The Influence of Parenting Styles on Social Adjustment Among Secondary School Students
CHAPTER ONE
Objective of the Study
The main purpose of this study is to examine the influence of parenting styles on social adjustment among secondary school students in Lagos State
Other specific objectives of the study include to investigate:
- Whether there are difference in the social orientation of students who were brought up by authoritative parents and those brought up by the authoritarian parents.
- Whether there is gender difference in social orientation of students as a result of parenting styles.
- Whether the socio-economic status of parents affect their styles of parenting.
- Evaluate whether the religious backgrounds of parents affect their styles of parenting.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Introduction
There is always need for very critical review of related literatures in order to have a thorough knowledge of the subject matter from the past and present view of psychologist and researchers as regard to the greater understanding of the topic under discussion.
Conceptual Framework
Adjustment
According to Oxford Advanced Learners of current English dictionary (7th Ed.) adjustment means a change in the way a person behaves or thinks.Aiken and Gary (2006) considered the social attachment of adjustment where they defined adjustment as an ability to cope with social situations and achieve satisfaction of one‟s needs. Bhatia (2003) also considered adjustment in the social point of view where he or she says that it means adaptation to physical environment as well as to social demands. Bhatia (2003) further explains that no human being can live apart from his physical environment. He says that there is action and reaction chain going on between the individual and his environment. Then there are social pressures and demand socialization. To these may be added the individual personal demands such as the satisfaction of physiological needs. And this complex functioning of the person demands adjustment. Kundu and Tutoo (1998:529) see the term adjustment to refer to a harmonious relationship between the person and the environment. They said that the degree of harmony depends upon two things.
Certain potentialities within a persons and (ii) Character of the environment.
They also continued to explain that a person is said to be adjusted when he is so related to reasonably adequate environment that he is relatively happy, efficient and has a degree of social feelings. In simple word they said that adjustment is an all-inclusive term meaning relationship between an individual and his environment through which his needs are satisfied in accordance with social demands. But, Gates and Jersild in Mangal (2005) stated that adjustment is a continual process in which a person varies his behavior to produce a more harmonious relationship between himself and his environment.Shaffer as cited in Mangal (2005) considered adjustment in the area of need satisfaction process where he state that adjustment is the process by which a living organism maintain a balance between its needs and the circumstances that influenced the satisfaction of these needs.
Obeh (2009:4) states that a good number of psychologists such as Child (1981) and Eweniyi and Ogunsanya (2006) perceive adjustment as a necessary phenomenon that preludes peace and peaceful co-existence in human cohabitation, while Onyejiaku (1991) likens adjustment to an oversized and undersized new clothe that necessarily requires adjustment before achieving correct shape and usage. Denga (1986:192; 2002:90) defines adjustment as harmonious, congruence or a goodness of fit between an individual and standards against which an individual is adjudged.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
This chapter presented the procedures and method used in conducting the study. The chapter was organized under the following sub headings. :
Research Design
Survey research method was used for this study. This is because it is simply the best method for collecting information from a large population located at different places in natural setting and it is more accurate as in the case of study population. It is a design with attempt to document current collection or attitudes to describe what exists at the moment. Akeredola (2005) viewed the importance of survey research design with a common goal to collection of data from respondents. The data thus gathered from the survey is analyzed and interpretation made. Survey research design that can be used to collect data using questionnaire items to document information should be friendly and easy to administer
Choice of survey research design was based on the fact that, the entire population would not covered as such, stratified and proportional random design enable the researcher to describe and articulate information.
Population for Study
The targeted population of the adolescents was 30,666.Using Krejei and Morgan table, the appropriate sample size for the study was 320.This sample size was proportionally distributed across each of the selected schools using the formula
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS: PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS
Introduction
This chapter presents the data analysis including its discussion of results. The major objective of the study is to determine the influence of parenting styles on social adjustment and academic performance of adolescents in senior secondary schools Lagos State, Nigeria.
The Pearson Product Moment Correlation statistics reveals that significant relationship exist between the authoritative Parenting Style adopted by Parents and the Social adjustment of adolescents in Senior Secondary Schools in Lagos state. This is because the calculated significant (p ) value of 0.000 is lower than the 0.05 alpha level of significance at a correlation index r level of 0.867 at df of 430. This shows that the authoritative parenting style adopted by parents significantly affect the social adjustment of the adolescents.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This chapter presented the study summary, conclusion and recommendations.
Summary
The research covered all senior secondary schools in Lagos State, Nigeria. Nine research objectives, nine research questions and eight null hypotheses were formulated.
This part presented the literature review of the study, its theoretical framework and empirical studies .This section discussed methodology adopted by the researcher. Survey descriptive design by means of questionnaire as instrument was used to gather data from one hundred and seventy one (171) parents respondents and two hundred and eighty (280) students. The instruments were validated and reliability on efficiency was obtained from the pilot study.
The first part presented the frequencies percentage of bio-data, variables and educational qualification in view of the respondents. The second part answered nine research questions while the test of the research hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance were presented and discussed .The fifth concluded the study, summarized all the five chapters and put several recommendations including suggestions on the same topic in relevant area.
Conclusion
Authoritative and authoritarian parenting style, had more positive influence both on social adjustment and academic performance of adolescents. Neglectful and Indulgent styles have negative influence on social adjustment and academic performance of adolescents students.
Recommendations
In view of the research results and the conclusion drawn, the following recommendations were made ;
- Generally, Parenting styles used by parents affect social adjustment and academic Performance of adolescents in Senior Secondary Schools. .Parents are here by encouraged. to improve on their relationship with their adolescents and choose the right Parenting Style that will help the adolescents to behave socially among his peer group and perform well in the academic aspects.
- Authoritative Parenting style has more positive influence among all the Parenting Styles ,Parents are expected to practice authoritative Parenting style in other to help them in relating well with their adolescents .
- Authoritative Parenting style has more positive influence on academic Performance of adolescents, Parents should practice that kind of parenting style so that their adolescents can improve on their academic Performance.
- Adolescents from neglectful Parenting have less positive influence on social adjustment when compared with authoritative and authoritarian parenting style. Therefore, Parents should try and improve on their relationship with their adolescents.
- Neglectful Parents should improve on the way they bring up their adolescents so that they can perform well academically.
- can improve on their academic Performance.
REFERENCES
- Abbas A. (2004) Relatioship Between parents Education, occupation and academic achievement of senior secondary students in Zaria Local Government area of Kaduna State.An unpublished masters thesis Faculty of Education, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria
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- Bala, Z.E. (2012), Relationship between Childrearing patterns and work environment pre- frences of students in Tertiary institution Kebbi State. An unpublished masters thesis, faculty of Education Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.