Decision Making And Reasoning of Rural and Urban Illiterate Women in India

Abstract

While welcoming the twenty first century, literacy is no longer merely a matter of social status, but a functional necessity where most knowledge is communicated through the printed word and where the knowledge is growing fast. In India, despite great expansion in education after 1947, the progress of literacy among women is still slow. Viewing a broad perspective, the literacy programmes should be supplemented with exploration and training in various psychological aspects, such as, intelligence, reasoning, decision making, identity needs, etc. This study aims at exploring rural and urban women\'s decision-making and reasoning. In all, illiterate women - rural, from villages in Bhor, Velhe, and Haveli Tahsils, Pune District; and urban from Pune city; Maharashtra, India, consisted the sample of this study. Their age range was 20 to 35 years. Standardized performance test of intelligence, Decision Making Questionnaire (DMQ) and Reasoning Questionnaire (RQ) were administered to them. The DMQ denoted their criteria of decision making in day – to - day situations and RQ measured serial thinking. The outcomes of the quantitative analysis of data indicated that the preferences to criteria in decision making, namely, labour involved, time-spent, quality of work, physical and mental health, and social norms are similar in rural and urban illiterate women. A significantly larger number of rural women gave importance to expenditure and personal interest in decision-making. There is no significant difference between the reasoning of rural and urban illiterate women.

Gender & Behaviour Vol.3 2005: 361-372