NCERT Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community PDF

If you are studying Class 6 Social Science, Family and Community is one of the shortest chapters in the book and one of the easiest to score in. The 12-page PDF carries the Tiruvalluvar line on love and dharma, the Shalini and Tenzing stories, the Bhil halma tradition and the three end questions. This is the full printed chapter from Exploring Society: India and Beyond for the 2026-27 session, with nothing shortened or reworded.

• 12-page official file: Chapter 9 runs from printed page 137 to printed page 148 of the Class 6 textbook.
• Covers the three section heads Family, Roles and Responsibilities and Community.
• Carries 7 LET'S EXPLORE boxes, 1 THINK ABOUT IT box, 1 DON'T MISS OUT box, 3 real-life stories and 3 end questions.

This is the unedited NCERT chapter file for the 2026-27 print run, checked page by page against the official Exploring Society: India and Beyond release before it was put on this page.

What the Family and Community Class 6 PDF Contains, Page by Page

The file is the printed chapter in full, not a summary sheet. It opens with a one-line quotation from Tiruvalluvar and closes with the three end questions on printed page 148. Use the table below to jump straight to the part you need.

Also Check:

• Family and Community Class 6 NCERT Solutions
• Family and Community Class 6 Revision Notes

The Tiruvalluvar Line and the Two Big Questions on Page 137 of the Family and Community Chapter

The chapter does not open with a definition. It opens with a single line from Tiruvalluvar: "Love and dharma are the flower and fruit of family life." Two Big Questions are printed just below it, and every section of the chapter answers one of them.

• Big Question 1: Why is the family unit important? Answered by the Family and Roles and Responsibilities sections.
• Big Question 2: What is a community and what is its role? Answered by the Community section from printed page 143 onwards.
• The chapter's own one-line answer to the first question sits in the opening paragraph: the family is the fundamental and most ancient unit of any society.

Learn the quotation and the two questions together. A one-mark question in a class test often asks who the opening line belongs to, and the answer is Tiruvalluvar, not the textbook.

Family, Values and Community Revised in One Sitting

Source: Magnet Brains on YouTube

Joint Families and Nuclear Families: The Two Types the Class 6 Chapter Defines

Almost all of us live in a family, and the chapter says Indian society today holds several types of them. It names two and defines both in a single sentence each. This is the most-asked pair in the whole chapter, so learn the definitions word for word.

The first LET'S EXPLORE box on printed page 138 turns the definitions into fieldwork. Count the types of families in your own neighbourhood, write the number of households against each type, say which type is more frequent and why, then compare your findings with your classmates in a class activity.

Why Indian Languages Have No Word for 'Cousin' and English Has So Few Relationship Terms

This is the most quoted paragraph in the chapter and the one that surprises students most. English has only a handful of words for family relationships. Indian languages have far more, and one common English word is missing from them altogether.

• Hindi terms the chapter names: bua, tau, tai, chacha, mausi, nana and nani, and it adds that there are many more.
• Tamil also has different terms for an elder brother or sister and a younger brother or sister.
• In most Indian languages there is no word for 'cousin', because cousins are only 'brothers' and 'sisters'.
• The chapter's reason: this emphasises the deep bonds among all the children in the family.

The LET'S EXPLORE box on printed page 139 asks you to list every family member you can think of, including a few distant relatives, write their term in your mother tongue or regional language and then find the English equivalent. Two rows are already filled in for you.

The box closes with the point the marker looks for: a single word in your mother tongue often needs several English words to give a precise definition.

Roles and Responsibilities: How the Family Works as a 'School' of Values

The second section head on printed page 139 explains what holds a family together. Relationships among family members are based on love, care, cooperation and interdependence, and the chapter stops to define one of those words: 'cooperation' means 'working together'.

• Each member of the family has a role and responsibility towards the other members.
• Parents are responsible for raising their children to become happy individuals and responsible members of the society.
• As children grow up, they take on more responsibilities in the home to help parents, a sister or a brother.
• Through daily practice, children learn to participate in the life of the household.
• In many homes, children also learn traditions and practices their family has been following for generations.

Then comes the line that carries the section. Following our dharma, or doing our duty, has been an important principle of Indian culture. The family is also a 'school', and the chapter names the four values it teaches.

The LET'S EXPLORE box on printed page 140 asks six short questions about your own home and tells you to compare your answers with a few classmates: who decides what is to be bought from the market, who cooks the food, who is the oldest person in your family, who cleans the floor, who washes the utensils and who helps you with your homework.

Shalini's Onam Story from Kerala and What Her Family of Seven Teaches About Sharing

The chapter proves the four values with a story instead of a lecture. Shalini lives with her family in a town in Kerala. Her father runs a small business and her mother teaches in a nearby school. Seven people share the home, and the Malayalam relationship words are the part students most often get wrong.

The whole family was preparing for the festival of Onam. Acchamma told Shalini's father that his brother was in financial difficulty and could not buy new clothes. So when Shalini's parents took her and her brother shopping, they bought new clothes for Chittappa, Chitti and Chinni as well.

