The Influence of Self Concept and Home Environment on the Academic Achievement of selected Secondary School Dalit and Non- Dalit Students of Five Districts of Andhra Pradesh.

Authors: [1] Jansi, A.M. [2] Bhuvaneswara Lakshmi, G

Pages: 1-5

Abstract:

Caste is a strong sociological factor which affects the Indian society. Owing to discrimination, conducive academic environment and home environment is far from the reach even for the school children. Since the government has undertaken many measures to eradicate caste discrimination, this study is undertaken to assess the status of dalit and non dalit children of Andhra Pradesh. Dalit means all those who come under Scheduled caste category of the government. This sample consists of 1407 students from secondary schools located in Andhra Pradesh. The questionnaire for self-concept was modified from Tennesse Self-concept Scale. The correlation co-efficients of self concept, home environment and academic achievement were found to be 0.81., 0.79. and 0.81 respectively. Besides descriptive statistics, inferential statistic such as t-test and ANOVA were also used to analyze the difference between the self-concept and academic achievement of dalit students and non dalit students. Meanwhile, Pearson correlations were used at significant level 0.05 to analyze the relationship between self-concept and academic achievement of the project sample. In the overall analysis of self concept of Secondary School Students, maximum percentage of them (75.05%) exhibited average level of self concept. Only 13.29% of the respondents showed high level of self concept and the remaining 11.66% showed low level of self concept. In this context comparative study was carried out among dalits, B.C. students and O.C. students. The research findings showed that all three percentage levels of self concept and home environment of dalit students in terms of their academic achievement, they remain lower than backward caste students as well as the other caste group of students. When relationship between self concept and home environment were statistically analyzed, B.C and O.C students recorded non significant relationship with the aforementioned variables in contrast to dalit students who showed significant relationship. Pearson correlations analysis showed that there were significant relation between dimension of self-concept, home environment and academic achievement of dalit and non dalit students.