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Special Articles / K. Shanthi, J.O. Jeryda Gnanajane Elijo / Scientific Writing and Publishing in Social Work Abstract Deviant behaviour at school has been consistently related to poor psychological adjustment in adolescents.This study is an attempt to identify the level of behaviour deviance experienced by the adolescent slum students. Descriptive research design was used. The universe of the study consists of students studying in 8th and 9th standard in one of the high school in slum. Self-prepared interview schedule was used to collect the socio - demographic details and also used a standardized scale to measure the behaviour deviance (Chauhan 1989). More than half (58.2 percent) of the respondents have high level of overall deviant behaviour. Social work interventions will be suggested to modify the deviant behaviour of slum adolescent school students and also sensitization will be done to create an adolescent friendly environment at home and in schools to improve their mental health. Key words: Slum adolescent, high school students, behaviour deviance. Introduction: Adolescence is a period of storm and stress. It is a transitional stage, characterised by rapid physical, emotional and psychological change. This is the period where they need more attention and care from the parents, teachers and elders. Peers and society highly influence the behaviour of an adolescent. Slums are usually characterized by the urban wastes, poverty, illiteracy, and unemployment, disease due to unsanitary condition, malnutrition and lack of basic needs. These slums have inadequate access to safe water, sanitation and other infrastructure, poor structural quality of housing, overcrowding and insecure residential status. (UN-Habitat, 2003). The educational qualifications of slum children are very low compared to the other children of their age in urban areas. Many of the slum children become school dropouts. The reasons for their low educational qualifications and school dropouts can be lack of basic facilities at home and in their environment, low income, lengthy working hours of parents, family disorganization, too many siblings, more domestic responsibilities, less importance given to education, less motivation given by parents and elders and so on. Behaviour deviance is a multi-dimensional phenomenon that occurs universally. In adolescence, behaviour deviance is the by-product of faulty childhood experiences and deprivations to emotional security and support. Deviant behaviour of children in the family has been seen as a result of the absence of trust without check or an end product of strict parental treatment leading to the non-resolution of the basic conflicts of ‘Autonomy Vs. Shame’ and ‘Industry Vs. Inferiority’(Erikson, 1950,1959). Slum adolescents are exposed to media a lot and tend to learn and imitate the behaviour that they view in films. Viewing television was seen to have massive impact on adolescent’s perceptions and behaviour deviance. Hence this study is pivotal and found to be the need of the hour. Review of Literature Simons et al (1991) states that when parents do not have a strong relationship with their child and if do not teach them pro-social values, the adolescent faces difficulties in school, that lead to rejection by their peers and they drift into association with deviant peers. This form of participation in deviance is a direct affect from deviant peers. Deviant behavior among adolescents is also caused by conflicts and psychological pressure. Adolescents involved in deviant behaviours are facing conflicts and pressures from their own families. They are unable to see families as a healthy environment which provides them with happiness and fun. The lack of effective communication and love in a family also contributes to the formation of deviant behaviour among adolescents. (Muhammad 1993). Barrera and Li (1996), have shown in their study that low family support has also been associated with behaviour problems and psychological distress in children and adolescents. Adolescents are relatively unrestrained from the opinions of parents, teachers, and conventional peers; their new deviant friends encourage and reinforce them to participate in deviant behaviours and accepting of each other and their deviant actions (Dornbusch et al, 2001). Material and Methods This study is an attempt to identify the level of behaviour deviance experienced by the adolescent slum students. Descriptive research design was used. The universe of the study consists of students studying in 8th and 9th standard in one of the high school in slum. The researcher adopted census method to collect the data. Self-prepared interview schedule was used to collect the socio - demographic details and a standardized scale was also adopted to measure the behaviour deviance (Chauhan 1989). The scale consists of 30 items and each of the 10 items measures the three categories of behavioural deviance (i) withdrawing Deviance (WD) (ii) Expectation Evasion deviance (EED) (iii) Rebellion Deviance (RD). It is 5 point scale, culture free and Indianized. The overall reliability is found to be 0.795. Results and Discussion Socio demographic details of the slum Adolescents The slum adolescents were a mean age of 14.5 years and the gender composition showed that 68.4 percentare male and the 31.6 percent female. 