CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
From the Nigeria perspective, it is a general saying that the socio-economic status of parent could influence the Academic performance of their students. Therefore, the poor performances of students nowadays in schools are of great concern both to the parents and the society at large.
Parents do feel bad when their children are performing well generally in schools. This is applicable to both literate and illiterate parents who are striving to educate their children in order to secure a very bright future for them. In Nigeria, education is regarded as an investment. If student’s academic performance in school work is poor, it means that the money invested on this project is wasted and the desired goal for the investment is not achieved. According to Rothestein (2004), a sociological school of thought says ‘the socio-economic background of a child greatly determines the types of upbringing the child experiences and the limit of his educational growth’. The socio-economic status of parents is determined by a number of factors such as the income of the family, level of education of the parents, occupation and size of the family.
In our society, there are two types of socio-economic states as against the three types we had before. The middle class people no longer exist and what we have now are the rich and the poor. The disparity between these two groups is determined by their ability to control the factors of production. The group that has the highest opportunity or advantage to acquire much is the one that belongs to high socioeconomic class or status. The less privileged class have member with low socioeconomic status.
Various studies had been conducted to show that children from low socio-economic background are exposed to strenuous household chores and other kind of job like hawking before going to school and when they returned school. This gave them little or no time to read or do their homework or assignments. However, children from high socio-economic background have enough time to read, prepare their assignment do extra moral lessons, play and even relax because all the home duties are being done by their house help.
Importance of the role of Parent’s socio-economic status in children’s education cannot be over emphasized. In a child education, motivational and emotional behaviour together with mental capabilities are very vital and important. These are greatly affected by the nature of the family background into which the child is born. The society at large worries too much about the causes of the poor academic achievement of the students which sometimes result in drop out. These are no doubt that the fault lies somewhere else. It is therefore important to examine it and failure to do this might be detrimental to the overall development of Nigeria. It may be necessary to find out how Parent’s socio-economic status determines student’s success or failure in their studies.
Having this in mind, the finding of this research should be able to reveal to Parents how they could influence the academic achievement of their children. This will motivate Parents to provide the required facilities and home conditions that will need to make the home environment stimulating, and they also have to increase the quality of relationship in the home.
The influence of Parent’s socio-economic status on student’s academic performance is one of the most controversial issues in home achievement study. There is a strong support that socio-economic status (S.E.S) is strongly correlated with measures of academic achievement Crag. T.N and Ronald C.J (2003). Research studies by (Omoegun M 2005) have also suggested and show that the type of training which a child receives and the nature of reward bestowed upon him for his achievement at an early stage are related to the presence of achievement motives later. Parents socio-economic status has in fact been regarded as very powerful as it predicts grade, achievement and intelligence level, failures, truancy, suspension from school, high school dropout and total amount of formal schooling. Indices of (S.E.S) frequently used include occupation, education and presence of material wealth in the home (Oni A.A 2007).
The home is the most important of the factors because it is usually the child’s first school. Children who lack good home background will take some time to make up the deficit even when they are inherently intelligent.
1.2 STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEM
The major problem of this research work is that Parents with high socio-economic status (S.E.S) tends to spoil their children with money and material things that are not necessary or have direct impact on their academics. The resultant effects of which affect their academic performance.
It has also been observed that children from high socio-economic status (S.E.S) engage more in school indiscipline such as truancy, disobedient to teachers that are not as influential as their parents leading to vices such as examination malpractice and as such affect their academic performance.
1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study is to establish the extent in which the socio-economic status (S.E.S) of Parents could influence the Academic performance of students particularly in Kosofe Local Government Area of Lagos State.
The study will also determine whether the family and other social factors have any relationship with educational standard of the students. This paper will also intend to develop a perspective according to which the well-known head counting association between social class and variations in school achievement could be limited if not totally eradicated.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The study intends to provide answers to the following questions:
i. Is there any significant difference between the social status of the parents and students’ academic achievement?
ii. Is there any significant difference between Christian marriage and student academic achievement?
iii. Are the economic status of the parents significant related to the student academic achievement?
iv. Should discipline in the home have a significantly relation to the student academic achievement?
v. In what aspect should economic status of the Parents is in no small measure a powerful predictor to the Academic performance of students?
1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
In this research, the following hypotheses are to be tested in finding solution to the specific problem raised:
a) There is no significant relationship between the social status of the Parent and students’ academic achievement
b) There is no significant relationship between marriage and student academic performance
c) There is no significant relationship between discipline in the home and student academic achievement
d) There is no significant relationship between the economic status of the Parents and students’ academic achievement
e) There is no significant relationship between the economic status of the Parents in no small measure a powerful predictor to the Academic performance of students.
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The research will enable scholars to understand how the contributions of Parent’s socio-economic status are related to students’ academic achievement. Therefore the result of this study will provide the students and readers with sufficient facts that could be responsible for these inequalities and variation in educational achievement. Since the study is carried out to investigate the relationship between Parents socioeconomic status and the students’ educational achievement. The study will throw more light to the people about their sociological awareness.
The result of the study might help government to take into consideration children from low socio-economic status while planning educational policies that are school fees as the case of some schools where students were asked to pay huge amount of money.
The study is also significant since it will be almost help of the teachers, Parents and school administrators and be of help to the set of people concerned so as to know to which extent they are been affected and how they can adjust. More so this study will also help or assist Parents in adjusting their socio-economic level to the needs of their children so that they will be able to cope with psychological problems associated with academic work.
1.7 DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY
The scope of the study will cover some secondary schools which are randomly selected in Lagos Metropolis, Lagos State.
Four schools were selected from the Secondary schools in Lagos Metropolis, two public schools and two private schools and are Government approved schools.
Kosofe Local Government Areacomprises people from both high socio-economic status and low socio-economic status, this makes it easy to acknowledge from students how the status affects the academic achievement of students.
The schools to be used for this research are:
i. Gulf Flower High School, Lagos
ii. Modupe Monibaba International School, Kosofe, Lagos
iii. Jextoban Secondary School, Ketu, Lagos
iv. Christ The Redeemers Secondary School, Gbagada, Kosofe, Lagos
1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS
There are some terminologies that would be used in the study which from all indication seems to need defining so as to put the readers in better understanding of the study.
1. Socio-Economic Status (S.E.S): The social and economic position of an individual or a family in any given society the level of education income occupation and other criteria of social class
2. Social stratification: This is refers to the ways people differ in their strata or levels in a society.
3. Social class: This refers to a person’s location in a society’s economic system resulting in differences in the nature of work, income and wealth.
4. Motivation: This involves operation of incentive encouragement
5. Attitude: Ways of feeling or behaving.
Authoritarian: These are Parents who controlled their children rigidly, and make them to be submissive to a set of absolute norms and values. The authoritarian Parents deny their children freedom in the home.
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