FAMILY TYPE AND GENDER: PREDICTOR OF RISK FACTOR EXTERNALIZING BEHAVIOR IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Family is a unit of any society, which is formed either by consanguinity, affinity or co-residence, of people with similar culture. Families often love and care for its members and integrates people with common genetic sequence despite different living and thinking styles of individual. The most common families found in India are Joint and Nuclear. A nuclear family is most basic type of family which is often portrayed as happy and contended. A joint family is the one with all family members living together in co-operation, harmony and respect for each other. Despite personal differences they remain united before the community. Most of the time children learn behavioral patterns from their family environment. This research study tries to explore effect of family type and gender on behavior of students studying in secondary schools. The data was collected from five randomly selected development blocks of district Pauri Garhwal (Uttrakhand, India), through normative survey method. The findings show that family type plays an important role in shaping behavior of students. The students living in nuclear family were likely to exhibit violent and destructive behavior and misbehavior with others. The gender differences were significant in exhibition of violent & destructive behavior, misbehavior, rebellious behavior and anti-social behavior. Boys exhibit more externalizing behavior than girls. The findings expose importance of joint families for rearing children in proper behavior. It also poses a threat to male children who are widely exposed to externalizing behavior and later indulge in delinquent activities.