Table of Contents

Acknowledgement................................................................................................................................2

Table of Contents.................................................................................................................................3

Introduction.........................................................................................................................................4

Research Methodology........................................................................................................................5

Statement of Problem..........................................................................................................................6

Significance of Problem.......................................................................................................................7

Aims and Objectives............................................................................................................................8

Hypothesis............................................................................................................................................9

Literature Review..............................................................................................................................10

Analysis..............................................................................................................................................12

Interviews.......................................................................................................................................20

Correlations with Legal Aspects.......................................................................................................22

Theoretical Relation to Sociology.....................................................................................................23

Recommendations..............................................................................................................................24

Bibliography......................................................................................................................................25
 Introduction

One of the most crucial periods of developments in a person’s life is their education. People
in higher education are usually at a precipice between childhood and adulthood. This period
forces them to confront new experiences, new periods and new people, and to adjust to them.
In this tumultuous period, it is important to know what the major influences are in the life of
a growing person. This field study seeks to determine what kind of developments a person
undergoes during their higher education, what the sources of these developments are and how
they react to them. Moreover, this project will examine the things that students find
difficulties in adjusting to once they arrive at a higher educational institution, in the case of
both students who came from a different background, as well as those who came from a
similar background as that of the place where their higher educational institution is located.

It is important to understand the answers to these questions as they are the first step in
formulating policies that lead to a greater social assimilation. Without such answers, policy
makers would be left in the dark as to which matters should be given a focus while deciding
methods through which to facilitate social integration in higher educational institutions.
Therefore, the results of this field study would be relevant with regard to subjects such as
ragging, and other processes that affect the development of students in higher educational
institutions.
 Research Methodology

We will be conducting empirical research by using an inductive approach in a form of survey

circulated amongst a diverse set of people. We will be utilising the interpretive approach to
better understand the responses to the questions in the survey.

The survey itself contains both subjective and objective questions. The objective questions
are in the form of a ranked scale, where the respondent has to choose the degree to which
they disagree or agree with a particular statement. These statements will then be analysed,
along with their answers to the subjective questions, to arrive at conclusions regarding their
personal development in their higher educational institution.

The target group for the survey is people from the ages of 16 to 25, as this is the age group
that is most likely to be enrolled in a higher educational institution, and thus it is also the age
group that would have the best perspective on issues within that environment.

We shall also perform a semi-structured interview, in which there will be a set of questions
decided in prior, from which the interviewers might deviate depending on the need of the
moment. The answers derived from these interviews will be analysed along with the answers
to the survey, in hopes that both sets of answers will aid in interpreting the other.
 Statement of Problem

The shift from urban to rural towns tends to be difficult for individuals in terms of adjusting
to the new environments. Especially when people switch their localities after soon after being
down with their schooling, as this combines the pressure felt by individuals both mentally at
the tender age of mental development as well as the physical pressure it exerts on them. This
project shall analyze the effects and consequences of such a move by individuals and in what
way were they impacted.

Individuals shifting from one place to another often take time to adjust to the environment,
and in the midst of a high-pressure and academically sound performance that is required of
them, causes many individuals to feel pressure. These combined with different infrastructure
and facilities in their new homes bring about a sense of discomfort and alienation within
individuals. Further, in the backdrop of coronavirus, people are more and more concerned
with heir socialization with new people and physical accommodation on these accounts.
Their accommodation to new norms and manners of conduct requires analysis and
understanding from individuals to help the transition in other individuals who pursue the
same route in the future.
 Significance of Problem

The pandemic saw people’s relationship with technology and media strengthen, and with this
the expectations of their relationship with aspects such as fast wifi, newest technology, and
more rose. Following this, their habits of socialization changed, and more and more people
developed a reclusive outlook on life to prevent the spread of coronavirus. In opposition to
this, living in hostels and the campus subjected them to slow wi-fi, lack of technology, and
overt socialization that required them to stay around individuals all the time. This has brought
about a general change in trends of socialization among the current youth pursuing higher
studies.
 Aims and Objectives

Through this project, we aim to:

- Establish a correlation between a disparity between a person’s area of early
development and their area of higher education, and difficulties in adjusting to new
social norms.
- Discern the problems that hamper the social integration of people who have recently
entered higher educational institutions.

