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We are witnessing at this crucial time when we are at the threshold of the 21st Century that so-many significant changes have already taken place and many more are going on. The on-going trends indicate that many significant future possibilities will be there. One of the most significant changes that have taken place in the 20th century has been in regard to the status and role of women. For thousands of centuries, women all over the world and particularly in India have been subjugated by men and have suffered from all sorts of restrictions and socio-cultural injustices. But in the 20th Century, women’s emancipation, adult sufferage and equal rights for both the sexes in the context of our secular democracy and modernization have become manifest social realities after-all. There is now freedom and equal opportunity for all to come up and progress socially, culturally, educationally, economically and spiritually in our country. Our Constitution and the present sociopolitical order are encouraging and helping women, especially the girls, in their empowerment efforts, in the face of several deep-rooted prejudices, traditional social inequalities and normless practices prevalent in our society for many thousands of years.

Only a small percentage of the Indian females so far get the opportunity and facilities of receiving higher education in colleges, universities and professional institutions. Most, of them come from upper and middle classes and only some of them come from lower social classes; most of them come from urban areas and educated homes and most of them are usually from the upper castes. College-educated women invariably become elites among the Indian women, for they are able to achieve horizontal as well vertical mobility in their future lives by getting married to economically better-placed husbands and also by securing jobs which give them financial security, considerable freedom and dignity as human beings. College- educated women alone can achieve higher positions in government, politics, policy-making, industry, business and all professional fields. It is, therefore, important to know and understand what the modern college girls today are feeling, believing in, preferring and saying about the existing socio-cultural and politico-economic matters and practices, and what aspirations, preferences, hopes and fears they are having about the future — their personal futures as well the preferred future of the Indian nation and future of the world society at large. A. Ahmad (1965) studied the factors in the attitude formation towards democracy, taking a sample of 192 university students from Pre-University class to M.A. (Final Class) and discovered that in case of sex significant patterns of correlation were observed with reference to non-violence, co-operation, radicalism and conservatism. M.S. Gore (1965) in his analytical paper ‘The Crisis in University Education’ commented devastingly thus on

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his own routine and rhythm. He attends college regularly, puts in the required attendance but does not study. He has never seen the inside of the college library after the first ‘get acquainted’ tour on his day of enrolment. He has no set purpose. The non-creative teacher and the unenthused student are apt counterparts to each other. H.S. Asthana (1967) analysed the problem of student unrest in Indian university and college campuses in the 1960s in his paper ‘The Disturbed Campus’, published in the book Papers in the Sociology of Education. His conclusions were: The failure of the educational system in training the younger generation adequately for occupational roles, the failure to perform competently the function of socializing the younger generation and the failure to adopt its norms and procedures and policies to the changing values and attitudes in the country are the primary causes for disaffection for the system among the students. Corrective measures are urgently needed. B.G. Desai (1967) in his doctoral study in Sociology ‘The Emerging Youth’, published in book form, reported his research on a sample of 540 male students of classes X and XI in Baroda District. The highlights of his interesting study were: (i) The dislike for the parents’ occupations was found most in rural students. (ii) As many as 86.6 per cent urban students intended to study further. (iii) In matters of choice of occupations, the trend noted was going in for independent occupations. Metta Spencer (1968), an American political sociologist, studied Indian college students’ attitudes and political activities. The overall findings of her study were: Political leftists are found to be high among students whose personality orientations and values were modern.

