Aggressive and Violent Behaviour Among Children Living on the Street in Mumbai City, India

Tushar Savarkar , International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

The study characterized the symptoms of aggressive behavior among children living on street in Mumbai city. A survey was proffered to 253 children aged 10-18 years during the year 2015-2016. The convenient sampling technique and descriptive-explorative research design were been applied to understand their problems and explore the contributing factors for the issues like health, abuse, violence, distress, and other behavioral problems. The semi-structured interview schedule was prepared with the help instruments like aggression scale and GHQ questionnaire. The findings of the chi-square test show that the boys, those children who were staying between 1-4 years and those who were engaged in rag picking were more likely to have aggressive behavior. The result of Ordered Logistic Regression shows that along with the gender and duration of stay, substance abuse and violence encountered by the children were the contributing factors for their aggression. Keywords: Street children, Aggression, violent behavior

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 Presented in Session 2. Children & Youth