Our objectives are as follows:

- To understand how a change in environment during higher education affects a
person’s social capabilities.
- To understand how a change in environment during higher education affects a
person’s educational performance.
- To study the impacts of various factors that influence the life of a student during their
higher education.
 Hypothesis

Our hypothesis is that a person who is from an urban background will find it harder to adjust
to an educational institution that is situated in a rural background. This is due to a preliminary
belief that a relatively more coddled upbringing in an urban setting is not conducive to
experiencing new environments that may have less amenities than the place where the person
grew up.

The assumptions that we are working with for the purposes of this field study are:
- The respondents have answered this questionnaire to the best of their knowledge and
experience in the past few months.
- The respondents are cognisant of the norms that they are being presented with, as well
as the norms they grew up with.

The limitations in this field study are:

- Due to the varied sample set, the responses had to be recorded online.
- As a result of the responses being recorded online, most of the people to whom the
questionnaire was circulated were people with easy access to internet connections.
This could make the questionnaire unrepresentative.
- Once again as a result of the varied sample set, the interviews either had to be taken
online or in common areas that were not conducive to a deep examination of the
subject matter.
- The respondents may not always be perfectly aware of the social forces that act upon
them. This would mean that their answers might not be perfectly representative of the
issues that they face.
- Respondents could also interpret questions differently and reply on the basis of
different interpretations of questions.
 Literature Review

 WHYTE, H. (1980). THE SOCIAL LIFE OF SMALL URBAN SPACES. WASHINGTON,

DC

This book talks about urban areas and their designs, which help facilitate social interactions
in largely urban areas. For example, streets with diverse shops are mentioned to show how
they facilitate interaction between people of different backgrounds. Similarly, they talk about
plazas and how they are vital for facilitating interaction between people in urban areas.
Another example is of public benches and chair and how they help people settle into a
comfortable environment for socialisation. This book largely talks about New York City and
is full of illustrations to explain the author’s perspective. This book enabled us to understand
how to correlate the move from urban areas to rural areas are also affected by infrastructure
of the city or town itself in terms of socialisation.

 COMMUNITY TOOLBOX, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, SECTION 8: CREATING GOOD

PLACES FOR INTERACTION

This chapter talks about what elements are required or preferred in a certain environment to
facilitate successful socialisation for people living in a neighbourhood. For example, it talks
about playgrounds playing a vital role in building bonds between people through shared
efforts. Similarly, this can be related to college sports’ team which allow the players to build
comradery between themselves and other players, both on and off the field. It also goes on to
explain why building regular interaction between people is important and states answers such
as ‘exchange of ideas’, ‘building understanding of diverse backgrounds’, ‘equity’ and
‘security’. These are all qualities that are vital on the student campus for the enrichment of
the students and their peace of mind from all the stress they encounter on a daily basis.

 IN THE CLASSROOM, BY UNITED STATES EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, CHAPTER 6;

SOCIALIZATION IN THE SCHOOLING PROCESS.

This chapter discusses the many challenges that school going children face. This acts as a
medium to instill social competence, behavioural competence, moral competence and cultural
conformity. They talk about streaming or tracking to best enhance a child’s performance. It
also finally talks about the “zero tolerance policies” and its final impact on people. This
allows us to understand the impact of a new educational system in the formative years of an
individual.

 BECKY PETTIT, MOVING AND CHILDREN'S SOCIAL CONNECTIONS:

NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF MOVING FOR LOW-
INCOME FAMILIES, SOCIOLOGICAL FORUM VOL. 19, NO. 2 (JUN., 2004), PP. 285-
311

This article examines the social ties that children whose families chose to relocate to new
neighbourhoods socialise and contrasts them to those of children from equivalent households
who do not relocate. To investigate the factors that have a role in the development of social
relationships following a relocation, qualitative interview data are analyzed. The findings
indicate that the setting of the new area, the resources available, and the age of the children at
the time of the transfer all play a role in determining how moving affects children's social
ties. When researching the effects of moving during childhood, researchers need to pay more
attention to the factors that determine when, where, and why families relocate. This article
helped us understand the factors that play a role in relocation of individuals by comparing
them against those who didn’t, and brought the factor of age into the research paper to
understand the effect it takes in an individual during their formative years.

