A STUDY ON THE SOCIO-CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOL STUDENTS OF PUDUCHERRY IN RELATION TO THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

School failure and poor academic achievement are one of the fundamental reasons of social exclusion of children. The academic achievement of children is directly and indirectly influenced by the environment in which they live. The Socio-cultural Environment in which a child lives determines the child's academic achievement and their classroom behavior. In this background, the focus of this study is to find out how the Socio-cultural Environment of the students, with its different dimensions, is related to the academic achievement of the secondary school students. This study also intends to find out the various factors that influence the Socio-cultural Environment and Academic Achievement of the secondary school students. This research was conducted among 529 students of government secondary school of Puducherry, chosen using multistage random sampling method. Data on Socio-cultural Environment and Academic Achievement along with the demographic variables of the students were collected, analyzed and discussed. The result shows that gender of the students influences their academic achievement very much. The female students outperform their male counterparts in their academic achievement in both internal and external exams. And, there is a positive linear relationship between Academic Achievement and Socio-cultural Environment of the secondary school students of Puducherry. The study concludes with suggestions and recommendations to improve the Academic Achievement of the secondary school students of Puducherry.