THE IMPACT OF SINGLE PARENTING ON STUDENT ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN THE ENUGU EDUCATION ZONE
ABSTRACT
This study sought to investigate the effects of single parenting on senior secondary school students’ academic achievement in mathematics in the Enugu education zone. This study used 300 copies of a questionnaire to collect information and data from senior secondary schools in the Enugu education zone. This survey revealed pupils’ ages, genders, family sizes, and occupations of their parents.
It also identified the causes of single parenthood among Enugu education zone residents. This study shed more light on the impacts of single parenting on teenagers and single parents. It also highlighted the impact of solitary parenting on children’s academic performance. Similarly, this study highlighted the societal impacts of single parenthood.
This study also demonstrated the significance of the parent-child bond and parental/family participation in children’ academic work. Finally, this study has served to offer some approaches that will help to alleviate, to a large part, the harmful impacts of single parenting on senior secondary kids’ academic ability in mathematics.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 THE STUDY’S BACKGROUND
Everyone had someone who fostered them as children and whom they referred to as “family.” No guy existed in isolation. Everyone is descended from a family. There are few things more universal than family. The family is the sole avenue via which human societies may maintain their existence. Genesis 1:28, “And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be prolific, and multiply, and replenish the land, and subdue it…” (From the American Standard Version.)
All parents, whether single or married, leave long-lasting influences on their children’s lives, and single parents are not exempt from this duty. However, whatever the reason of this singularity is, it is likely to leave profound impressions or have an impact on the child’s developing personality. What matters is how the single parent handles the tremendous tasks of single parenting. According to Ahuja (2000), the way a single parent handles parenting issues has a significant impact on the child’s character, individuality, and academic accomplishment when compared to children whose parents live together.
Being the child of a single parent is a difficult position. According to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, children look up to their parents to provide their first three psychological needs: physiological needs (food, drink, air, shelter), safety needs (security), and love and affection needs. Children will feel comfortable and confident if their parents are confident and emotionally stable. A solitary parent’s sense of belonging has a devastating effect on the child’s personality.
Despite the fact that many African nations’ conventions and mentalities have altered, many children from unmarried parents are often labeled as bastards. It always haunts the child whose mother was never married to his/her father, or when the father refused to recognize or accept these children as his since it is a social taboo. They are singled out and mocked by others at school and on playgrounds. As a result, kids are hesitant to attend school and mingle. These are some of the obstacles that children with single parents face (Stinson, 2000).
The child is the center point, and the term of “parent” is meaningless without the child. Researchers in the social sciences have identified several ways in which children’s behavior patterns alter based on the sort of household they come from. Many people believe that materialism and compulsive consumption among children are more prevalent in single-parent households than in dual-parent households. P. R. Amato (1987)
A child raised in a home where both the father and mother are present will be well cared for and socialized to the greatest extent feasible. This is because the socialization process requires both parents to play complementary roles in raising the child. The home is the first and most important socializing agent.
A well-reared child is more likely to attain self-actualization later in life, but children from single-parent families are more likely to face deprivation and denial of certain rights and opportunities (Battle, 1998). According to Salami (1998), “Children from broken households are generally associated with anti-social behavior and bad academic records.”
Time has truly passed. Many of the old practices and traditions that have been taught and practiced for many years are now out of date. The principles and beliefs that were regarded to represent the essential beliefs and ideals of our society have altered and outgrown the current civilization.
Nonetheless, moralists and conservatives feel disgusted by the contemporary evolution of ideology and cultural systems. What was formerly considered inappropriate is now becoming a fast and rapidly developing trend. Single-parenting has been a major source of concern for conservatives for decades, if not millennia. Single-parenting is already a popular and rapidly rising social trend. M. O. Tenibiaje (2011)
Children raised by a single parent face greater dangers than children raised by both parents. Even when they have the same intellectual potential, children from single-parent families are twice as likely as children from two-parent families to drop out of secondary school (Amato, 1987).
According to Battle (1998), parents are the major and single sources of financial assistance for the family. Single parents, on the other hand, have less time to help their children with their academics and are less likely to be strict in disciplining their children, resulting in less parental control and low academic accomplishment (Battle, 1998).
Regardless of the circumstances surrounding their children’s birth, parents must plan for them from infancy to puberty and, eventually, adulthood. Making a plan and seeing it through is one approach to ensuring that children are properly cared for and grow up to be healthy, responsible, and productive human beings who embrace and fulfill their civic responsibilities in the society in which they live. Both parents should be actively involved in their children’s educational planning.
1.2 THE PROBLEM’S STATEMENT
When both parents work together to provide good care for their child, he is morally upright and emotionally stable. The family is the child’s first socialization agent, and the family has a significant influence on the child’s physical, mental, moral, emotional, spiritual, and academic development. The family lays a strong basis for education before the child enters school, and the home influences the personality that the youngster brings to school.
“Charity begins at home,” wise people say. Parents can influence their children’s educational growth. In a normal Nigerian society, the father is expected to give food, water, shelter, security, and other required instruments for the child’s scholastic growth.
The mother supports the father’s efforts in every way she can, providing love and care to the child, assisting the youngster with housework and homework, and disciplining the child in a loving manner. The absence or vacuum generated by any of these two has a significant impact on the child’s growth and development in the appropriate direction. As a result, the two parents play important roles in their growth.
As a result, the purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of single parenting on kids’ academic achievement in mathematics at the senior secondary school level.
