedial education:
(1) Socially disadvantaged children must be trained to achieve three objectives, viz., Knowledge, Skill and Attitude.
(2) Self-concept, level of aspiration and achievement motivation should be accelerated.
(3) Language training and analytical thinking must be included.
(4) These children must be trained to acquaint themselves with concrete life situations.
(5) They must be aware of their various creative talents and they must be trained to develop a sense of comparative living in them, so that they can easily participate with normal students.
In order to reverse the ill effect research studies support certain measures:
(1) Early modelling and imitation of desirable behaviour.
(2) Language enrichment programme and stimulation at home.
(3) Affective attention and acceptance,
(4) Providing initial success experience to build better motivating and striving for success.
(5) Removal of discrimination attitudes on the part or teachers and other significant members of society.
(6) Instructional programmes may be geared to their needs and ability level.
(7) Giving responsibility, recognition, tangible rewards positive remarks etc.
(8) Exposure to sensitivity training, exposure to literature, discussion and group contracts, role playing, case conferences relating to their problems.
(9) Presenting learning materials using, images, aids, and providing adequate organizers and drill.
Compensator education programmes have provided the validity of these recommendations.
Essay # 9. Educational Provisions for SD Children:
Educational provisions have been making for the socially disadvantaged by the government. In the arena of intellectual and social competence, enrichment programmes were designed to develop and enlarge children’s conceptual repertoire and communicative skills.
Some measures are discussed below:
(1) Establishment of Residential Schools:
Steps should be taken to establish residential schools and Ashram schools for disadvantaged children like SC and ST. Of course residential types of schools are made to suit the needs of Adivasis. Measures should be taken to make these institutions more homely. Recently, the government has taken the initiative to solve the economic problems existing in these types of Ashram schools. The charges for education, clothing, boarding and medical care are being met by the government. But a meticulous examination reveals that the existing numbers of residential schools are inadequate in this regard. So, recreational centres guidance and counselling centres should be established to meet this immediate demand.
(2) Financial Help for Disadvantaged Children:
Poverty is a pertinent factor which is found to be a barrier in the path of progress of the disadvantaged children. Of course, the government has been giving financial aid to these students long since. On the basis of poverty-cum-merit, other backward classes are also given assistance. Pre-matric and post-matric scholarships are also being given now by the government to provide financial help. In some universities and institutions, payments for admissions and tuition fees are also exempted.
(3) Appointment of Expert Teachers:
A decision has been taken by the government to replace the untrained teachers by trained ones and to absorb the existing hands in suitable posts. In some cases, these untrained teachers were asked to have the requisite qualification within a short space of time. Again, there is a plan to given rewards to those teachers who specialize in braille, tribal dialect and hearing aid.
Residential accommodation is being provided to teacher experts and administrators who work in hilly and tribal areas. It is true that incentives in terms of additional payment, accommodation etc., reduce the truancy of the teaching experts. Also steps are being taken by the government to hold in-service training programmes and refreshed courses. In some areas, teachers are also being trained in tribal dialect and tribal culture.
(4) Craft Education:
Under government instructions, some useful crafts like carpentry, weaving and tailoring were introduced to suit the needs of SCs and STs which are a must for their economic development. But a proposal should be made to the government to introduce agriculture and spinning in boys’ Ashram Schools and gardening in girls’ Ashram Schools. Statistics reveal that the government has made craft education compulsory in some states and union territories.
(5) Incentives to Indigent Families:
It is generally found that the percentage of dropouts for SC and ST students is high during the early school years. The reason is obvious. These students come from low SES strata. Their parents are needy and impoverished. According to the parents of these children, education is not a necessity, but a luxury.
But recently, government has taken steps for more enrolment of these students. Priority is being given for the education of the weaker sections of the people and children. Incentives are being provided to indigent families, so that they would be able to send their children regularly to school.
(6) Compensatory Pre-School Education:
Research works reveal that the mental development of children generally takes place between 3 and 7 years. During this period every child must be kept in a very healthy environment. Otherwise, he will face some anomalies in future. Keeping this in mind, special attention must be paid to pre-school education of every child. As a result, they will benefit from primary education in future.
The disadvantaged children have poor vocabulary (which is a setback) to following the state language. Pre-school period is considered to be the formative period of a child’s life. Through compensatory pre-school education, a child can improve his vocabulary and language difficulties can ultimately be surmounted. But provision should be made to supply free reading and writing materials.
(7) Adjustment of School Hours and Vacations:
Adjustment of School vacation and school hours becomes a necessity for these children to meet the socio-economic needs of the community. The percentage of dropouts and stagnation can be reduced to the minimum if school hours and vacations can be properly adjusted so that these children get ample opportunity to assist their parents. For example, in agricultural communities, the schools must have three hours duration for teaching and vacations can be adjusted keeping the sowing and harvesting periods of major crops in view. There must be holidays for local festivals and community functions.
(8) Adult Education Programmes:
Truly speaking, educated parent can get their children educated with little effort. So parents must be educated first to take care of the disadvantaged children. Reports say that in our country, a fairly good section of people belonging to SCs and STs are not educated. So measures are being taken to educate them through adult education programmes. Through this attempt, they will be able to understand the value of education and responsibility for the future generation. Of course the government has taken the initiative to open Anganwadis, non-formal and adult education centres to help SC and ST people.
(i) Techniques of Evaluation:
Steps may be taken to adopt new techniques of evaluation ad continuous assessment of these types will be conducive. Due to the fallacious examination system and. evaluation, most of the disadvantaged children fail in the promotional examinations. To bring out modern and sophisticated evaluation techniques, the teachers must be provided with item banks. Considering the stagnation and dropouts, continuous and meticulous evaluation must be introduced to help these children as far as practicable. Extra coaching after school hours may be encouraged to help the weak students.
