Parent-Adolescent Relationship in Context of Gender of Adolescents and Social Class of Families: A Case Study of GBPUAT, Uttarakhand

Abstract

The present study investigated gender differences in adolescents’ perceptions of parent-adolescent relationship among families (Class I, Class II, Class III, and Class IV) of G.B Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand across their gender. Families falling under social class I of the university had parent(s) working as Professor and Associate Professor in the university; those falling under social class II had parent(s) working as Assistant Professor or equivalent and Doctor in the university; those falling under social class III  had parent(s) working as Accountant, Supervisor, Lab Technician and Clerk in the university and those falling under social class IV had parent(s) working as Attendant, Driver, Peon, CRC laborer, Gardner and Sweeper. In the present study, forty adolescents were randomly selected from each social class of which 63 were girls and 97 boys making a total of 160 respondents. Respondents from each socio- economic class were split across gender to analyze difference in perception of their relationship with parents. Parent-child Relationship Scale (PCRS) by Dr Nalini Rao (1989) was administered with the adolescents. The present findings revealed interesting gender variations in parent–adolescent relationship across four social classes of families under study. Boys and girls both, from all the social classes reported no gender difference in their parents’ practice of symbolic punishment. On the contrary, in comparison to boys, girls from all the social classes of families reported their parents, mother and father both, to be significantly more protecting. Second striking observation was that boys and girls from social class I, II and III reported no gender based parental (mother and father) differential attitude on symbolic reward, loving, object reward, rejecting, object punishment, demanding, indifferent and neglecting domains of parent-adolescent relationship. However, girls from social class IV perceived their parents to be significantly more rejecting, indifferent and neglecting and mothers in particular to be more demanding and practicing object punishment. Whereas, boys from social class IV reported parents to be significantly more symbolically rewarding, loving and object rewarding and fathers in particular to be more demanding and practicing object punishment.