Abstract

This study attempted to explain some of the influences of student’s family background on the behaviour of students in secondary schools in Buea Municipality. Family background has been highlighted as of great important in molding the performance and behaviour of children in schools worldwide.

This study therefore investigated the relationship between family backgrounds on student behaviour in secondary schools in Buea Municipality. This study focused on the influences of family size, education al background of family members, family wealth, and the socio-economic and political status of the family on the behaviour of students in Buea Municipality. The employed a survey research design used research design.

The target population under study secondary school students. The study used a sample of 150 students drawn from three schools (Government Technical High School Molyko, Bilingual Grammer School Molyko and Inter Comprehensive High School Great Soppo), selected by a random sampling method.

Data was collected by use of questionnaire for students. The data was Data was analyzed by means of tables and simple percentages. Findings revealed that that family background served as a determinant of student behaviour among secondary school students in Buea Municipality. It was also concluded that family size, educational background of family members, family wealth and socioeconomic and political status of family influences students’ behaviour.

The study recommended that schools administration should endeavour to advise parents during Parent Teacher Association (P.T.A) meetings to take care of their children by providing for their school needs so that they may succeed in school and eventually have positive attitudes towards schooling.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Historically, family background has been seen as the first unit in the social order where the child’s upbringings began after birth. Still in cradle, according to Adewumi et al (2012), the role of the family background in determining students’ behavior has long been in existence since the periods of Christian missionaries ‘activities.

Nyipir (2010) observes that even before World War 1, the role of the family background has always been enormous in shaping students’ behavior and it will continue to do so in many years to come. Formal education therefore remains the vehicle for human development which must start from the family background. There are different categories of family backgrounds.

The major categories of family background according to Anderson and Taylor (2000) includes: Traditional family background; where the father is the major breadwinner and mother at home rearing children; divorced family background that have been reconstituted following the breaking of marriage; single parent family background likely headed by women, stepfamily backgrounds with new siblings and new parents stemming from re-marriage.

According to Alio (1995) family background has implication for education. The author emphasized that the size of the family determines a great extent of the relative amount of physical attention and time which each child gets from his parents. Large family backgrounds are more common among the lower class of the society. Children in large family background may suffer poverty and lack parental encouragement and stimulus which motivate their behaviours and academic achievement among secondary schools (Eamon, 2005).

Similarly, smaller family size has been linked with high academic achievement (Majoribank1996) Major bank further stressed that students with fewer siblings are likely to receive more parental attention and have support that leads to better school performance. Family background (small or large size) remains the primary environment of every child.

The family background begins the process of education and provide physical and psychological needs of the child. This supports the view of Maduewisi (1982). Yoloye (1989) conducted study to see if students’ family background variables might be useful in explaining their academic achievement. Some aspects of family background variables examined in the study included family size and parents’ educational status. His findings were that the polygamous family sizes which were naturally large, reduces the chances of children going to school in the first instance.

In addition, children from such backgrounds who are in schools have reduced chances of achieving their goals. Thirdly, parents of such family background are mostly illiterate and incapable of providing adequate motivation for their children in schools as compare with the literate nuclear family backgrounds.

Francis (2007) opines that the lower income family backgrounds may be aware of the importance of education in the society, but at the same time, they are also aware of their limited resources to measure up with such educational demands. According to the author, a family background that can scarcely provide for the basic needs of the family which include food, shelters and clothing will hardly motivate their children on good behaviour and academic excellence. Instead, they will pressurize their children so seek for job opportunities with the little education they acquired so far to support the family. The implication of the agreement is that for families are likely to give their children poor behaviours and academic background because of the lack of financial support.

Conceptually, according to Aliyu (2016), Family background lays the fundamentals of students behaviours and upbringing of the child and in a way dictate how he/she relate with others regarding the idea of right and wrong. The family background unit plays the role of helping students in determining his/her future career pursuit through socializing them into their choice of vocation or a trade for self-resilience by exposing the child to either pursue the career of the family or any favorable skill before the child grows to become an adult (Jekayinka and Oke, 2003). Family background here includes everything that surrounds within the family itself, their socio-economic and political status, family’s wealth, just to name a few.

