CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background The Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE) has been undertaking action research projects aimed at improving scholastic achievement in general, with a specific emphasis on idenufying the difficulties faced by first generation learners in school. The motivation underlying these projects arises out of the conviction, that differences in educability of groups of people, whether on the basis of socio-economic status, sex or any other socio-cultural factor, are not a result of biology nor are they insunnountable. The low academic performance of first generation learners who are essentially students belonging to the socio­ economically deprived sections of society, is due to pedagogic, linguistic and conceptual difficulties faced by them. HBCSE scientists believe that it is possible to design and test remedial measures to overcome them. This philosoph\' is explicated in section 1.2. Two action research projects, in the past have been based on the philosophy mentioned above. The first project (1975-78) was undenaken in schools around Khiroda, a rural area in Jalgaon district in the state of Maharashtra. This project aimed at identifying pedagogic, linguistic and behavioural difficulties faced by the first generation learners at school, and at designing specific remedial 1 measures. A related aim was the generation of a field-tested pedagogy based on the remedial measures designed to overcome identified difficulties. The project accepted factors like, infra-structural facilities in typical rural schools, qualifications of teachers, quality of text-books and the nature of examinations as inoperable. It aimed at motivating teachers to adopt the pedagogy incorporating the remedial measures by making them aware of the difficulties faced by their students. This project was limited to primary and middle school, that is, the standards I to VII (age 6 to 13).' The second project called the ‘Talent search and nurture among the underprivileged' (TNP) was started in 1980-81. The project was conducted at the » HBCSE premises located in the Nana Chowk Municipal Secondary School, Grant Road, Bombay. Students participating in the project belonged to the scheduled caste/tribes (SC/ST) and were selected from the secondary schools of the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC). This project aimed at understanding the leaming difficulties encountered by socio-economically deprived students at the high school level (grades VIII, IX and X), and at designing remedial measures to overcome these identified hurdles. The project which covered science, mathematics and English, also aimed at testing whether the scholastic performance of socio­ economically deprived students could be boosted significantly. Both these projects met w'ith a fair amount of success. The teachers in the Khiroda project did adopt the new' pedagogy and paid special attention to first generation learners in their classroom, which resulted in a substantial improvement in the quality of teacher-pupil interaction. The second project, showed that the scholastic achievement of SC/ST students could be improved, not marginally but substantially. It also showed that the remedial measures designed to overcome learning hurdles were often simple and easily implementable. These results were taken note of by the government of Maharashtra which led to a collaborative project between the government of Maharashtra and HBCSE. This project aimed at testing whether the remedial measure developed by HBCSE scientists on a limited scale and under controlled experimental conditions could be incorporated in the normal teaching of a n pical school teacher, and whether doing so would lead to better performance in science and mathematics. This project was implemented in the Daharru taluka of Thane district of the state of Maharashtra and was aimed at covering all the eighteen secondary schools in the taluka. Dahanu taluka was selected primaril)’ due to the fact that it has a large concentration of scheduled tribe population (66% according to the 1981 census). Details of this project have been reported elsewhere."^ These projects raised a relevant and complementary question, that is, how does the improved scholastic achievement benefit students? Scholastic achievement, especially at the secondary school level is not an end in itself. It is the foundation on which students build their academic or occupational careers. Career choices and home-background are some of the social aspects of education. The social aspects of education are often ignored in programmes aimed at boosting scholastic achievement, which concentrate merely on imparting of certain The study was conducted in the Dahanu taluka, and concentrated on secondary school students. A pilot study had been conducted in Bombay 1985- 86, and details of the pilot study are presented in section 1.8. 1.3 The hypotheses The hypotheses to be tested in the study conducted in Dahanu were the following: 1) SC/ST and non-SC/ST students do not differ significantly from each other with respect to: a. awareness of occupations, in terms of number of occupations known. b. awareness of occupations in terms of number of different kinds o f occupations known. c. the mean ratings of different occupations in terms of the prestige of occupations. d. the ranking of different occupations in terms of the prestige of occupations, based on the ratings. e. the stereotyping of occupations on the basis of sex. 2) Girls and boys do not differ significantly from each other with respect to: a. awareness of occupations in terms of number of occupations known. b. awareness of occupations in terms of number of different kinds of occupations known. c. the mean ratings of different occupations in terms of the prestige of occupations. d. the ranking of different occupations in terms of the prestige of occupations, based on the ratings. e. the stereotyping of occupations on the basis of sex. 3) Students of differing academic performance do not differ significantly from each other with respect to; a. awareness of occupations in terms of number of occupations known. b. awareness of occupations in terms of number of different kinds of occupations known. 4) Students do not stereotype occupations as suitable or unsuitable for the sexes. 5) Teachers do not stereotype occupations as suitable or unsuitable for the sexes. 6) Male and female teachers do not differ significantly among each other, with reference to the stereotyping of occupations by sex. 7) Teachers and students do not differ significantly in terms of stereotyping of occupations according to occupational suitability. 8) The experimental and control group of students in the intervention study do not differ significantly with reference to the direction of the changed choices. 1.4 Rationale and Significance of the problem Work plays a central role in one’s personal life. It is critical in determining income, health, self esteem, social relations, the quality of'life and the environment one can provide for one's family, including the chances of one's children to enter particular occupations.^ Work is basic to the ways in which human beings deal with the problems arising out of a scarcity of resources. At a basic level work can be defined as the carrying out of tasks which enable people to make a living in the environment in which they find themselves. The temi is now reserved for participation in economically productive activity, and this leads to many persons such as housewives, children, the retired and the unemployed, being termed ‘non-workers’ who may often work harder than the workers.^ Work and employment are often taken to be virtually synonymous but are not. Employment poses a contractual relationship between employee and employer, and provides the mechanism whereby production and consumption are related. Work does not necessarily involve this exchange and refers mainly to productive activity. The term ‘occupation’ refers to the major work activity in which one erigages at a given time, whereas ‘career’ refers to a sequence of work activities, or occupations over a period of time. In this study, the terms occupation and career have been used as synonyms, though they are not. The term ‘occupational choice’ is a commonly used label for the particular field of inquiry dealing with the entry of young people into the world of work. This term is unfortunate since it implies that entry into occupadons is the result of careful and systematic considerations of the alternatives available and that the distribution of persons in occupations is the result of a cumuladon of several personal decisions. However, personal decisions are, in fact only one of the several variables affecting the way a person faced with concrete alternatives chooses his/her options. ‘External’ social influences and insntutions play a crucial role in channelling people towards certain occupational streams and thereby affecting the overall distribution of persons between occupations.^ A study of the social factors influencing occupational selection is essential as these often shape the motives and preferences of individuals. In this study, three social factors were identified as relevant to occupational selection, namely, the awareness of various careers/occupations among students, the prestige of career and the sex-role stereotyping of occupadons by students and teachers. 8 The term ‘prestige’ is not the same as status, or social position and can be said to "represent the subjective value granted to the perceived cluster of habits, objects o and expectations associated with the statuses of a given position". In most communities, certain occupations are looked up to while certain others ma\- be looked down upon. In this study it was considered imponant to learn whether caste/sex differences affected awareness and prestige rating of occupations. Sex-role stereotyping of occupations is an issue of great importance. The term ‘sex-roles’, refers to the set of behaviours and characteristics that are typical of, and are considered appropriate for men and women, while ‘sex-role stereotyping’ refers to consensual beliefs about these characteristics.^ Sex-role stereotyping underlies many sex differences in occupational selection.