Shalini did not get the silk dress she had expected and had to settle for a simple cotton one. Acchamma explained that this is how families support each other and share what they have, and Shalini did not mind. She was happy that everyone could get some new clothes. The LET'S EXPLORE box then asks three things.

1. Draw a simple tree of this family of seven members.
2. Why do you think Shalini's parents bought clothes for everyone?
3. What would you have done if you were in Shalini's place?

Tenzing's Family in Meghalaya and the Household Chores Everyone Shares

The second story travels northeast, to a village in Meghalaya. Tenzing loves the mountains, though he says life is sometimes hard. This story is about who does what at home, and it is the one the examiner uses for the question on changing roles.

• Father: runs a small grocery store. After the mother got busy outside the home, he joined in cleaning the house, tending the small vegetable garden and doing other household chores, and he often helps the grandmother prepare food.
• Mother: works in a local handicraft cooperative, making traditional fabrics, wood carvings and other items for sale to tourists.
• Grandmother: always has interesting stories to tell, with humour and wisdom. Tenzing says no one seems to understand people better than her.
• Grandfather: helps Tenzing with his homework, takes him to the school bus stop and is actively involved in social work in the colony.
• Two examples of that social work: he registers a complaint at the nearby office when there is a power failure in the area, and he collected money from the whole neighbourhood when a neighbours' house was damaged in a storm.
• Money at home: the parents can take care of basic necessities like food and clothing, they discuss any special expenses together, and the mother says they should always save some money for unexpected future needs.

The THINK ABOUT IT box on printed page 142 asks three questions on exactly this: why Tenzing's father consults his wife for special expenses, how you feel about his taking part in household chores, and what roles the grandparents fulfil.

Printed page 143 closes the Family half with one more LET'S EXPLORE box. Create a story of a family somewhere in India where family values are practised and share it through writing or drawing, stage a small class drama around two or three families facing challenging situations, and then answer the big comparison: what aspects of modern living make some couples opt for a nuclear family, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of the two kinds of families?

Community: Shared Natural Wealth and the Rules That Were Rarely Written Down

The Community section starts from a simple observation. Families are connected not only within themselves but also with other families and the people around them, and such a group of connected people may be called a 'community'. The chapter adds a warning students should copy down: there are other meanings for the word, depending on the context.

• Why members come together: celebrating festivals, and organising feasts, weddings and other events.
• In some villages: people support each other with agricultural practices such as land preparation, sowing and harvesting.
• Shared natural wealth: over time communities agreed on practices for using water, grazing lands and forest produce.
• Where this is seen: in many tribal communities, and to some extent in village communities in rural India today.
• The rules: we may call these practices 'rules', though they were rarely written down. They gave communities secure access to resources.
• The catch: all families and individuals within the community have specific duties to perform, otherwise the community will not function smoothly.

That last point is the answer to Big Question 2. A community is not only a group that receives support. It is a group in which every member owes something back.

The Halma Tradition of the Bhils and the Chennai Floods in the DON'T MISS OUT Box

Printed page 144 carries the chapter's only DON'T MISS OUT box, and it holds two real examples of a community at work. Both are named in class tests, so keep the places and the words straight.

The box ends by asking whether you have heard of any other examples of people doing something for the benefit of the community without expecting anything in return. Printed page 145 that follows is a full page of photographs of a halma gathering, captioned only with the word halma.

Kamal Parmar's Evening Classes in Ahmedabad and What the Volunteers Said They Learnt

The halma story shows community in a rural setting. The chapter then says community also exists in an urban setting, though it may work a little differently, and gives one more real-life story to prove it.

• When and where: more than 20 years ago, in an area of Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
• Who: Kamal Parmar, the owner of a small auto-fabrication workshop, who noticed a group of underprivileged children on the street. Some had dropped out of school and others had never been to school.
• What he did: gave them tuition from 5:30 to 9:30 pm every day, after his own work hours, and provided the children with a free dinner.
• How it grew: soon 150 children were attending those classes regularly and were deeply interested in the lessons.
• Who joined in: a few teachers from a local school taught there for a while, and some older children from regular schools joined as volunteers.

The chapter prints two quotations from the story. One teacher observed that the children had no proper benches and no 'silence zone' classrooms, and that passing vehicles made a lot of noise, yet the children paid full attention. She added: "This touched my heart. The love and affection I got from them was unbelievable." A volunteer put it more simply: "We went there to teach, instead we learnt a lot from them."

Four discussion questions follow across printed pages 146 and 147.

1. Discuss this story in your class. What kind of attitude towards the community does it reveal?
2. What values get reflected in Kamal Parmar's initiative?
3. Think about those underprivileged children. Do you think society has been unfair to them?
4. What should society do to make sure that all children get access to education?

Residents' Welfare Associations, Jāti and Why Communities Are Interdependent

The last two printed pages widen the word 'community' until it covers a school club. Start with the newest kind. New types of communities have emerged in the last 30 or 40 years, and Residents' Welfare Associations in many urban areas are the example the chapter picks.