 JOHN C. WEIDMAN AND LINDA DEANGELO, SOCIALIZATION IN HIGHER

EDUCATION AND THE EARLY CAREER: THEORY, RESEARCH AND APPLICATION,
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

This book talks about student impact in higher education from college to graduate school and
early career. It focuses on the importance of socialization in higher education for students'
effective navigation of academic programs preparing the next generation. The book talks
about diversity, gender, internationalisation and mentorship. It focuses on students from rural
areas. It also discusses socialization in interdisciplinary STEM PhD programs and how to
enhance socialization models. This helped us understand how students from rural
backgrounds adapt through the process of socialisation in the university environment as
opposed to students from more urban areas and introduced us to new problems that needed to
be analysed.
 Analysis

Question 1: Would you say that the environment you grew up in is different from the
environment in your institution of higher education?

An overwhelming majority of the respondents felt that the environment that they are
currently residing in for their education is different from the one that they grew up in. This is
in consonance with the demographic information that we received, which indicated that while
31.3% of the respondents hailed from a rural area, only 15% of them ended up in a rural area
for their higher education. This indicates that a large portion of higher educational institutions
are located in urban areas.

Question 2: Were you confident of the opinions that you held and the norms you had
grown accustomed to prior to joining your institution of higher education?
Over 75% of the respondents felt that they were confident of the opinions that they held
during their formative years. While this does not aid us in arriving at any conclusions by
itself, it provides a frame of reference for a later question that deals with the effects of new
norms on the respondents.

Question 3: Were you confronted with new opinions and social norms when you joined
your institution of higher education?

The results of this section were particularly surprising. The hypothesis hinged on the fact that
there would be an overwhelming amount of people that were exposed to new social norms,
and that the people exposed to these norms would not react well to the norms. Although a
majority was confronted with the norms, the numbers were lower than expected. This could
be, in part, due to higher degrees of online social interaction during the COVID-19 pandemic.
These could have contributed to an easier experience for people moving to new areas for their
higher education.

Question 4: What was the primary source of these new norms? Did they come from
friends, the student body as a whole, or from the administration?

(These norms came from my main friend group.)

(These norms came from the student body as a whole.)

 (These new norms came from the administration.)

This analysis is a symbiosis of 3 different questions. In hindsight, a multiple-choice question

that gave these 3 choices may have been more appropriate for this purpose. However, it does
help us in ascertaining that the main source for new norms is the student body as a whole.
This indicates that the student body is the main source that exerts pressure on other students.
Primary friend groups might still be composed of people from similar backgrounds, but the
entirety of the student body cannot be of a monolithic culture. Therefore, it makes sense that
the main source of new norms would be the student body. This also correlates to one of the
sentiments mentioned in the interviews, where a respondent stated that he feels like he owes
it to himself and the students at large to integrate himself into the new social norms, so as to
form better connections with everyone.

Question 5: Did you discard your old norms in favour of the new norms and opinions?
This was, perhaps, the most surprising result. Only 25% of the respondents discarded old
norms in favour of new norms. As one of the interviewees stated, there was something of a
symbiosis between old and new norms that was created. Nearly 50% of the respondents
outright disagreed with the notion that they had discarded their old norms in favour of new
norms. Therefore, the tentative conclusion is that people largely continued to hold the same
beliefs that they had previously held before coming to their institution of higher education.

Question 6: Did being confronted with new norms make you insecure, anxious, scared
or otherwise uncomfortable?

A large portion of the respondents did not feel uncomfortable due to the norms that they were
presented with. Regardless of what these norms were, over 50% felt that they were
comfortable with these norms. This points towards easier social integration despite nearly
70% of the respondents being in a place that was different from their area of early
development.

Question 7: Were you able to accept these new norms without much trouble?

In line with the answers to the previous question, around 64% of the respondents were able to
adapt to these new social norms without any troubles. Once again, we tentatively attribute
this to the rise in online interactions during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the 17% that
was not able to accept the new norms without issues. A minority that is unable to adapt to
new norms properly is still constitutes real people, and the majority’s ability to adapt to new
norms should not vitiate the need to address the concerns of the minority group.

Question 8: What were the effects of the process of accepting new social norms on your
academic performance and social relationships?
 (The process of accepting these norms affected my academic performance negatively.)