53.2 percent of the respondents are in 8th standard and 46.8 percent are in 9th standard. Majority of the respondents 64.6 percent do have one sibling and nearly half 49.4 percent of them are second born, 75.9 percent were from nuclear family. Information on slum Adolescents regarding watching television: Vast majority (97.5 percent) of the respondents watch television, less than half (45.6 percent) of the respondents watch television less than 3 hours, majority (68.3 percent) of the respondents’ favourite channel is cinema/music/ realtime shows. Social liability of slum adolescents: Vast majority (98.7 percent) of the slum adolescents have close friends for playing and going out. Habits of slum adolescents: 57 percent of the respondents have the habit of nail biting, half of the respondents 50.6 percenttell lies, more than half of the respondents (53 percent) skip classes and bully each other and less than half of the respondents (42 percent) experience to abusive drugs like smoking, alcohol, panparag, ecetera. Parental conflict and parent child relationship ofslum adolescents: More than half (64.6 percent) of their parents quarrel when children are present. Majority (77.3 percent) of their parents do not spend time with their children, majority (84.8 percent) of their parent are punishing parents and majority (89.9 percent) are alcoholics. Extracurricular activities of slum adolescents in school: Majority (87 percent) of the respondents extracurricular activities are sports.  The above table shows that 58.2 percent of the respondents have high level of overall deviant behaviour and 41.8 percent have low level of overall deviant behaviour.  “T” test shows that there is a significant difference between male and female of the respondents with regard to level of Behavioural Deviance.  “T” test shows that there is a no significant difference between watching television of the respondents with regard to level of Behavioural Deviance.  One-Way Analysis of Variance shows that there is no significant difference between the ages of the respondents with regard to the level of Behavioural Deviance  One-Way Analysis of variance shows that there is no significant difference between the types of family of the respondents with regard to the level of Behavioural Deviance.  “T” test shows that there is a significant difference between the alcoholic parents of the respondents with regard to level of Behavioural Deviance.  One-Way Analysis of variance shows that there is a significant difference between the habit of telling lies of the respondents with regard to the level of Behavioural Deviance. The mean scores reveal that (G1= often) who tells lies have high level of behaviour deviance. The table shows that there is asignificant association between the education of the respondents and with regards to level of Behavioural Deviance.
Causes of Behaviour Deviance in Slum Adolescents as Understood from the Study The main cause of behaviour deviance in slum adolescents crop up at home. Lack of parent-child relationship, constant clashes between parents have a marked psychological effect upon the impressionable child, unsatisfactory conditions within the home, adjustmental problems, lack of parental control, lack of qualitative and quantitative time spend by their parents, parental attitudes, exploitation of the child, alcoholic parent, poverty, lack of education of parentsare said to have direct contributory factor to the growth of behavior deviance of adolescent from home. In school, bad companions, unqualified and untrained teachers, dislike for school or subject, discrimination by teachers, punishments etc. are the chief cause for growth of deviant behavior of adolescents from school. Role of School Social Worker School social workers should be appointed in schools to cater to the physical, psychological and social problems of slum adolescents in school. Early identification of deviant behaviour can prevent and modify the deviant behaviour of slum adolescent school students. Careful identification of the problem can help the adolescent to remove hurdles in the adolescent’s developmental process. Social Case Work can be used to intervene with the individual problem of slum adolescent school students. Social Group Work can be used to educate the group of slum adolescent school students with similar problems and the parents of the slum adolescents can also to be educated and sensitised about healthy parent-child relationship. Through community organisation programme massive awareness can be given in slums for the parents and elders in effective handling of the adolescents in home and society. In schools, School Mental Health programmes can be organized to sensitize the teachers on the mental health issues of adolescents and proper training should be given to them, to identify the problematic child in the classroom for early intervention.In Parents Teachers Association - Programmes should be organized to identify the behavioural changes of their adolescent children at home. Programmes may be organized to educate parents the important role they have in their children’s life, and to learn about the effective parenting techniques which they have to adopt in rearing the children. Newman and Newman (1979) says that the relationship with the parent is re-examined during adolescence, the increased physical and cognitive skills make it necessary to redefine the relationship along with respect, confidence, and mutual compromise, in other case rebellion and hostility reach incredible levels. Suggestions to Improve Positive Behaviour in Slum Adolescents School Students
Conclusion Both teachers and parents are equally responsible for the adolescent behavior. The findings of the study show that 58.2 percent of the respondents have high level of overall deviant behaviour. The social worker role is vital in the overall growth of the child in every stage of life. Bibliography
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