• What they do: make their own rules and regulations about waste management, cleanliness of common areas and taking care of pets.
• Who makes the rules: the people living in the community take part in making them.
• Why they are interdependent: the same association depends on the trading community for supplies and on municipal workers to handle waste.
• The closing idea: in our complex societies, everyone depends on a number of other people and communities.

A LET'S EXPLORE box on printed page 147 makes that concrete. List all the people outside your family who support you through their work in one way or another. The chapter then says 'community' is a flexible concept and gives a short list of the other things the word can mean.

The final LET'S EXPLORE box on printed page 148 asks what types of communities you are part of, and whether there is a club you belong to in school and how it functions.

Every Photograph, Activity Box and Story Inside the Family and Community PDF

Unlike Chapter 8, this chapter does not number its images, so there is no 'Fig. 9.1' to quote. Refer to the printed page instead. Ten activity boxes and three real-life stories carry the whole chapter, and the checklist below is the fastest way to make sure you have not skipped one.

Questions, Activities and Projects at the End of the Family and Community Chapter

Printed page 148 carries only 3 numbered items, the shortest end set in the book so far. There is no true or false set and no multiple-choice set in this chapter. Every question is open-ended, so the marks go to students who quote a detail from the chapter instead of writing a general answer.

1. What are some of the rules you follow in your family and neighbourhood? Why are they important? Pair this with the community rules on printed page 144, the ones the chapter says were rarely written down.
2. Do you think some rules are unfair to a few people in the family or community? Why? The Kamal Parmar discussion set on printed page 147 already asked a version of this about access to education.
3. Describe several situations that you have observed where community support makes a difference. You can draw or write about these. The halma story and the Chennai floods relief work are the two models the chapter gives you.

Before the questions, the 'Before we move on ...' box gives you a three-point recap that works as a ready-made summary answer.

• Family is the foundation of human society. Ideally, members of a family support each other in their many duties and tasks.
• Community, a bigger unit, also implies that people do their best to support each other. 'Community' can be defined in several ways and there are many kinds of community.
• Ultimately, communities are interdependent.

Common Mistakes Students Make in the Family and Community Chapter

• Swapping the two family types. A joint family has several generations living together. A nuclear family is limited to a couple and their children, and sometimes one parent and children.
• Writing that English has more relationship words than Indian languages. The chapter says the opposite, and names bua, tau, tai, chacha, mausi, nana and nani as proof.
• Answering that Indian languages do have a word for 'cousin'. Most do not, because cousins are only 'brothers' and 'sisters'.
• Mixing up Shalini's relatives. Acchamma is her father's mother, Chittappa is her father's brother, Chitti is that uncle's wife and Chinni is the cousin.
• Placing Tenzing in the Himalayas or in Kerala. The chapter puts him in a village in Meghalaya, in the northeast.
• Calling halma a festival. It is a Bhil tradition of coming together to help anyone in a crisis, and its objective is to serve Mother Earth.
• Saying the community rules on shared resources were written down. The chapter says they were rarely written down, and that is why it puts the word 'rules' in quotation marks.

Related Links:

• Family and Community Class 6 Handwritten Notes
• Unity in Diversity Class 6 NCERT Book PDF

How to Read the Class 6 Family and Community PDF in One Sitting

This is a 12-page chapter with no numbered figures, no glossary words and only 3 end questions. It is one of the lightest chapters in the book, and one focused sitting of about 30 minutes is enough. Keep a rough sheet beside you for the names.

1. Minutes 0 to 5: read printed pages 137 and 138, then write the Tiruvalluvar line, the two Big Questions and the joint and nuclear definitions.
2. Minutes 5 to 10: copy the seven Hindi relationship words and the reason Indian languages have no word for 'cousin'.
3. Minutes 10 to 15: read Roles and Responsibilities on printed pages 139 and 140 and list ahimsa, dāna, sevā and tyāga with their meanings.
4. Minutes 15 to 21: read Shalini's story and draw the family tree of seven straight away, marking Acchamma, Chittappa, Chitti and Chinni.
5. Minutes 21 to 26: read Tenzing's story and write one line each on what the father, mother, grandmother and grandfather do.
6. Minutes 26 to 30: read the Community section from printed page 143, then note halma, Jhabua, the Bhils, the Chennai floods and Kamal Parmar's 150 children.

Come back the next day for the three end questions on printed page 148. Answering them after you know the names is what makes the chapter stick, because all three ask for something you have seen at home or in your own neighbourhood. That second pass turns a chapter you have read into a chapter you can answer.

More Family and Community Class 6 Resources

The book PDF gives you the printed chapter. These pages give you the answers, the revision layer and the last-day recap for the same chapter.

NCERT Book PDF for Class 6 Social Science: All 14 Chapters

Exploring Society: India and Beyond runs to 14 chapters across five themes. Download the ones your school has taught, or take the full set in one go.

Family and Community Class 6 Social Science NCERT Book PDF FAQs