CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background to the Study
The pronounced poor academic performance in Nigeria schools and students drop out as a result of which the phenomenon of touts, thugs and other bandits has become a menace to our society which evidently result into increased in the number of teenage conflicts, has been the concern of educators, guidance, counselors, teachers, government as well as parents.
The foregoing has given rise to this study which is addressed to the relationship between family background variables and academic performance of senior secondary school in Nigeria. A case study of selected schools in Egbeda Local Government area of Oyo State.
Apart from variation in interest, motives, values attitudes and behaviours that individual has towards success, there are literarily thousands of dimensions that are sources of achievement vis-à-vis environmental influences, level of education of the parents and other factors that may stimulate one towards higher performance. Parents have been found as influential to their child’s attitude, preference and performance in the followings ways
1. Parent’s own attitudes
2. Expectations of child performance
3. Parental encouragement
Nature of relationship between socio-economic status, type and size of the family, religion, occupation genetics, position relation to other children in the family, peer influences and ability showed a positive or negative influence on his academic performance. It is necessary therefore for the researcher to find out those variables that are found influencing academic performance of students negatively, suggest and recommend some possible solutions.
Generally, Nigeria is socially stratified society where majority of the people are economically weak and very few are economically viable.
Student’s social economic background in the present Nigeria can be broadly categorized into three namely:
– The lower social economic class
– The middle social economic class
– The upper social economic class
The Lower Socio-Economic Class
These are people whose incomes are insufficient to meet their needs. The civil servant with grade level 01-07 falls within the class, the unskilled labourers and petty traders inclusive.
The Middle Social Economic Class
In this category are the civil servants between grade 08-12 and small scale business owners.
The Upper Social Economic Class
These are the people whose income are sufficient, high and more than enough to cater for their needs. The upper and the middle class have relatively the same characteristics, which the lower socio-economic class is the most disadvantaged of them all. A lot of research had been carried out to find out the various variables that influence performance cross social groups but little had been done to find out the influence of family background variables as they affect the performance of students in schools. The research is therefore designed to find out family background variables and how they affect students’ academic performance in schools.
The influence of the family background variables on the academic performance of the students in Nigeria secondary schools cannot be over emphasized. This is because of family immense roles and contributions towards the academic performance. The family background variable can be seen as those factors that have effects on the academic performance of the students. Since the family is a group of people related by blood and since the human family has two aspects the biological and social aspects, it is pertinent to say then that blood link heredity characteristics and common interest are embedded in the family set up. The aforementioned family traits serve as bedrock for family background variables that have influence on the overall academic performance of students. In view of above mentioned reasons, it is very necessary to highlight some of the importance of these family background variables in relation to students’ academic performance in Nigeria Secondary Schools. It has been noted that socio-economic status of the parents has direct influence on the academic performance of a child. For instance, a child whose school fees is being paid as at when due, provided with adequate and necessary school materials like textbooks, proper uniform, school sandals, and other writing materials, at appropriate time will be of academic advantages over others. In addition to the above a child who is well fed and cared for by the parents also has an advantage over his or her counterparts who is less privilege. The definition of education has given by Castle (1975) stated that education is what happens to one person from the day he is born to the day he dies”. Based on the above definition therefore, education can be referred to as totality of experience of man through out of his life time.
In this dimension, educational attainment of the parent has a great influence on the academic performance of the child. For example, a child whose parents are literate and enlightened will be at an advantage than a child from illiterate parents. The reason being that the child of the former will have easy assess to the collection of books rendering academic assistance to the child when studying, encouragement, instant correction of errors made by the child while interesting with the parents and so on.
The influence of parents’ occupation on academic performance of a child be over-emphasize.