Home Environment of the Children as Revealed Through Home Inventory (Elementary Version)

The present study aims to find out the home environment of the children through Caldwell and Bradley's (1984) Home Observation for the Measurement of the Environment (HOME) inventory (Elementary Version). In Pakistan, it is the third in the series of studies on HOME Invent01y. First was on the Infant Version (Khan, Anila, & Pervez., 1991), and the second was on the Preschool Version (Pervez & Anita, 1993). A sample of 100 children (53 boys, 47 girls) studying in grades III to V was taken from Rawalpindi. The differences in the home environment of children belonging to different gender grades, and socioeconomic status (SES) were studied. Results indicate that parents provide similar type of home environment to their children regardless of their gender. The children of grade IV get maximum attention of their parents as compared to the children of grades III and V. The children from lower-middle SES get better home environment especially in aspects which do not need any financial input. The KR-20 and intercorrelations of the subscales and total scores revealed that the HOME Inventory (Elementary Version) is a reliable measure for the observation of the home environment of the urban middle class children going to primary schools.