1.3 THE STUDY’S OBJECTIVES
A single parent has double the responsibility in terms of time, attention, and money. As a result, less attention is devoted to the child’s education because the parent will be hustling in search of money so that the child does not suffer from starvation, causing the parent to overlook his/her duty of assisting the child intellectually, particularly in Mathematics.
Single-parent children are described by teachers as more hostile, aggressive, anxious, afraid, hyperactive, and distractible than children from intact households (Salami 1998). As a result, the general objectives of this study are to discover the various causes of single parenting, to discover the effects of single parenting on children’s academic
achievement in Mathematics, to discover the ways in which single parents can help to improve their children’s academic achievement in Mathematics, and to suggest ways in which single parents can create time and give attention to their children’s academic achievement in Mathematics. The primary goals of this study are as follows:
I Investigate the many issues that children from single parents encounter in the Enugu education zone.
(ii) Determine the effects of single parenting on children of single parents in terms of school fee payment, textbook and other learning material purchases, and focus in class; and
(iii) Determine the effects of single parenting on children’s academic achievement in mathematics in the Enugu education zone.
1.4 QUESTIONS FOR RESEARCH
Are children of single parents more likely to experience specific problems than children of couple parents?
Is there a substantial difference in the timing of school fee payment, the purchase of textbooks and other learning materials, and the degree of focus in class between children of single parents and children of couple-parents?
Is there a statistically significant difference in academic ability in mathematics between children of single parents and children of couple-parents?
1.5 THE STUDY’S OBJECTIVE
This research focuses on the effects of single parenting on students’ academic progress in mathematics in senior secondary schools in the Enugu education zone.
1.6 THE STUDY’S SIGNIFICANCE
It is believed that the findings of this study will help single parents understand the hazards of single parenting, how it impacts their children’s Academic accomplishment in Mathematics, and how they can work to enhance their children’s Academic achievement in Mathematics. It will also assist bachelors and spinsters in thoroughly preparing for marriage before entering into it, so that the lives of their unborn children are not jeopardized.
It will also assist pupils from single-parent households in realizing the ramifications of their current home situation and putting in their best efforts to breeze through the demeaning responsibilities of self-study with ease. This study is also meant to draw marriage counselors’ attention to the negative consequences of broken households on children’s academic achievement, particularly in mathematics,
so that they can help to save marriages that are likely to fail. This study will also ideally assist Mathematics teachers in recognizing, understanding, and respecting their students’ familial backgrounds in relation to their Academic accomplishment in Mathematics, as well as providing techniques to assist them in achieving self-actualization in the subject.
1.7 OPERATIONAL TERM DEFINITION
To have any relevance inside a study, concepts must be defined in a clear, unambiguous, and accepted manner. Concepts can be defined either conceptually or operationally. This process is defined here as a “process defining concepts by a set of other concepts.” The process of defining concepts is critical because it allows specific situations to be articulated and presented in a way that is relevant to the subject.
MATHEMATICS: According to Pilant Michael S. (2008), mathematics is a technique of expressing relationships between numbers and other quantifiable quantities. Mathematics can express both basic equations and interactions between the smallest particles and the most distant objects in the known cosmos. Mathematics enables scientists to explain concepts using commonly used terms. It is, without a doubt, the language of science.
Mathematics is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as the discipline of science dealing with number, amount, and space, either as abstract notions (Pure Mathematics) or as applied to Physics, Engineering, and other subjects (Applied Mathematics).
Mathematics, according to Wilder (1972), is a technique that allows mediocre minds to solve complex issues. Tools are extremely significant and useful in a variety of ways.
Math is also useful at all stages of education. As a result, such subjects as mathematics and other related topics must not be feared by students.
According to Oddi (1986), mathematics is an indispensable branch of natural science on which scientific and technological progress is dependent. Because all science topics rely on mathematics, its instruction should be engaging for students.
SINGLE PARENTING: Single parenting occurs when one of two people who are responsible for the nurturing and rearing of a child is unavailable, and the task that should have been done by two people is now done by only one person.
A single parent, according to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, is a mother or father who cares for their own children without the assistance of their other partner.
Single parenting is defined as a circumstance in which a single parent, either the wife or the husband, performs the obligations that require two parents to perform on their children. According to Salami (1998), a single parent (also known as a lone parent or sole parent) is a parent who cares for one or more children without the physical, moral, or disciplinary support of the other partner in the family.
IMPACT: According to Encarta dictionaries (2009), impact is “the strong or dramatic influence that something or someone has on something or someone.”
Encarta dictionaries (2009) define academic achievement as “education, educational studies, an educational institution, or the educational system.”
According to Encarta dictionaries (2009), performance is the way something or someone works, operates, or behaves.
Academic achievement is therefore described as how well a student does in his or her studies and classes in a school or system.
STUDENT: According to the Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary (6th edition), a student is someone who studies at a university or college. It also describes a student as someone who attends a school, particularly a secondary school.
According to Encarta dictionaries (2009), a student is someone who has studied or is interested in a certain subject.
SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL: According to Nigeria’s Universal Basic Education (UBE) policy, we have a 9-3-4 educational system, which implies that basic education (Primary and Junior Secondary education) lasts 9 years, Senior Secondary education lasts 3 years, and Tertiary education lasts 4 years. Senior secondary education specifies the sort of education (program) that will be acquired (studied) in a higher institution.
As a result, Senior Secondary School is the location where Senior Secondary education is provided under the supervision of certified teachers. in the education zone of Enugu
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THE IMPACT OF SINGLE PARENTING ON STUDENT ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN THE ENUGU EDUCATION ZONE