According to Mpiluka (2014), Family backgrounds have been of immense significant in determining the behaviour of students among secondary schools in the Buea Municipality. Specifically, because students behaviour often times are motivated by the type of people they interact with in their early stages in life from their family backgrounds. Muola (2010), observed that family backgrounds could be likening to all the conditions and circumstances within the family which influences the child physically, intellectually and emotionally as he/she grows up.

Theoretically, the study will focus on three theories that will help us in this study, which are; Social Learning theory by Albert Bandura, Classical Conditioning by Ivan Pavlov and Abraham Maslow theory of Hierarchy of needs.

Social learning theory suggest that social behavior is leant by observing and imitating the behaviour of others. More so, Bandura emphasizes the importance of observing, modeling and imitating the behaiours, attitudes of others.

This theory is related to the variables of the study in question since students behavior may be as result of the attitudes they must have learnt from their family backgrounds. Albert Bandura is a social cognitivist who emphasizes learning via observation and imitation. According to him, students learn through observation and imitation of the behaviors of others. Those performing the behavior and are being observed are called models.

These models who are mostly their elders are either in school (teachers or senior students) or at home (parents and neighbors). Students who learn through modeling learn easily and effectively because they keep trying to imitate until they are perfect. Bandura believed that humans are cognitive beings who, unlike animals, are likely to think about the links between their behavior and it consequences and that humans are more likely to be influenced by what they believed will happen, than by actual experience.

Classical conditioning is a form of learning where by, a conditioned stimulus (cs) becomes associated with an unrelated conditioned stimulus (us) in order to produce a behavioural responds known as a conditioned response (cr).The conditioned response is the learned response to the previously neutral stimulus which is very important to the variables in the study.

Abraham Maslow’s need’s Theory of learning stems from the Humanistic Theory, which is based on some premises: The first is that learning will happen when the educator (teacher) acting as a facilitator, establishes an atmosphere in which the learner feels comfortable to consider new ideas and not threatened by external factors. Secondly; those human beings have a natural eagerness to learn only when their needs are being met.

Contextually, Comments from educators indicated that, the blame from lack of good behavior and poor performance of students has been as a result of neglect and carefree attitude toward academic work by students and parents. Family background is the first school for a child where he/she is taught the basic norms and values by the parent before the child leaves for the formal education. Safe and conducive environment coupled with adequate learning facilities would help to boost the intellectual and academic capability and behaviour of the child.

Well educated parent would always have the right attitude towards education and provide learning materials such as television, videotapes, novels books, and journals that could facilitate the learning process. The motivation of any intelligent child towards learning behaviour is being accelerated by the positive influence of his/her environment while others who lacks motivation are negatively affected. Parents are the first teachers of their children. In the light of this, parental education influences student’s behaviour.

Ahmad (2013) suggested that children from families where parents have less education tends to behave systematically worse in school than students whose parents have more education. To him, educated parents provide intellectual, economical, psychological and emotional support to their children who in turn make them to be more comfortable and adjusted to their learning development, and this result in high academic performance and acceptable behaviors.

Statement of the Problem

Generally, students are sent to school not only to gain academic knowledge or competencies, but the school as well helps them to build good personalities, acceptable behaviours and other skills which they need for survival.

From general observation, one has noticed that some of this student’s behaviour do not meet the expected outcomes or standards of the society in general and the school in particular. Now this leaves one with the knowledge of what is actually responsible for this poor behaviour of the students. Is it the school? The school environment?

Or is it the family background from which these students are coming from? This leaves one to ask the question dose family background have an influence or determine the behaviour of students in school? That is why a study of this nature becomes relevant to find out the role or influence of family background on students’ behaviour among secondary school students.

Research Objectives

General Research Objective

To find out the role of family background as a determinant of students’ behaviour among secondary school students in the Buea Municipality.

Specific Research Objectives

1. To find out how family size determines students’ behaviour among secondary school students
2. To explain how the educational background of family members determine students’
3. To investigate how family’s wealth determines students’ behaviour among secondary school students
4. To find out how socio-political status of family members determines students’ behaviour among secondary school students

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