This is a report of investigations carried out into three aspects of the problem of maladjustment among Indian primary school children. For the sake of convenience and clarity, the dissertation is divided into the following parts, each investigating a different aspect of the topic: (a) A study of the Incidence of Maladjustment among Indian Primary School Children. (b) A Study of the Attitudes of Indian Teachers to Behaviour Problems of Children. (c) An In-depth Comparative Study of Sub-samples of Well-adjusted and Maladjusted Indian Primary School Children in respect of Selected Aspects of their Home Environment. The research was carried out in the form of three projects corresponding to the title order given above and referred to in this report as Projects One, Two, and Three, respectively. All three projects are linked together by the common theme of "maladjustment". / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1978.

This is a study of the incidence of failure in Indian secondary education in Natal, in which academic performance was considered against the background of a number of variables such as socio-economic factors, family size, birth order, IQ, health, absenteeism, study and reading habits, parents' level of Western education, family income, participation in extra-curricular activities and certain behaviour and personality traits. A random sample of 1 787 pupils (1 092 boys and 695 girls) who wrote the Standard VII Academic Course examination in 1974 was selected from 16 Indian secondary schools in Natal. Data were obtained by administering a set of questionnaires to the pupils and the form-teachers. Data processing was done by the lCL computer service. The Chi-square statistical techniques was used to test for significance. The findings suggest that: (i) there are significant relationships between academic performance and the following variables: parents' level of Western education, religion, birth-order (especially among first-born boys) IQ and absenteeism; (ii) certain of the variables tested influenced the academic performance of the boys differently from those of the girls. These variables are family income, physical handicaps, reading habits and participation in extra-curricular activities. The trend was that these variables influenced the boys' performance more than the girls' performance. (iii) there were certain variables which were not significantly related to academic performance. These were: health of pupils, use of the library for borrowing books, fathers' occupation, having one's own room, family size, language commonly spoken at home and the number of times the pupils were transferred from one school to another Finally certain recommendations are suggested with a view to reducing failure at school. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1978.

Abstract not available. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Durban-Westville, 1975.

This study seeks to throw light on the language background of fifty-nine primary school children in schools for Indian South Africans in the Durban area of Natal. The schools were all under the control of the Department of Internal Affairs. At some time before February 1982, each child had been referred to the remedial teacher employed at his school, and had subsequently received help in language, specifically reading, for at least the period from February 1982 - November 1983. Even after that time, the children were not considered able to achieve satisfactorily in the "normal" class without further help. Data were initially collected by remedial teachers who interviewed the adult considered most significant in the child's life, using scheduled interviews. In addition they collected information from the child and the school and filled in personal questionnaires. After the first school term of 1984, Diploma in Specialise Education (Remedial Education) students at the University of Durban-Westville visited the homes of twenty children in the study and tape-recorded unstructured interviews with the adults. Three of these tapes are used in this text. The data collected is used to show that despite the poverty many families experience, the reason for the child's language difficulties is caused less by lack of material possessions than by parental ignorance of how best they can encourage language development and help close the gap between the spoken language of home and both the spoken and written language the children meet in school. The inefficiency of questionnaires as research tools became increasingly apparent as the project progressed, and that there is a real need for a thorough qualitative investigation into the language background of pupils-in-need is clear. / Thesis (M.Ed) - University of Durban-Westville, 1984.