This study is focussed on the changing social values and futuristic perceptions of the college girls in different religions. Many research studies, books, papers and articles have been published on the various aspects of Indian women, Indian girls, Indian youth of the our universities and colleges —their interests, hobbies, activities and academic and professional choices as well as personality and adjustment problems and the role-conflicts of employed women in various occupations and The present study is an attempt to fulfill this research void to an extent. This study has been conducted with the sociological approach. Therefore, it is desirable that we briefly explain what this approach is. Sociology was fathered by the French philosopher Auguste Comse. It has greatly changed, matured and become multi-faceted in its approach during the last 172 years and more so in the last 50 years. In the beginning it was having, by and large, the most popular Social Survey method. Then in the later decades of the 19th Century and the beginning decades of the 20th Century, Historical, Comparative and Ideal-Type Analysis and more sophisticated Social Survey and Statistical approaches as well as the Empirical or Field Work approach of the Social Anthropologists like Malinowski, Margaret Mead, Raymond Firth, M.N. Srinivas and S.C. Dube et al became the most common sociological approaches.- During the middle of the 20th century, eminent American sociologists like Talcott Parsons, Robert Merton and others advocated Structural-Functional Approach for conducting sociological studies and it soon became the most dominating approach of the sociologists all over the world. This approach starts with the assumption that there is an inherent social equilibrium in society which is the reality of every society or social system. Every person in society, that is ‘Social Actor’, is located somewhere in the structure of his society, and he performs his roles as conditioned, influenced, guided or determined by the various manifest and latent functions. Of late, ‘Radical Sociology’ and ‘Radical Social Work’ have emerged in protest against the ‘Social Equilibrium Theory’ of the sociologists. As opposed to Talcott Parsons’ favourite Equilibrium Model of Society, Lewis Coser, Ralf Dahrendorf and others have advanced ‘Conflict Model of Society! While in the fields of social work and education, radical ideas, crystallized in the form of Conscientization Model, have become quite popular during the last 25 years, they have so far not become very popular in the field of Sociology. Most of the sociologists are still following the rigid Structural-Functional approach.

A new radical sociological approach called “Humanist Sociology” has emerged during the last three decades. Humanist sociologist Scimecca Joseph in his book ‘Society and Freedom: An

Like traditional sociology, Humanist Sociology is another way of seeing the world. Traditional sociologists are concerned primarily with the social structure of society and its relationship to the personality of the individual; unlike traditional sociology, which accumulates knowledge, humanist sociologists seek to use the knowledge of human-beings they uncover to benefit people.

1 Agarwal, M. (1990) studied job satisfaction in relation to some demographic variables and values. 2. Agochiya, D. (1991) conducted a cross-cultural study of personality, values and altruistic behaviour of youth workers. 3. Arora, Kamla (1990) conducted a philosophical study of Sri Sathya Sai Baba in the context of religion- philosophical milieu. 4. Atreya, J.S. (1988) conducted a study of teachers’ values and job satisfaction in relation to their teaching effectiveness at degree college level. It was a thesis in Education. 5. Bajpai, Amita (1991) conducted an experimental study of an educational intervention curriculum for value- development. 6. Banua, K. (1991) conducted a study of values of college students in Nagaland in relation to their self- concept. 7. Bhaduri, J. (1989) studied the effect of feedback in improving personality, desirable behaviours, values and teachers’ perception among secondary and senior secondary school students. 8. Bhattacharya, Ira (1991) conducted a comparative study of the values of some secondary school girls differing in age and in socio-economic and cultural status. 9. Chaturvedi, R.D. (1988) conducted a study of the personality factors, value orientation and age as correlates of attitudes towards social change. This was a thesis in Psychology. 10. Chaudhari Pratima K. (1988) conducted a study of the changing values among young women. It was a thesis in Sociology. 11. Chawda, J.P. (1991) conducted a study of the educational thoughts of Dolarai Mankad and their implementation. children as compared to non-teachers’ children. 13. Chikara, B.D. (1991) studied effects of strategies for inculcation of democratic values among adolescents in relation to introversion-extroversion and value-related behaviour types. 14. Chowhan, Sarita (1991) studied values, self- concept, creativity and anxiety among professional college students. 15. Christian, J.S. (1991) conducted a study of the teaching of population education in Class V. 16. Dadu, P. (1992) conducted a study of personality, values and religious attitudes of urban and rural males and females. 17. Diwan, D.K.(1991) conducted a study of the predictors of academic achievement of student teachers in terms of attitudes, participation and human values. 18. Dubey, R. (1992) conducted a critical study of the concept and implementation of value education in India at school level from 1947 to 1986. 19. Gupta, A. (1989) studied the effect of family attachment on personal values, creativity and educational achievement of the girls of small and big families. This was a thesis in Education. 20. Gupta, Alka (1992) conducted a study of students’ satisfaction as related to their personality needs and personal values.