CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background to the study
Deviant behaviour is a big problem in our society today. Some years ago, Egyptians priest carried on a stone our earth is degenerated, children no longer obey their parents. (Johnson, 1995). The attention of different people has been drawn to the increase in deviant and delinquent behaviour among students in Emotan Girls Grammar School. Going through the Nigeria daily newspapers and listening to radio and television, we hear a twist of deviant and behavior causes being attributed to Emotan girl’s grammar school of today. Anti-social activities are rampant in the contemporary Nigerian Society. This is evident in the deluge of social problems witnessed on regular bases. These problems which include various factors such as social inequality, ethnicity, limited resources, corruption, poverty, criminality, and other socio-economic crises pervade the length and breadth of the country. There is a wide gap between the expectations of the society and its actual manifestations. Hardly would a day go by without a record of one form of social problem or the other. In line with the above, Osarenren (2002) argued that societal attitudes change because society is dynamic and changes occur quite frequently and to support her claims, she advanced some fundamental reasons for anti-social behaviours in the society. For her, one of the reasons is the change in the structure of the society which happens to be as a result of rapid transition from rural to urbanization and industrialization; secondly, there has been a serious disruption of sense of community solidarity and of the integrity of the extended family structure; and thirdly, it is observed that delinquency is on the rise in deteriorated neighborhoods near the city centres of large cities. One may therefore surmise that delinquency is closely associated with urbanization. From a sociological perspective, a social problem exists when there is a sizable difference between the ideals of a society and its actual achievements. From this perspective, social problems are created by the failure to close the gap between the way people want things to be and the way things really are (Coleman, 1999). Certain social conditions are detrimental in any situation (Eitzen, Smith & Baca-Zinn, 2009). These conditions prevent members of a society from developing and using their full potential. Those conditions like poverty, racism, unequal opportunity are, therefore, social problems in any social setting. There is a common consensus among experts that deviance is a social problem and could be seen as a product of both personal and social traits. Osarenren (2002) argued that any behavior which does not conform to the rules, regulations, norms and values of a given time is viewed as deviance. In line with this position, Ajuzie (2005), submitted that deviance should be eradicated or put to control in the society .She argues further that the best a society could do in order to achieve this is to undertake application of knowledge to practical ends, through corrections, development of policies and programmes for combating crime and deviance, to reform, remobilize and to treat deviants. Matza (1964) came up with the idea of treating deviant cases when he projected a premise that something must be wrong with a deviant actor and which compels him to be lawless and inhibits him from conformity to conventional norms and the laws of the society.
Education is a watchdog that is essential for correcting the problem of deviance and ensuring conformity to institutional rules and regulations. The impact of education on change and adjustment is tremendous in that knowledge is light, it transforms and leads in the right direction. The thrust of this study is to explore the effect of social problems on the academic performance and social adjustment of secondary school students. In this breadth, ‘deviance’ readily comes to mind, because it is a term that is easily associated with social problems among youths in general and secondary school students in particular. Before the study is explored in-depth, laying a solid foundation with regards to relevant accounts of social deviance issues among youths and secondary school students in Nigeria will be useful. In the account of Osaat (1999),the present Nigeria generation has been a generation of youth restiveness and moral decadence, sporadic ethnic and religious violence, insurgent tribal youth militias, and labour unrest among adult workers, and a generation where youths grow with criminal tendencies, with growing interests in cultic activities, and examination malpractice as the dominant means of achieving success in educational institutions. Deviance, disturbances, crises, issues, violence, unrest and all anti-social behaviours, all of which have been categorized as social problems are prevalent in every sector of the Nigerian nation. The primary focus of this study is to lay emphasis on these problems with a focus on the educational sector and especially among students of senior secondary schools in Nigeria. Student participation in anti-social behaviours is on a steady rise. The alarming effect of this behavior constitutes a major challenge Teachers, Parents, Guardians, and the Government, the stake-holders in the educational sector and even among the well meaning Nigerians at large.
A number of occurrences, which have become the ‘norm’, are testimony to the fact that social problems in schools have come to stay. A practical example was recorded by the Nation newspaper of Thursday, June 21, 2012, that social unrest broke out at the Government Girls Secondary School in Abuloma, Port- Harcourt. At the aftermath of the violence, about 13 students including teaching staff were recorded to have sustained various degrees of injuries. The Nigerian Tribune of Thursday, October 4, 2012 also recorded the killings of about 46 students of the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi, Adamawa State. The Newspaper attributed the reason for the killings to ethnicity and school politics .Although investigations are still on going as to what led to the extra-judicial killings of the students, but some of the students have confessed that the perpetrators of the dastardly acts are very likely to be their fellow students. In an egalitarian society, there are ideals like peace, fairness, law and order, brotherhood, social and equitable justice, and whenever these collective ideals are truncated, social problems become the consequence.
Violence is rampant in secondary schools these days. According to Awujo (2006), Nigeria today is faced with the syndrome of youth restiveness, which is believed to be connected to the political, social and economic problems of our country. He argued that the syndrome of youth restiveness was borne out of the wounds of despair and disappointment. It is a cry of daily hurt, persistent injustice, exploitation, impoverishment, pain and anger as a result of man’s inhumanity to man.
