Fields of Social Work Practice I Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Childline is a helpline for all children.

CHILDLINE 1098 is a free, 24-hour emergency phone service begun in Mumbai in 1996 and later supported by the Union government. Any child in need of care and protection can call it, or an adult can call on a child's behalf: a child who is lost, abused, working, on the street, ill, or in any other distress.

The service is not limited to school-going children, to orphans, or to children in conflict with law. Restricting it to one group would contradict its basic design as a universal outreach line for every child in need.

Answer: A

The key's answer is that both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).

Assertion: UNICEF's State of the World's Children 2009 reported that 47% of Indian women aged 20-24 had been married before 18, rising to 56% in rural areas, and UNICEF has described India as home to about 40% of the world's child marriages.

Reason: although the law fixes the marriage age at 18 for girls and 21 for boys, most Indians live in villages, where family, caste and community pressure carry more weight than legislation. That gap between law and social practice is why child marriage remains so common, especially in rural areas, so the Reason explains the Assertion and the options denying either statement, or the link, are wrong.

Answer: B

The consequence is that sex stereotypes undermine women's achievements, attributing them to luck rather than ability or skill.

A stereotype that women are less competent makes observers explain a woman's success by external, unstable causes such as luck or an easy task, while the same success by a man is put down to ability. Kay Deaux and Tim Emswiller's well-known 1974 study found exactly this pattern, summed up as 'what is skill for the male is luck for the female'.

The other options describe the reverse of what stereotypes do: they limit equal opportunity and hide women's talents rather than showcasing them, and 'preserving culture' is a defence of stereotypes, not a consequence identified in the research.

Answer: C

Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan works under the Government of India's Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.

Nehru Yuva Kendras were started in 1972 to involve non-student rural youth in nation-building, and in 1987 they were brought together into the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan, an autonomous organisation of the Government of India. It functions under the Department of Youth Affairs of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, with a network of district-level Kendras.

The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment deals with disadvantaged groups such as the Scheduled Castes, older persons and victims of substance abuse, and the Ministry of Women and Child Development with women and children. The Ministry of Welfare is the former name of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, not the ministry for youth.

Answer: C

The Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development is at Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu.

The RGNIYD was set up in 1993 near Chennai, at Sriperumbudur, the place where Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991. It is an autonomous institute of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports for youth research, training and policy, and was declared an Institute of National Importance by an Act of Parliament in 2012.

It is not located in Thiruvananthapuram, Vijayawada or Shivagiri; those options name other places in southern states.

Answer: B

The National Youth Policy 2014 defines youth as those aged 15 to 29 years.

The earlier National Youth Policy of 2003 used the range 13 to 35 years. The 2014 policy narrowed it to 15-29 years so that programmes could be targeted more sharply on the group that is moving from school into work and adult life.

15 to 35 years is close to the age range of the older policy, and 15 to 24 is the United Nations definition used for statistical purposes; 15 to 25 and 15 to 20 are not the range the 2014 policy adopted.

Answer: A

HelpAge India provides resources for the elderly.

HelpAge India, founded in 1978, is a national voluntary organisation working for the cause and care of disadvantaged older persons. Its work includes mobile healthcare units, support for old age homes, livelihood and pension advocacy, elder helplines and campaigns against elder abuse.

Organisations for women, youth and children work in other fields; HelpAge India's mandate, as its name says, is older people.

Answer: C

The National Council for Older Persons was constituted in 1999.

The National Policy on Older Persons was announced in January 1999, the International Year of Older Persons, and the National Council for Older Persons was set up that year under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to advise the government on the policy and its implementation. It was later reconstituted as the National Council of Senior Citizens.

1997 and 1998 come before the policy it was created to oversee, and 2000 is a year too late.

Answer: B

The term 'active ageing' is defined by the WHO.

The World Health Organization's policy framework Active Ageing (2002) defines it as the process of optimising opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age. 'Active' refers to continuing participation in social, economic, cultural and civic life, not only physical activity.

UNESCO deals with education, science and culture. The UN as a whole adopted the Madrid Plan of Action on Ageing (2002), but the active ageing definition is the WHO's, and HelpAge India is a national voluntary organisation, not the source of the definition.

Answer: A

PVTGs stands for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups.

Tribal communities with a pre-agricultural level of technology, low literacy, a stagnant or declining population and a subsistence economy were identified as Primitive Tribal Groups from the Fifth Five Year Plan onwards, and in 2006 they were renamed Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups. There are 75 PVTGs across the states and union territories, with special schemes for their development.

'Voluntary', 'Vendors' and 'Vigilant' are distractors that keep the initial letter V.