NCERT Solutions for Class 6th Social Science Chapter 9 Family And Community
Updated on 2026-09-19
About this chapter
The chapter’s one idea: people do not live alone. A family is the smallest circle of people who look after one another; a community is a larger circle of families and people connected to each other. The chapter moves outward from the first circle to the second, and ends by showing that even communities cannot manage alone — they depend on one another. The family is the oldest unit of society, and it comes in more than one shape. The book names two: a joint family , where several generations live together (grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts, brothers, sisters and cousins), and a nuclear family , “limited to a couple and their children, and sometimes one parent and children”. Neither is presented as better than the other — they are simply different ways of living together. Indian langua
- Chapter opening
- Family
- Roles and Responsibilities
- Community
- The chapter in three points
- End-of-chapter exercise
Quick revision
| Term | What it means | Where it appears in the chapter | Worth remembering |
|---|---|---|---|
| Family | The fundamental and most ancient unit of any society — the people who live together and look after one another | Page 137, ‘Family’ | “Almost all of us live in a family” |
| Joint family | A family in which several generations live together | Page 137 | Grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts, brothers, sisters and cousins |
| Nuclear family | A family limited to a couple and their children, and sometimes one parent and children | Page 138 | A single parent with children is also a nuclear family |
| Cooperation | ‘Working together’ — the book gives the meaning itself | Page 139, ‘Roles and Responsibilities’ | With love, care and interdependence, one of the four bases of family relationships |
| Interdependence | Depending on one another, both ways | Pages 139 and 147 | True inside a family and between communities |
| Dharma | Doing one’s duty — “an important principle of Indian culture” | Page 140 | The chapter’s opening quotation: “Love and dharma are the flower and fruit of family life” — Tiruvalluvar |
| Ahimsa, dāna, sevā, tyāga | Non-violence, giving, service and sacrifice — values learnt at home | Page 140 | “The family is also a ‘school’” |
| Community | A group of connected people — families connected with other families and the people around them | Page 143, ‘Community’ | The word has other meanings depending on the context |
| Halma | A Bhil tradition of coming together to support any individual or family in times of crisis | Pages 144–145, Don’t Miss Out | Thousands of trees planted and trenches dug, unpaid; Shri Mahesh Sharma of the Shivganga movement received the Padma Shri in 2019 |
| Unwritten ‘rules’ | Practices a community agrees on for shared water, grazing land and forest produce | Pages 143–144 | They give secure access to resources — and give every family duties |
| Residents’ Welfare Association | An urban community that makes its own rules about waste, cleanliness of common areas, pets and so on | Page 147 | A ‘new’ type of community, of the last 30–40 years |
| Jāti | A community of the traditional social order; a jāti or a subdivision of it is often called a community | Page 147 | One of several very different things the single word ‘community’ can mean |
Exercises
- Chapter opening — The Big Questions Page 137
- Family — LET’S EXPLORE Page 138
- Family — In-text Question Page 138
- Family — LET’S EXPLORE Page 139
- Roles and Responsibilities — LET’S EXPLORE Page 140
- Roles and Responsibilities — LET’S EXPLORE Page 141
- Roles and Responsibilities — THINK ABOUT IT Page 142
- Roles and Responsibilities — LET’S EXPLORE Page 143
- Community — In-text Question Page 144
- Community — In-text Questions Page 146–147
- Community — LET’S EXPLORE Page 147
- Community — LET’S EXPLORE Page 148
- The chapter in three points — Before we move on … Page 148
- End-of-chapter exercise — Questions, activities and projects Page 148