A comparative study of the mental development of European and South Indian children between five and ten years

Abstract

The work falls into two parts. There is first of all a theoretical comparison of European children with Indian children. Although in the case of the latter, their development was studied personally, for the European child we relied on the conclusions arrived at by European Psychologists through their researches and experiments. The authorities for these being mainly, Charlottee Buhler, Susan Isaacs, William Stern and Piaget. The development of European children was studied in three main fields with an introduction setting forth the justifications for studying childrens1 development in these clear-cut divisions. These three fields are (1) Language and Thought, (2) Play. (5) Social and Emotional Development. In the light of these, the development of Indian Children was introduced tentatively. There is no claim to strictly scientific accuracy in this portion of the work with regard to Indian children, a comprehensive study being beyond the scope of a single worker within the limited period of six months. The second portion of the work is a statistical survey of the results of the 'Francis Gaw Scale of Performance Tests.1 For matters of comparison, the figures for European children are those arrived at by Francis Gaw. The Indian children tested were from a rather well represented School in Trivandrum, South India. These tests were all non-verbal, and even among these, care was taken to discard those which involved any particular culture. Ten tests were at first chosen, later three were dropped through lack of time, and one because the material met with disaster, and it was not possible to have it replaced in India. Although the province chosen for the tests was limited, and the upper strata of society absent, yet the figures may reliably represent the achievements of South Indian Children as a whole, for that particular strata of society.