Understanding Role of Social Values in Higher Secondary School
Students: Educational and Social Development Perspective
Devki Nandan Sharma
GLA University Mathura, UP, India
Keywords: Educational, Social Values, Higher Secondary, Social Development.
Abstract: The article provides an analysis of how the social values are very crucial for higher secondary students. In the
present system of education, it reconsiders the role of social values. The paper theorises in what context and
extent social values are important for higher secondary students. It is used as a foundation to narrate the
association of social values to the student’s educational achievement and social development. In this article
an attempt has been made to realise the role of social values in higher secondary student’s educational
achievement and social development. Here, in this article importance of all these social values and their
sources are discussed. The paper tried to answer how schools, education, parents, friends and society all have
become source of social values and they are affecting students in various perspectives. The outcome of the
paper might be useful for policymakers, stakeholders, research scholars specialising in education stream.
1 INTRODUCTION
Values are related to beliefs and trust. These beliefs
are related to physical and spiritual life of the
individual. There are different means to fulfil spiritual
and physical life by different philosophers. Values are
the moral ideas, thoughts, perceptions, standards
which gives a direction to our actions. Values enables
us to differentiate between good or bad, right or
wrong. When a human being before performing any
action or following any thought gives a thought to it
whether it should be done or not that is known as his
values. Most of the values are learnt early in life in
family, friends, school, neighborhood, mass media
and other sources within the society. Values can be of
different forms in Indian and western contexts. In
India all the values are given in Indian spiritual books.
All the values in these Indian spiritual books are
considered to be a source of MOKSHA in Indian
culture. All we can say etymological meaning of
values is how a person behaves in different social,
spiritual, emotional situations. If we talk about
western meaning of values, different sociologists
have given different views for values. Murphy said
that values are the things that makes the things and
actions desirable for us. M.Williams said values are
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Corresponding author
an instrument to control our behavior. Actually,
values make our behavior selective and directive and
values are considered to be the backbone of any
education system. Values are collective conceptions
of what is considered good, desirable, and proper or
bad, undesirable, and improper in a culture. Values
are the guiding principles of life and contribute to all
round development. Values provide direction to life
and bring satisfaction and peace to life. Thus, value
motivates us to meet our needs whether it is material
or non-material. Values guide human behaviour and
action in our daily life. Values are reflected in our all
actions like what we speak, how we behave, how we
treat others, our perceptions and how we interpret
others thought and opinions. Values are outcomes of
our interests, choices, needs, desires and preferences.
Value therefore is the belief upon which human
beings responds by preferences. Values involve the
processes of thinking, knowing/understanding
feelings and action. People’s actions and behaviour
publicly reflects their values. Values helps in
nurturing a balanced individual and hence creating a
developed individual in society. Values basically
convert a man or a person into a human being.
Although like human beings’ animals are also driven
by a force inside them to achieve food, shelter and
security but they are not answerable to their wrong
586
Sharma, D.
Understanding Role of Social Values in Higher Secondary School Students: Educational and Social Development Perspective.
DOI: 10.5220/0012498600003792
Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
In Proceedings of the 1st Pamir Transboundary Conference for Sustainable Societies (PAMIR 2023), pages 586-591
ISBN: 978-989-758-687-3
Proceedings Copyright © 2024 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda.

actions like human beings. Values are more
significant to our functioning as individuals.
2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
a) To study the role of social values in social
development of the higher secondary
students.
b) To study the interdependence of social
values and educational achievement of
the higher secondary students.
New perceptions regarding values: There are some
new concepts of the values given by some new
philosophers. Pragmatists connects the values to the
individual’s needs and satisfaction. William jones
said that there are two aspects of the values positive
and negative. Positive values are those which gives
happiness and negative are those which left the
individual in grief. H. Bold said that the values are
based on the experiences and interests. On this basis
there can be many values. Based on above discussion
there can be moral, social religious political
economical many values based on the human life.
Human can move on with a smooth and good life only
after following these values. Some words are
prevailed as similar meaning of values but actually it
is not so. Some words like belief, ideal, standard is
mostly used as a synonym to value but actually it is
not like that. It can be differentiated as:
Interests and values: Interest is a tendency of reacting
or reaction in any subject.
Trust and values: Trust are related to truth and false
whereas values are related to good and bad.
Priorities and values: Values is a part of individual’s
priority but all the priorities cannot be values. Values
are those priorities of the individual that enables him
to choose all other priorities and to accept them
properly.
Values and aims: Values are internal and aims are
external. Individual choose and fix their aims and
make efforts to achieve it and all the aims are fixed
following their values in life. Values plays an
important role in selection of aims.
