Simarjeet KaurSukhminder Kaur2018-01-112018-01-112017http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810039253The present study was undertaken in one block of Sangrur district on a sample consisting of 160 (10-14 years old) rural school going children engaged in agricultural labour equally distributed over gender. A Personal Information Sheet and a self structured Interview Schedule were used to assess the demographic profile of the children, to identify the agricultural activities and problems experienced by them. A Self-concept Inventory developed by Saraswat (1992) was used to determine the self-concept of the children and the information relating to academic achievement was obtained from school records. Children were found to be engaged in various agricultural activities such as planting, weeding, irrigation, harvesting, plucking, digging, grading, picking and storage. Girls (100.00%) participated in weeding and there was no participation of girls in irrigation whereas, boys participated in all the agricultural activities. Both boys and girls were found to be working in various crops such as wheat, maize, pulses, potatoes, cotton, flowers and vegetables. Boys were found to be working in the fields of rice and sugarcane whereas, no girls worked in the sugarcane and rice crops and there were highly significant differences. Children faced various problems at school and at work due to their involvement in agricultural activities. Most of the boys (97.80%) and girls (75.00%) were unable to cope up with studies due to their participation in agricultural activities. A higher number of boys were found to be having short of attendance and lack of understanding in school due to participation in agricultural activities. Boys were physically punished and there were significant differences in punishment given to both boys and girls. At work more girls were underpaid as compared to the boys. Long working hours and no fixed working hours were found to be major problems faced by boys and girls at work place. Self-concept of girls was found to be higher as compared to the boys and it was found to be positively correlated with the academic achievement in case of both boys (r-value= 0.68; P<0.01) and girls (r-value= 0.71; P<0.01). The participation by the children in agricultural activities was not found to be associated with the selected demographic factors.ennullThesis