(The process of accepting these norms affected my social relationships negatively.)

This question, once again, presented surprising results. Most people felt that the process of
adjusting to a new environment did not negatively affect neither their academic performance,
nor their social relationships. This corresponds to the answer to the previous question. Taken
together, these questions show us that the sample set did not face difficulties in adapting to
new areas and new people. This could be further qualified by examining the answers to the
open-ended questions.

Question 9: What were the new social norms you were confronted with, if any?

This question elicited a wide range of answers, but a very common answer was “politics” and
“political opinions”. Young adults who have recently entered higher educational institutions,
especially in courses that are centered around current events and developing fields like law,
political science and policy making, would be exposed to politics to a significantly larger
degree than they previously would have been. Further, due to the varied origins of their peers
at these institutions, they would also be exposed to many disparate views regarding politics,
some of which might be fundamentally opposed to their own views. As a result, one of the
most common bones of contention that people have to adjust to is the existence of a larger
political spectrum.

Other answers included greater amounts of social interaction, blurred personal lines between
men and women, and a wide range of answers relating to new social experiences.

Question 10: How did you react to these norms and how did you reconcile your
previously held beliefs with them?

Here, we received relatively vague answers where the respondents claimed to have adjusted
to the new views they were confronted with. This is attributed to both, an inborn ability to
adjust to new situations, as well as the necessity to fit into a new environment. Both of these
seemed to rely on listening to the new opinions without rejecting them outright. One
particular respondent stated that they combined the views that they previously held with the
new views. Others have stated that they continued holding their previous opinions, but
presented themselves as different people for the purpose of fitting in. Others still felt nervous
and uncomfortable at the prospect of adjusting to new norms, but for the most part, the
respondents felt that the process of adjusting to new norms was not a troubling prospect.
 Interviews

Question 1. Moving to college from a completely different environment, it must have

had its obstacles. Kindly elaborate on that.

Most participants moving from urban areas to rural areas largely faced problems regarding
lack of infrastructure and availability of facilities to them. Some of them, for example,
complained about lack of fast-food joints and other complained about plumbing issues
available to them. On the other hand, most people moving from rural to urban areas
complained about having an environment that was much too loud and fast paced.

Question 2. Living in close quarters with individuals of your age must be tough, how did
you cope?

Most people here uniformly complained about being homesick and having to do their own
chores as opposed to pawning them off to their parents and being able to sit back and relax.
Many individuals also complained about the lack of hygiene maintained in the hostels.
Lastly, the individuals talked about lack of personal space in a hostel and there being no
boundaries set between people inviting themselves in private spaces, this caused a lot of
mental anguish to people looking for alone time and resorted to them being stressed and
cranky with their moods.

Question 3. There must be seniors on campus when you came, and now there are
juniors. What is the socialisation process between different batches likes?

Most people complained about the need to change their conduct around seniors and there
initially being a strong senior-junior decorum that was maintained initially but they now felt
that there was not a lot of differences between juniors and seniors in terms of conduct. Many
participants found themselves to be excessively close to the seniors or juniors, just like their
own peers. Juniors often found older brother-sister figures in the seniors and went to them for
advice whereas the seniors felt the innate need to look out for their juniors in the starting few
weeks.
Question 4. How does the academic pressure correlate with your socialisation on
campus?
The opinions of individuals were split in this regard. People from high pressure backgrounds
(largely cities) found this environment to be thriving and felt that social pressure is what
allowed them to socialise better, studying with their peers and being competitive with them in
a rigorous academic environment was beneficial. However, people who weren’t used to high
pressure environments felt that being restricted to their rooms and their libraries was
compromising on socialistion and also caused them a lot of mental anxiety out of class.

Question 5. is there any other problem you faced when you came to college? Can you
elaborate on them?

Some individuals talked about how the prices in the new town felt either expensive or cheap
to them, and that added to the shock factor in adjustment. They also said that language
barriers initially posed a problem in socialisation as they couldn’t talk to many people other
than those from their own backgrounds. However, this also inversely allowed them to form
special bonds with people from the same background and helped them not feel that homesick.
Some people also felt that they felt culturally in the minority from their peers and this led to
them not being able to celebrate those festivals and events that they would have back home.
 Correlations with Legal Aspects

The relationship between the subject matter of this field study and the law is mostly one that
relates to legislative acts. To ensure a safe social environment, there must be minimum
standards for higher educational institutions to conform to that create an environment
conducive to learning and developing as a person.

