Assessing Attachment Representation among Institutionalized Preschool Children in India: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Children under institutional care are deprived of a consistent, stable, and responsive caregiving relationship. The lack of significant primary caregivers in these children's lives puts them at substantial risk and may have long-term, irreversible consequences along with a heightened risk of developing insecure attachment. A thorough examination of existing research on attachment and representational measures in India demonstrates a significant need for further investigation, especially concerning institutionalized children. While numerous studies have been conducted in Western countries, only two concentrated on adolescent attachment relationships within the Indian context, employing exclusively quantitative measures. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that the representational attachment measures utilized in the Western context have not been validated with institutionalized children in India. Also, while implementing the representational attachment measures on institutionalized children in Western countries, concerns about standardization, validation, cross-cultural and contextual disparities were observed. Additionally, recent years have witnessed considerable debate questioning the applicability of these measures in an institutional setting, where children are cared for by temporary professional caregivers experiencing high turnover, multiple shifts, and unstable, inconsistent caregiving patterns. Furthermore, research on adolescent attachment patterns in India has highlighted the importance of peer attachment over adult attachment, challenging the Western perspective of attachment (centered around a single caregiver and child) as an unrealistic scenario within an institutional setting. Hence, the present paper identifies the methodological challenges in studying the attachment representation of preschool children in institutionalized settings. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of developing culturally relevant attachment representational measures, considering the distinctive institutional environment in India.