CHILD FACTORS: PREDICTORS OF SOCIAL MATURITY

The present investigation was carried out to assess degree of associationship between social maturity and child factors explicitly age, gender, ordinal position, sibling status, perceived health status, school change and the perceived friendship ties on primary school children with age range of 10-12 years (N=300) of urban (50%) and rural (50%) localities of Dharwad Taluk, Karnataka. General information schedule was used to collect mentioned child factors. A differential research design was employed to compare variation between the independent variables and social maturity. Social Maturity Scale (Rao,1971) was used to assess the level of social maturity. Results revealed that majority of children from urban and rural locality were found to be slightly socially competent. None of the children were found to be totally mature or immature in social context. Child factors such as child’s age, gender, ordinal positions, sibling status and perceived health were found to be significant predictors of social maturity among study samples.