(ii) Follow-up Action:
Students coming from Ashram schools or from residential type of schools generally go for higher education or take up any job to earn their livelihood. Government has a plan to help these students by providing grants to settle down in life. But, sometimes correct statistics are not available. So, steps have to be taken to the names of these students from Ashram schools and adjust accordingly with authorities.
Essay # 10. Educational Guidance and Counselling for SD Children:
Education aims at bringing change which will affect the lives of students is & relevant concern for all educators. In the case of disadvantaged children the challenge is even greater. The likelihood that these children will overcome the handicaps of poverty in rural and as well as it slum areas seems to be related as to how effectively the school personnel assist them. In fact, individuality can be fostered and realized through effective guidance service and the establishment and development of these services can be enhanced by an appreciation of the ecology other the individual and ecology of the school.
Considering from all points of view, guidance activities for the disadvantaged may be organised in small groups of eight to twelve. The information giving, task orientation and counselling type of activities will be more effective in small groups for the disadvantaged, because they will not be inhibited before an adult authority as is true of an individual counselling situation. Role playing as a technique is most suitable for guiding the activities of the disadvantaged.
Further for helping the rural disadvantaged, guidance service, programme needs be extended through parental counselling, community resources clubs and referral to psychologist who should be available at least in each school complex. Guidance must form a part of the entire educational programme which students should perceive as personally relevant for them.
Social disadvantage is a socio-cultural-economic deprivation combined with deficit in cognitive stimulation at home which in then carried away to school. In school, social disadvantage is characterized in terms of achievement deficits, drop out and deficit language and competence. Discrimination and isolation accelerate the deficit process. Remedial education strategies, guidance, suggested teacher behaviour would eventually contribute to reducing disparities, difference and deficits whenever they arise.
Our schools and educational system must develop a better understanding of the implications of the social and psychological dynamics of deprivation and translate this understanding into educational programmes, into the training of teachers and administrators and into planning of curriculum and instruction. No single device will suffice to counteract or to remedy the complex factors; those are associated with the education of the underprivileged.
Administratively the problem can also be taken care of by dealing with acculturation problems and school learning by providing early school experience to these children and following and unguarded sequences or multiple entry system. To unlock the hidden potential among these children, a radical change in curriculum and teaching is required.
At least the new curriculums which has been introduced is constructed in such a way that it is related to the psychological realities of the psychological realities of the child, is tuned to our social and community life is geared towards achieving needs and aspirations of our people and the educational climate that is promulgated in the frame-work is more motivating in terms of teaching techniques for which orientation of teachers are conducted in a massive way by NCERT, SCERT and State Development of Education.
In a nutshell it is possible to conceive of education as countervailing force to overcome the deficits accumulated in underprivileged groups or what is currently understood as the broomstick effect. It is true that it is not the educators function only to reverse the negative impact of educational deprivation, social and effective insulation, caste discrimination and economic deprivation.
It involves all aspect of the community. The task surely calls for creative innovation all along the line. The crucial pedagogical problem involved is that of understanding the mechanism of learning facility and learning dysfunction and applying this knowledge to optimum development of a heterogeneous population characterised by differential backgrounds, opportunities and patterns of social and intellectual function.
For the most part, education of the disadvantaged children can be speeded up by disseminating appropriate method of child rearing systems and values among the parents much before the child comes to schools. This will definitely reduce the discontinuities in the norms of children and norms of school. In contrast to the varied, detailed and sometimes adequately designed studies and their reports, it is strange that the psychologists in this country do not take these generalizations to the reach of the common man who contributes to a great majority of the underprivileged children in school.
An important measure is to make education acceptable to the Scheduled Casts and Scheduled Tribes which constitute a major block of the underprivileged group and make education relevant to them.
Role of Teacher:
The following instructional strategies for educating the disadvantaged are suggested considering the objectives of instructions and their entering behaviour to an instructional situation. Basically, there is no difference in the way in which the underprivileged children. Their learning processes are subject to the some general principles of learning as are the learning processes of the average or normal but with a difference the rate, the sequence, the type of materials and presentation modes.
There is need of a guideline for a teacher:
1. A continuous appraisal of progress and comprehensive measure of assessment-diagnosis via feedback should become a part of every teaching act and basis of planning the next learning experience.
2. It instruction is to be effective these students are to be simultaneously tried to achieve the three objectives- knowledge, skills and attitudes.
3. Since the students come to the school with cognitive deficit a special hour may be kept aside for remedial teaching language, training in how to increase some of their non-intellective characteristics, i.e., self-concept, level aspiration, n-ach, sense of responsibility etc.
4. Learning of concepts and ideas may be sequences before they are presented to the underprivileged group, using more of concrete and life like situations. Training for analytic thinking may also constitute a part of the instructional programme design.
5. The imposition of standardised expectation regarding performance should be replaced by ore individualisation in the rate of learning, exposure to varied materials. Instructions must be given how to pace performance according to their ability. The teacher has to ascertain the pre-requisites before instructing them to move to the next step; and make provisions for acting initial success experiences by the group.
6. For educating the underprivileged giving recognition, responsibility, tangible rewards, positive affective remarks encouraged in schools. Affective interactions and developments to be supported in a schools programme.
7. They also need to be acculturated through sensitivity training, exposure to literature, discussions and group contact, role playing and case conferences.
8. Self-instructional materials may be used best to their advantage.
9. The curriculum should have direct bearing on their life and work especially for tribal population.