Education and mass-media exposure vis-à-vis small family norms among scheduled castes of Haryana Subhash Chander Department of Sociology, CCS HAU Hisar Vinod Kumari Department of Sociology, CCS HAU Hisar Abstract - India is one of the developing countries who identified family planning as basic to development and it was felt that reduction in population pressure could only be achieved through adoption of small family norms. The success of family planning depends upon different socio-economic factors. Education and mass-media exposure play an important role in changing the mindset of people on any aspect. Hence, the present investigation was undertaken to study the impact of education and media exposure on adoption of small family norms in the scheduled castes families. It was found that all respondents had heard about small family norms and they wanted to adopt SFN for the reason of having only two children. Education and exposure to mass media significantly enhanced the knowledge level of respondents about small family norms. More than 40% of the respondents who were using radio and T.V. or both were having moderately high knowledge about small family norms. About two third of the respondents' wives without education were having neutral attitude but cent per cent of the respondents' wives having matric level education were having favorable attitude towards SFN. Similarly more exposure to mass-media developed favorable attitude toward small family norms. It was concluded that education and mass media exposure favorably contribute to the knowledge and formation of one’s attitude towards small family norm. I. INTRODUCTION Family size is a matter of great importance not only for the country as a whole but also for the welfare and health of the individual, the family and the community. Our country has adopted the goal of universalizing two-child family norm. The achievement of this goal will have consequences both at the micro level i.e. level of individuals and family as well as at the macro level i.e. for the nation as a whole. India has made significant progress in various developmental sectors since independence but the fruits of these developments have not reached to major segments of the poor. One important reason for this is that many of these gains have been neutralized by the rapid growth of the population. The country does not have the resources to bring about a radical qualitative improvement in the lives of hundreds of millions and at the same time to provide to millions more. India is one of the developing countries who identified family planning as basic to development. Family planning is an integral part of the package of health, nutrition and health education. In the recent past, country has noticed a rapid fertility decline at the aggregate level (National family health survey-2, 1998-99). The place of this decline, however, is not uniform and varies widely across states due to the cultural and economic heterogeneity and also due to variation in programmatic efforts (Srinivasan and Saxena 1991). This might be due to the north-south divide in the demographic pattern. While in the southern and western parts of the country fertility has declined significantly, the north Indian states still continuing with very slow pace of decline in fertility (Ram, 1997). We all know that there have not been many changes in social parameters that can influence population and people, except small family norms. In such a situation, India’s family planning is the only factor that can have effect on fertility. It is being viewed and implemented as a people’s programme involving the active cooperation of many sectors and participation of the community at large. The aim of family planning programme in early stage was to reduce births by fixing contraceptive targets only. But now it has been changed to bring down fertility through improving maternal and child heath care. The “target oriented approach” has been shifted to “community needs assessment approach” in which needs of the community have to be assessed based on the requirements of the people in the implementation of family welfare and maternity and child health programmes. The extreme cases are where girls are even viewed to perform the traditional sons’ roles both in economic and sociological terms. The psychological disvalues emerged important affecting factors. India lunched the National Family Welfare Programme in 1951 with the objective of reducing the birth rate to the International Journal of Innovations in Engineering and Technology (IJIET) Vol. 1 Issue 3 Oct 2012 32 ISSN: 2319 – 1058