Aside youth restiveness, there are other social problems witnessed among secondary school students. Sexual promiscuity is one of the problems associated with some secondary school students.Adenuga (2006) supports this claim by stating that the problem of sexual promiscuity is not a new phenomenon in Nigeria especially among senior secondary school students. He went on to reveal that many secondary school students are under pressure to engage in premarital sex as the popular saying in the urban society is that “everybody is doing it”.
Sexual promiscuity among secondary school, if unchecked, eventually culminates into sexual perversions as lesbianism, homosexuality, transgender sex and other bizarre sexual experimentations like incest, bestiality and other sexual abnormalities. One cardinal danger that sexual promiscuity portends for teenage girls is teenage pregnancy which in all cases is unwanted pregnancies. This will either result in abortion or in teenage parenting which constitutes social problems. All forms of sexual promiscuity and the negative effects constitute danger for the affected victims; it makes them become social misfits. For example, a secondary school girl who gets pregnant will have to undergo series of castigations and rejections from her parents, family members, school mates and even her close friends. The reproach could even lead to her withdrawal from school, a case of school dropout.
Cultism among students is another case of social problem. Today, participation in cultic activities has been extended to students in the secondary schools, but this was not the case in recent past when cultism was limited to students of higher institutions only. The case of cultism on campuses gives credence to the claims of Salako (2005), that our institutions of learning in Nigeria today are being rocked by crises caused by secret cults on the campuses. Cultic activities have become the order of the day so much so that institutions of higher learning seldom run the normal school calendar.
Corruption has been linked with participation in cultism in the country. Eneh (2008) believes that widespread corruption in high places and endemic poverty in the society are precursors of cultism in Nigerian educational institutions. This claim is true when you look at the cases of cultism among students, one would realize that participation in cultic activities is majorly driven by the ambition of students to acquire power and money. That is why they hunt for students from well to do families as initiates, also, some political leaders in the country make use of student cultists to perpetrate evil so as to secure their political seats for as long as they want. These cultists carry out all the dastardly acts for the politicians in exchange for money. Corruption and endemic poverty are at the very roots of cultism in Nigeria’s educational institutions. Corruption eats deep into the fabrics of the society. Little wonder, Umar (2007),put forward a staggering statistics that about 2% of Nigerians control over 60% of the Nation’s financial assets, while over 70% of the population live below the poverty line (Encarta,2005).
The irony of our country is summarized below by Eneh (2006):
“Nigeria, a country blessed with the natural potentials to be among the richest nations of the world, is variously rated between the 13th and 21st poorest country; and 1st or 2nd most corrupt nation of the world” p.126.
There is need to also highlight problems of drug and substance abuse, truancy and juvenile delinquency among students. These all signify the existence of social problems in the society. Smoking and drug intake among youth, as adjudged by Oloyede (1996), is rampant among Nigerian youth of different socio-economic backgrounds both in rural and urban areas. Drug intake and smoking is common among secondary school students. Cigarettes and other performance-enhancing drugs come in cheap and readily available, so students can afford them irrespective of their social class, and also there seems to be no serious laws in the society prohibiting the access of students to these drugs. From the foregoing, it is evident that social problems in our society are generating concerns for all and sundry. This study is concerned about the extent to which social problems affect the academic performance and social adjustment of students in Nigeria.
It is on the basis of these assumptions that this study was construed to examine the causes deviant and effect of social problems on the academic performance and social adjustment of senior secondary school students of Shomolu Education District II of Lagos State, Nigeria.
Statement of Problem.
In recent times, it has become a common phenomenon to read, hear or witness incidences of students’ involvement in anti-social behaviours such as teenage pregnancy/parenting, child abuse, alcohol intake, drug abuse, rape, prostitution, sexual perversion, stealing, cultism, adolescent suicide, school dropout and all kinds of wanton misdemeanor.Sad to say that some of these social problems are unfortunately fallout of the social ills in the society. It is the society that creates severe poverty, homelessness and economic hardships. Kyra (2009) supports the assumption that social problems are created by social structures when she revealed ‘that much of what goes on in society leaks into the school system, impacting students and their learning experience’. Eitzen et al (2009), also seconded the assumption by suggesting that norm violations are symptoms of social problems and that the source of deviance is found within the social structure. He continues, society plays a role in creating and sustaining deviance by labeling victims as. This shows that anti-social behaviours expressed by students are reflective of what obtains in the larger society. Many have agreed that deviant acts perpetrated by students in the secondary schools are responsible for the downward turn in the academic performance and social adjustment of these students. It is not certain whether efforts taken by researchers, teachers ,school administrators and stakeholders at linking behaviours among secondary school students to social problems with a view to curbing these behaviours have yielded any fruits in the past.
In the light of the overall challenges of social problems in schools, this study sets out to examine the effect of social problems on the academic performance and social adjustment of senior secondary school students in selected schools in Shomolu District II of Lagos State.
Purpose of the Study
The specific objectives of the study include:
Research Questions.
The study provided answers to the following research questions:
| 1 - 5 of 96 Reviews |