Personality factors and caste affiliation in the education of Indian adolescents

Abstract

Abstract Facilitating human development through education is deemed as a major task of modern welfare states. In view of this, it is important to assess and evaluate predictors of academic performance with the aim of planning a suitable educational system, supporting and fostering known predictors. This is especially relevant for India’s unique context of the caste system, and regional-linguistic differences. The emphasis of this dissertation is two-fold. As personality is a known predictor of academic performances, we first set out to assess the psychometric relevance and applicability of the five-factor model of personality which is acclaimed as universally applicable. To achieve this, two independent studies were conducted with the aim of psychometric evaluation of two widely used measures (BFI-10 and NEO-FFI-3) and both studies examined two socio-culturally distinct linguistic groups of Indian adolescent school students (N=1117). Secondly, we set out to examine adolescent education in the context of India’s complex fabric of social stratification, especially the governmental ranking of class, viz., scheduled castes/tribes (SC-ST), other backward classes (OBC) and general class (GC). This was done through two studies: 1) a detailed review study on the role of social stratification on the education of Indian adolescents; and 2) a study on the impact of the three governmental classes on the academic performance of Indian adolescents (N=858) from the same school environment, while controlling for family income, age, and gender, as well as self-esteem and life satisfaction. The twin studies of psychometric evaluation provided very limited support for a five-factor solution for the two measures, pointing to the potential influence of socio-cultural factors on the personality consolidation of Indian adolescents. The review study found that social stratification, as well as caste-based reservation, is a severe impediment for education in India. The third study found a positive relationship between the governmental class and academic performance of adolescent students, wherein a higher level of class predicted better academic performance when controlled for family income, self-esteem, and life satisfaction. These findings point to the urgent need for further research on the predictors of education of Indian adolescents as well as a strategic action to eliminate the impact of caste affiliation on their education.