Values and ideals: There are a scope of option or
selection in ideals. It is difficult to follow ideals
whereas values are meant to be inculcate in
behaviour.
Values and standards: Values proves the relevance of
standards. Standards are a form of social rules. In
developed societies legal rules are standards.
Standards are made based on values.
Aptitude and values: The factors which remain
constant in all situations and motivates the individual
for clear reaction are known as values. Aptitude
includes values.
When a child is born some qualities in the child are
innate and some are acquired. Values in a child is not
innate. It is acquired from the family, friends, school,
society and the surroundings where he lives. The
acquired values are nurtured and developed after birth
in home, school, society. So, we can conclude that
education also plays an important role in developing
and transmission of values to the child in home and
students in school.
3 IMPORTANCE OF VALUES
Good values are the main reservoir of the sound
character and a sound character is the origin of a good
human being. Values guide our behaviour and keep a
right control over our activities. Values illuminates
our path to take the right decisions and to make right
choices. Values give direction to our life. Values
develop a motivation and set goals in our life
Need of education for fostering social values:
Education does not mean only acquiring knowledge
and collecting it forever, education means an all-
round development of any individual. Education
develops the social, moral, spiritual, aesthetic and all
other values in any individual. Education enables us
to learn adjustment and to adjust with different
attitudes and behaviours. Value education is
necessary not for the individual welfare but for the
social, national and global welfare. Only a value-
based education can give our youth the altruistic and
benevolent sense of living for others. Although there
are various means of imparting values to students like
family, society, teachers, peer group but all of them
main and important factor is the education and
educational process. Values enables the learner to
adjust in the family, school, society and everywhere.
Education is that important weapon that develops the
desired values and behaviour in the students and
make them an integral part of the developed society.
School curriculum, therefore, should aim to enable
learners to acquire knowledge, develop
understanding and inculcate skills, values and
attitudes conducive to the all-round development of
their personality (NCERT, 2012). The Kothari
Commission (1964-66) has emphasized, ‘Education
is the one and the only instrument that can be used to
bring about a change towards the social and economic
betterment of India’. Value education brings all round
Understanding Role of Social Values in Higher Secondary School Students: Educational and Social Development Perspective
587

development in students as it keeps a check to
develop physical, moral, spiritual, aesthetic, social
values. Educationists, education commissions, and
policies in India expressed that education should
inculcate values in students who are the future
citizens. Gandhiji said that education is the means to
provide a complete life to any individual, it enables
the individuals to adjust in the surroundings and to
achieve perfection in all spheres of life. We are
surviving today in a world of confusion, on one side
we are so advanced in science and technology and
made a huge development in all sectors and on other
hand we are facing a problem of drugs, alcohol,
mental illness, stress etc. So, it becomes demand of
the hour to develop values and value education at all
the levels of schooling in students. Values are the
ideals, thoughts, beliefs and norms to which a society
and its people stick to. Values plays a major role in
personality development of a child and help a child
further in career. Swami Vivekananda rightly said
“we want education by which character is formed,
strength of mind is increased, intellect is expanded
and which one can stand on one’s own feet”. Ram
murti committee report 1990 recommended that
education must further provide a climate for the
nature of values, both as the personalized set of values
forming one’s character and including necessarily
social cultural and national values. The NEP 1986
focussed on the value cultivation by educational
means in students. Almost all the commissions and
committees recommended value education. Actual
aim of the education should be to develop an
individual who can meet their needs independently
and in order to achieve such goal, value education
should be a part of formal education from pre-primary
to higher education level. Now the question arises
who will impart this value education to students. It
does not solely depend on one parameter or one
person to inculcate values in students. So, we can say
parents, teachers, school, friends, society, friends
everybody has to play an equal role to develop values
awareness in students.
Social Values: Culture and tradition are the biggest
source of social values. Social values are such social
norms, aims or ideals, on the basis of which various
social situations can be evaluated. These values have
a social and cultural background. It is the reason that
there is a big difference in values of different
societies. Help, kindness, cooperation is known as
socialism. Social values shape up the society and their
individuals and develops a sense of fraternity among
them. These values should be taught to the children
from their childhood in their homes by the parents and
later on by the teachers in the school as value teaching
can prove to be the only solution of the social
problems arising at social, national and global level.
