CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The home is a first contact of a child in life hence it is a place where comfort, love, tranquility and refuge are expected to be adequately and unconditionally provided, it is also a place where people congregate their living practices. Home is a primary agent of socialization and internalization, a child’s social outlooks, educational agilities and achievements coupled with his intelligence is a reflection of his home setting and which usually associated with his family background in totality. As a result of these, home is any child’s environment of which the child can not do without referring to at one time or the other as regards to certain issues. Therefore home is a determining factor in any child’s behaviour and thus influences his academic performance.
The home consist of the children’s vicinity and apartment where they rest their head. It is abundantly clear that a successful learning and reading requires a conducive and decent atmosphere. The relationship between couple must be cordial in order to be breed peaceful coexistence and understanding. But lack of understanding among couples breeds frustration and sorrow to the children and the family as a whole.
The influence of broken homes on students’ academic performance is designed to unveil the state of mind of the individual child in context as a result of the family background and its likely effects or influence on both academic performance and subsequent formation of philosophy in life. A critical examination of a child whose parents are separated and being trained either by his step father or mother a relative or guidance may be subjected to unpleasant environment that could alter his normal disposition trite that could foster and facilitate normal expectation of his academic performance.
There is great prospensity for a child from broken home to mingle and associate with miscreant due to his explosive street hawking by his guidance. The end result of this exposure are emulation of all negative habit, such as stealing, gambling, pilfering, disobedient, truancy and other odd values, instead of staying in the school to learn. Unarguably, the child becomes problem, mentally and physically not only to himself but to the society in general which invariably affects his academic performance. The aim of marriage is to enable couple to live together and bring up their children in a healthy atmosphere with sound education, so that such children would be able to live an independent and purposeful live.
It is not only when the marriage collapse or couples are separated or divorce that a home is regarded broken. The type of love, cordial relationship and understanding that exist between couples is a clear indication of the type of home built. A broken home is a home where the children are left to their own idea, belief and traits due to lack of care, affection and control by their parents. The causes of broken home could be traced to lack of understanding between couples, childlessness, persistent delivery of same sex by wife against the desire of her husband (for example female against male), parental interference into the affairs and management of couples, bad associates, infidelity poverty, cultural and individual variations, irresponsible behaviors, such as coming home lately from work, complaining of non-payment of salary after he might have squandered his salary somewhere unprofitable, negligence of paternal responsibilities such as children education, care, health, provision of food and other basic needs, bringing other women (concubine) to his matrimonial home. Such marriage /union is prone to disintegration, when this happens parents would not be able to bring up their children with one voice, this is another militating factor against children performance at school.
A child from broken home is likely to stay away from school without plausible reason, such a child will take the advantage of the fact that his parents can no longer monitor his movement. Most children from broken homes are characterized by laziness, low intelligence quotient, bad and anti-social behaviour, once there is separation, the child will not be opportuned to settle down for a peaceful life with own parent or the others. Maslow argued in his theory of sequential development, that man has five basic needs, in hierarchical order, the need for belongingness and love takes priority and the likely place a child gets this is from his parents but once these elude him owing to parental inability to such provision it hinders the overall development of the child and to an extreme it disturbs the child’s emotion, social and academic performances.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The influence of home on students’ academic performance is the concern of teachers, school authority and society as a whole. Despite the fact that society and people are at the receiving end of the disastrous effects of broken homes, yet some couples seek divorce in courts while many simply dissolve their marriage or union silently and unceremoniously. This research work is to enquire if the students academic performance is as a result of broken home or nonchalant altitude of students towards the school work.
1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
This study is being conducted for the propose of:-
i. To prevent broken home as to improve the standard of education of the students.
ii. To built a happy homes among couples.
iii. To show parents reasons to endures, tolerating one other and protect their homes.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
In order to profer solutions to the problems of the study, the following questions would be asked:-
i. Does academic performance of children from broken home different from those from intact home?
ii. Does attitude of children from broken home different from those from intact home?
iii. Does cordial relationship of parents affect academic performance of students from broken home and those from intact home?
1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
The following hypotheses were formulated to be tested:-
HYPOTHESIS I
Ho: There is no significant disparity in the academic performance of students from broken home.
Hi: There is significant disparity in the academic performance of students from intact home.
HYPOTHESIS II
Ho There is no appreciable difference in the attitude of children from broken home.
Hi: There is appreciable difference in the altitude of children from intact home.
HYPOTHESIS III
Ho: There is no significant difference in the interpersonal relationship of students from broken home.
Hi: There is significant difference in the interpersonal relationship of students from intact home.
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The study is an eye-opener to parents, it will enable them to know the model they portray before their children, adverse effects of an option for divorce or separation will be known before taken. In the other hand guidance will also benefit from this study as it will enable them to understand better on how to handle victims and the types of attention treatment to be given. Teachers as a conventional custodian of socialization would better understand the victim (child) and his family background and ways to further assisting him towards his academic achievement. The study will also assist marriage counselors better on how and type of pre-marriage and post marriage counseling to be given to prospective and qualified parents on how their marital affairs should be handled and protected by advising parents on life after divorce/separation concerning their children.
1.8 DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY
The project is to cover Ikorodu local Government Area in Lagos State. It is also to cover three school and samples are randomly taken at the senior secondary levels
1.9 OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS
BROKEN HOME: This is a home where the children are left to their own facts of life due to lack of care affection and control.
INTACT HOME: This is a home where parents and children live in harmony, a home characterized by love, care, affection and control.
SOCIAL OUTLOOK: Is the view of an individual concerning interaction with both the outside world and his home, the idea or perception of a child about a social setting- is it friendly, hostile rigid, personality and cultural make up?
BACKGROUND: It is the environmental conditions or circumstance especially of childhood and youth that contributes to the formation of an individual characters, personality and cultural make up?
UPBRINGING: This can simply be defined as the early training given to a child.
SEPARATED/SEPARATION: This signifies a home where both parents ( father and mother) do not live under the same roof.
DIVORCE: This is a process of, or permanent separation or division of the relationship between husband and wife due to a legal dissolution in a whole or part of a marriage relationship usually by a court or any institution of competent authority.
