Influence of School Environment, Parental Attachment and Peer Attachment on Emotional Problems of Adolescent Students

Emotional problems are considered as one of the major psychological tribulations experienced by children, adolescents and adults. Emotional problems were found to be predominant in school going adolescent students, contributing to serious learning, physical and mental health impairments. Indian studies have also reported that 10- 74% of schools going adolescents were found to suffer from emotional problems (John, 1980; Dhavale, 1994; Bhola&Kapur, 2003). It is very important to understand and find out the causal factors of emotional problems among school students which could help in preventing the emotional problems. Keeping this in mind, the present study made an attempt to identify the predictors of emotional problems among adolescent students. The main objectives of the study were (i) To find out the interrelationship among Emotional Problems, School Environment, Parental Attachment and Peer Attachment. (ii)To find out the predictors of Emotional Problems among adolescent school students (iii) To find out the influence of Demographic variables like Age, Gender, Socioeconomic Status, maternal Occupation, Parental Education, type of School, etc In order to fulfill these objectives, a sample of 300 adolescent students from class IX to XII were included for the study and their age ranged from 14 to 18 years. The tools used for the study were (i) Screening Tool for Emotional Problems (STEP) (Erford, 2007) (ii) Inventory of Parent&Peer Attachment (Armsden&Greenberg, 1987) (iii) School Environment Scale (Fend&prester, 1986). The data collected were analyzed using appropriate statistical analysis. The results were discussed in the light of previous research findings.