There is a great impact of social values in the life of
the students and in their achievements. There can be
a very bad consequences of avoiding these social and
moral values teaching in the school. Lack of social
values develops a criminal attitude sometimes in the
youth and leads to a disastrous future. Without social
values students are lack of self-discipline and no
sense of right and wrong actions. Respect, tolerance,
equality, and honesty are some of the social values
that build a strong and secure personality of any
individual. Therefore, the absence of these values
leads in some case to terrible consequences in the life
of any human being. If the society further don’t want
to indulge their children in crime, violence, drugs and
un lawful activities then the social values must be an
integral part of the curriculum. The social values
develop a sense of brotherhood and patriotism among
the children that further leads to the formation of
strong nation and enable them to welcome and respect
their culture as well as other culture and tradition.
These values develop a democratic way of thinking in
children. Social values help the students to adjust
better in the society, school and in their homes. Some
‘social values can be listed as: kindness, integrity,
acceptance, focus, responsibility, commitment,
loyalty, honesty, open mindness, growth, friendship,
faith, knowledge, leadership, optimism, spirituality,
empathy, respect, curiosity, gratitude, adjustment,
hard work, courage, generosity, patience, confidence,
politeness etc.
Development of values: An analysis of Allport
Baron’s report found to be exact in Indian context.
During childhood the child inherits the values from
parents, then from teachers. As the child grows, he
shapes up his values as per the situation and
atmosphere in which he lives. After attaining the age
of ten years the child starts becoming social. Girls to
more extent learn from their parents and teachers.
Radio, television, internet also play their role in
developing values among children. Religious
institutions are those pillars of the society which
mainly contributes in development of values and
social character. In this way the child learns different
behaviours and values from different institutions. So,
there is a difference in the values of the child grown
in different societies and different atmosphere which
needs to be find out and here in this research we are
trying to find such difference in the children of
different atmosphere. There are different sources of
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developing social values in students. These sources
can be explained as:
Role of parents: Most of the time a child spends at
home and it is responsibility of parents to create a
warm and healthy atmosphere for children as children
acquire all the values from their parents at first. From
the birth the time when a child starts understanding
look up to his mother and imitate mothers’ behaviour
so, the mother’s behaviour should be very perfect. A
mother and all the Family members should follow the
moral, ethical, spiritual, social values to inculcate
these in their child. Parents should be well behaved
with others should be able to adjust everywhere,
should be cooperative and social. When parents do
not give proper attention to their own behaviour and
their children’s life, the child must suffer in many
ways like in school life, personal life, social life etc.
Parents must ensure the right value infusion in their
child and they should be voluntarily involved in
inculcation of values in society for the sake of their
child. Plays, books, stories, and a healthy
environment at home will help a lot in inculcating
values. Education without morals and values is not
only useless but harmful too.
Role of teachers: Today the main task before
teachers is to develop the practical way of teaching to
develop the changes in behavioural outcomes of the
students. The main challenge before teachers is not to
impart bookish knowledge to students but to develop
and prepare the students for the practical and
behavioural changes. The teacher and school
environment should develop social competence in the
learners. Teacher should set the standards of
behaviour for the students towards themselves,
towards other students, towards parents, teachers, and
elders. Teachers have a considerate role in students’
life that is the reason they are known as the
illuminating path for the learners. To impart values to
students, teachers should be value oriented too. A
teacher who is devoid of values cannot be the value
imparting body. The main target of the teacher should
be to provide real life examples to the students and to
concentrate on all aspects other than academic part of
the learning. A teacher should provide chance to the
students to work in co-operation with each other in
groups. Teacher should provide them an opportunity
to in groups. Mazumdar (1983) said, “Values cannot
be taught through formal and direct teaching. They
can be inculcated only when the institutions provide
activity for it and experiences inside and outside the
school that promote responsibility, cooperation,
honesty, fair play and self-control. Children have
their own world of trust, beliefs, friendships,
loyalties. It is responsibility of a teacher to make them
blossom socially well carrying all these activities all
together. Teachers are first role-model for their
students. Their actions affect more than their words.
Teachers mark an evident role in students’ life.
Students knowingly and unknowingly follow these
role models and imitate in their life. A teacher can
bring the behavioural changes in students by
discussion method, demonstration, by giving
instructions, lectures, and many other tricks. A
teacher can start a case study to inculcate the desired
social values in students. Organisation of cultural
activities, games, group works, projects can develop
the sense of socialism in children. Imparting
knowledge of different cultures and languages can
bring a brotherhood in children. Organisation of field
trips, picnics, social service camps, NCC camps,
Blood donation camps can develop social values. The
best and the most noble profession in the world is of
teacher as the teacher is the foundation of any nation
and it builds the future generations of a country.