From the interviews, it is apparent that one of the major concerns is the condition of
bathrooms. This is particularly pronounced as meeting people in inadequate bathrooms that
are also shared results in awkward social interactions that might impede unity amongst the
students. Moreover, concerns regarding hygiene and safety also arise from this. Minimum
standards of hygiene and safety should be ensured in higher educational institutions through
legislative acts that compel the institutions to abide by these standards.

Ragging is another issue that comes up at this period in a person’s life. Many states have
recognised the effect that it has on people, and have made legislations to deal with ragging.
For instance, the Karnataka Education Act of 1983 criminalises ragging. The definition given
under this act is wide-ranging and can be applied in a variety of contexts. The definition in
the act is as follows:
““Ragging” means causing, inducing, compelling or forcing a student, whether by way of a
practical joke or otherwise, to do any act which detracts from human dignity or violates his
person or exposes him to ridicule or to forbear from doing any lawful act, by intimidating.,
wrongfully restraining, wrongfully confining, or injuring him or by using criminal force to
him or by holding out to him any threat of such intimidation, wrongful restraint, wrongful
confinement, injury or the use of criminal force.”
Implementing similar laws in every state, with a focus on ensuring that the ambit of the
definition is as wide as possible, would greatly alleviate the issue of ragging.
 Theoretical Relation to Sociology

When an individual goes from one group to another that has opposing norms, a significant
change in learning takes place. This is because of the conflicting norms from before and the
newly emerging norms that individuals are often confronted with in a new environment.

The individual will reevaluate his personality, conduct, beliefs and his behavior, as well as
entirely replace the earlier norms often times, or occasionally replace a part of the norms and
maintain the other part. This is especially common in situations in which something is
imposed on someone against their will, directly or through indirect modes such as peer
pressure. If a student from a rural area attended an NLU, they could have to fully break away
with some of their village's customs and culture. They would instead now be confronted with
new norms from the city that they now inhabit. Other reasons behind resocialisation include
things like prostitution and war.

This project is based on, in a large sense, on the notion of resocialisation, which refers to the
changes that take place as a result of moving and being confronted with a new environment,
and in the context of this project especially, from an urban region to a rural area or from a
rural area to an urban one. This project has targeted and aimed to study the various obstacles
that occur in the process of resocialisation of an individual, and it did this through a variety of
methods of collecting information, such as surveys and interviews. This project's target and
aim was to analyse and understand the various obstacles that occur in the process of
resocialization of an individual. It was significant to examine this idea since we could
observe its application in real life on people who were presented with new realities of living
and adjusting to new norms and behaviours, such as living with people your own age rather
than with a traditional family consisting of a mother and a father for guidance, now
individuals resorted to professors and senior students for the same. People were also forced to
deal with the cultural shifts that accompanied the fact that they came from a variety of diverse
backgrounds and had various expectations of their education. These included but were not
restricted to language barriers, religious backgrounds, economic backgrounds and overall
upbringing.
 Recommendations

As mentioned above, the primary recommendation is in relation to sanitation services and

ragging. Sanitation services should be improved not only in the higher educational
institutions themselves, but also in areas that are currently lacking proper sanitation services.
This will serve to acclimatise people to proper sanitation services, so that they are properly
maintained in the higher educational institution.

Policies should be made to properly define and curb ragging, as it is one of main factors that
hinders proper relationships between different social groups, usually divided by age, in higher
educational institutions.

Language barriers are a major concern, especially in higher educational institutions that
accept students from all over the country. Efforts should be made to bridge the gap between
the prevalent languages in different parts of the nation. This issue could be alleviated to some
degree through informational workshops and basic voluntary classes that are aimed at
familiarising students with the local language.

Lastly, the most pervasive issue might be the lack of higher educational institutions in rural
areas. Many rural areas lack proper primary and secondary educational institutions to begin
with. Ensuring that people in rural areas have access to proper educational services goes a
long way in making it easier for them to adjust and adapt to new climates that could contain a
large number of people, as well as diverse communities.
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