THE EFFECT OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC BACKGROUND OF PARENTS ON THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF THEIR CHILDREN IN SCHOOLS IN IGUEBEN LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF EDO STATE

1.1 Introduction

The Parent unit is the first and primary foundation of the child learning process. Apart from the materials stimulation, needed by the child and provided by his family for his intellectual development a child also is expected to be emotionally balanced. This will enable him to cope with the entire social tolerant that would disturb him at school. All families do not have equal economic and social status and since children from different homes attend different problems therefore the various children under this condition would be disturbed at school much effect is therefore required of the teachers in identifying the child’s problems which may be traceable to his family. The teacher should study the child’s family background and correlate them with the child performance at school.

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

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1.2 Background of Study

In the recent past, sociologist achieve tried to identify the characteristics of family background which are directly related to cognitive development and achievement in schools. The impact of family background on the academic achievement of pupils in schools today is receiving wide acknowledgement in many educational circles in the world. Family background plays an important role in the students’ performances because it is the foundations of education. The family is an institution which provides for the child’s primary socialization and initial education. The initial stage of child socialization depends on the influence of people around him of all the agents of socialization. The family is the most immediate and most important.

The problems of why students achieve or fail to achieve success in school has always been an issue to psychologist, educationist etc. family background has a significant influence on the socialization of the child. Some writer like Lovell P. (1999) are of the view that parents who are educated and economically well off are likely to have fewer children than parents who are not only poor but are illiterate or semi illiterate and ignorant. Rich children they opined do lack attention from their parents in matter relating to education.

At home life for such children is comfortable with amenities like house helps television sets, video sets, stimulating cognitive materials and all sorts of things to play with while at school, the child does not have to think of where his next fee will be coming from. Simply because the child is assured and therefore feels confidents and is alert also scholars like Lovell P. (1999) are also of the view that a child whose parents are illiterate and poor is not likely to attract such attention from their parents. Children from the above mentioned different family background come together to study in the same school under the same class teachers using the same curriculum. It is in the light of this that the researcher intends to find out the effect which family background has on the pupil’s performance in primary schools.

Family background is one of the factors that influence the academic achievement of children at school. The family is the bedrock of the child’s socialization process. A child starts leaning about life as soon as she came into the world from the family background, the school as a source of western education. It has been argued that a child family background influence his educational outcomes by affecting her attitude in school. It has been observed that the pupils’ poor performance in their school work could be traced to their parent’s educational status, the parent’s socio-economic status, and the family structure of the pupils.

Therefore, in Igueben Local Government Area of Edo State where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Effects of Socio-economic Background of Parents on the Academic Achievement of Their Children in Schools.

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1.3 Statement of Problem

In Nigeria today, the standard of education has fallen thus leading to lots of arguments among scholars, traders, stake holders, educationalist, civil servants etc as to the immediate and the remote cause of the fallen standard and the factors hindering high standard of education, while we blame government, teachers and pupils the family which the pupils came from have much to be desired. It is of great importance to note that we cannot exonerate the family which the child comes from when we are talking about pupils performance in school. This is based on either the family background which is either polygamous or monogamous in nature social economic status of the parents or level of education of parents or of the family and health facilities may also be involved.

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1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to investigate the Effects of Socio-economic Background of Parents on the Academic Achievement of Their Children in Schools in Igueben Local Government Area of Edo State. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives laid out as follows:

1. To investigate and determine to what extent parents’ education, wealth, parents-child relationship, types of family, size of family etc influence academic performance or achievement of pupils in Igueben Local Government Area of Edo State
2. To identify the influence of parental socio-economic status on pupils’ academic achievement in Igueben Local Government Area of Edo State
3. To find out whether educational background of parents has any influence on pupil’s academic achievement in Igueben Local Government Area of Edo State

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1.5 Research Questions

The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:

• Is there any significant difference between children from wealthy parents and those from poor parents in terms of academic achievement?
• Is there any major difference between the academic ends, achievements of children from broken home and children from unbroken homes?
• Is there difference between the academic performance of children from polygamous families and the children from monogamous families?
• Is there significant difference between the academic achievement of children from educated home and those from uneducated homes?
• What is the significance in academic performance between children from large family and those from small family?
• To what extent does parents’ background usually affect their children’s academic performance?
• To what extent do children from the home of low income group attend school regularly because of their parents’ inability to provide for school requirements and equipment adequately?
• To what extent there exist good parents – child relationship, how such affects their children’s academic performance?

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1.6 Research Hypothesis

In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.

• H₀1: There is no significant difference between children from wealthy parents and those from poor parents in terms of academic achievement.
• H₀2: There is no difference in the academic performance of children from polygamous families and the children from monogamous families.
• H₀3: There is no significant difference in academic performance between children from large family and those from small family.
• H₀4: There is no significant difference in the academic achievement of children from educated homes and those from uneducated homes.
• H₀5: There is no major difference in the academic achievements of children from broken homes and children from unbroken homes.

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1.7 Significance of Study

The findings will no doubt influence parents or government to be well informed in order not to be misled about the socio-economic variable that affect students’ educational achievements. It is believed that this study will highlight the effects of the socio-economic background of parents on the academic achievements of their children in schools in Igueben Local Government Area.

The findings will help educate parents on how best to attain the best academic achievement of their children. It also exposes teachers, counselors and educationist to the problem facing students’ academic performance like emotional instability, tension brought from poor homes.

Conclusively, this work will give useful recommendations to government and parents on how to improve the academic achievement of their students in schools.

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1.8 Scope of Study

This study is focused on how the socio-economic background of parents affects their children’s academic performance in school in the present day, in Igueben Local Government Area of Edo State.

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1.9 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
4. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

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1.10 Definition of Terms

In order to avoid misinterpretation of terms, the following terms used in this study and their definitions are given in accordance in this study as follows:

Socio-economic Status: The socio-economic status of an individual in a family within any given society is determined by the level of education, income, occupational background and other criteria of social class.

Academic Achievement/Performance: This refers to how much an individual has achieved or attain after a course of instructional training in a school settings.

Polygamous Family: This is a custom in which a man is married to more than one wife at a time.

Monogamous Family: This is the practice of a man being married to a wife at a time.

Broken Home: This is a situation whereby the parents of the homes are apart or divorced, that is the parents of a child are not living together (in most cases, the children lack care, security and training).

Unbroken Home: Here the co-operation exists between the father, mother and children, because they are together and not divorced. In this practice the children enjoy care, security, training, etc. So the child is well catered for.

Family Background: This involves the condition I the home created by parents. These include educational background, home status, and family structure in terms of monogamy and polygamy and provision of educational materials.

Social Class: The group that people belong to which is defined by property ownership and control of health.

Academic Performance: The scores an individual obtain in a class, test or examination based on his learning experience in school.