Society: A child starts learning and imitating from the
type of society he is living in. It is the responsibility
of any society and its members to create such a
healthy atmosphere for their children so that the
children can learn love, co-operation, affection,
mercy, sympathy, helping, sharing etc in the society
itself. A society should provide glimpses of all
cultures and traditions rather than sticking to any one
culture or tradition so that the child can develop love
for all cultures and people. All the activities that make
a child socially active and make him able to adjust
everywhere should be the part of any society to teach
social values to the child living in a society.
Peer group: Peer group is the group of same age
group peoples living together in an association or
friendship with one another. Peer group is the major
factor that affects the social values of children in any
society. Peer pressure is the major issue among the
children that affects the values or social values. It is
most prevalent among adolescent group children.
Peer pressure is psychological force created by the
children that deviates any child from their normal
behaviour due to pressure created on him. It is very
common nature among human being to follow and do
what others do to enjoy the same privilege. This peer
pressure can have both positive as well as negative
effects. The parents should always praise positive
qualities of their child’s friend to promote them and
in this way a positive peer pressure can be developed.
The peer pressure sometimes can really change the
Understanding Role of Social Values in Higher Secondary School Students: Educational and Social Development Perspective
589

life and direction of any child if it is well tackled by
their parents.
Religion: Religion, religious activities, belief in God,
participation in religious activities surely helps in
developing socialism and brotherhood in children.
Religious thoughts teach the students to respect each
human being, help others, respect all cultures and
traditions, help others, be honest, live in co-operation
and many other values. Religious values no doubt
develop moral values in children but at the same time
develop social values among them According to
Gandhiji’s view “Religions is the expression of the
permanent nature of man. Religion purifies and
elevates one’s nature. It arouses in man a sense of
spiritual restlessness, a kind of thirst which enables
the individual to cultivate and develop a sense to the
right and good and make him truly moral man. All the
religions promote values so in anyway religions have
a great role in promoting social values among
students in schools. According to Dr. Radhakrishnan
‘All religions are friends and partners in the pursuit of
spiritual life. All religions are bound together in a
holy partnership to advance the cause of peace,
justice, and freedom.’
Mass media: India has made a remarkable
development in technology that involves mass media,
mobiles, internet, DTH etc. The main function of
mass media is the connectivity, knowledge
transmission etc. One important role of mass media is
transmission of values. It can be known as
socialisation also. Socialisation means the way how
an individual adopts the values and behaviours of
other groups and how individuals get mixed with each
other. The mass media is equally responsible for
reflecting all the social values and for fostering these
values in children. The most important forms of mass
media are Television, Radio, Magazines,
Newspapers, Pamphlets, Internet, Books, Movies,
Music etc. The mass media sources influence and
affects the behaviour of all the people and children in
a different way. The culture and tradition and these
media sources both become the source of value
development and its transfer to the children in our
society. The mass media sources sometimes can be
proved as a source to bring the desired social change
in the society and in the education field. With the
developing technology the mass media sources can
transfer the knowledge and information even to the
deep situated villages and are bringing social changes
in society.
4 CONCLUSION
After studying meaning, role, need, importance,
sources of social values in children’s life we just
cannot deny the big contributions of social values in
higher secondary school students’ life and growth.
Before learning any value, any good or bad thing a
learner must have the social values in his behaviour
to proceed further on any path. Any child can follow
the path of morality, spirituality, and many other
things but to do that he should be filled with socialism
then only he can adjust and learn from others to move
forward. We should develop only bookish knowledge
in our children, rather we should develop them for
life, for future, should develop a flexibility and
adjustment among our children. Developing the
social values in higher secondary students will surely
develop all the social values like helping, co-
operation, sympathy, love, respect, leadership etc.
The second aspect of the social values is the effect of
social values on the educational achievement of the
learners. All the social values like politeness,
sympathy, friendship, helping, co-operation,
adjustment, faith, leadership, empathy, confidence,
patience etc. to some or more extent alter, modify, or
affects the children behaviour, adjustment, and
mental ability so we cannot deny that the social values
little or more have an impact over the children’s
educational achievement. For example, while
performing a project work assigned to a group of ten
students, all the students with their complete effort
and interest starts working on it and gathering
information about it but if there will not be proper co
ordination and co-operation in these ten students then
what will happen? No data will be collected, no data
will be organized, no new knowledge will be gained.
So, a lack of co-operation here in this project will
affect the students learning.
In the same way to some or more extent
educational learning is affected by the social values.
So, it is our responsibility to develop social values in
children to strengthen their educational achievement
and social development.
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