CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The duty for training a child is always the parent’s. This is consistent with sociologists’ widespread claim that education may be used as a tool for cultural change when taught at home. It is not implausible to believe that a parent’s economic background may have an influence on a child’s intellectual ability in school. Whatever influences children’s growth environment may have an effect on their education or propensity toward it. One of these criteria is parental status. When a woman’s nutritional health improves, her young children’s nutrition also improves (Ogunshola & Adewale, 2012).
Parents from different socioeconomic strata frequently have disparate approaches to child upbringing, disparate methods of punishing their children, and disparate responses to their children. These distinctions do not manifest themselves consistently in every family; rather, they impact the average inclinations of families belonging to various occupational groups (Rothestein, 2004). The house has a significant impact on the psychological, emotional, social, and economic development of a child. According to Ajila & Olutola (2000), the status of the house has an effect on the person since parents are the primary socializing agents in the child’s life. This is because a child’s familial background and environment have an effect on how he responds to life circumstances and on his degree of performance.
Education being another significant way of offering opportunities in life and belonging to a proper social class, the contemporary Nigerian family today plays a critical part in children’s academic achievement. Numerous factors influence a child’s academic achievement, including the parent’s educational level, employment, income, social status, and kind of parenthood, for example, the socioeconomic aspects of the family at school. All of these elements also have an effect on the length of a student’s stay and academic progress. On this assumption, Hill (2004) asserted that parents’ socioeconomic situation has an effect on their children’s academic achievement.
Socioeconomic status is a combined economic and sociological complete assessment of a person’s work experience and of an individual’s or family’s economic and social standing in relation to others, calculated using income and education, as well as occupation (Marmot & Michael, 2004). When determining a family’s social economic standing, the household income, the earners’ education and employment, as well as the combined income, are compared to an individual’s personal qualities.
According to Lareau (2003), socioeconomic status is typically classified into three categories: high, middle, and low, to denote the three areas into which a family or an individual may fall. When categorizing a family or an individual into one of these categories, any or all of the three variables income, education, and occupation can be assessed.
Additionally, poor income and a lack of education have been proven to be major predictors of a variety of physical and mental health issues, possibly because environmental factors were the primary source of the individual’s social dilemma in the first place.
Simiyu, (2001) contends that the term “family income” include wages, salaries, profit, rentals, and any other kind of revenue.
Additionally, income might be received in the form of unemployment or workers compensation, social security, pensions, interest or dividends, royalties, trusts, alimony, or other forms of governmental, public, or familial financial aid. Income may be seen in two ways: in relative terms and in absolute terms. Absolute income, as economist Keynes defined it, is the connection in which when income grows, consumption increases as well, but not at the same rate.
Low income households prioritize fulfilling urgent necessities above accumulating money to pass on to future generations, hence increasing inequality. Families with a larger disposable income may create money and prioritize immediate necessities while still consuming and enjoying luxury and weathering catastrophes (Okoh, 2015).
Ominde (2010) finds that education has a significant impact on both the skill sets required for job acquisition and the specific characteristics that differentiate persons with greater and lower socioeconomic level. Annette Lareau discusses the concept of concerted cultivation, in which middle-class parents actively participate in their children’s education and development through the use of supervised planned activities and the instilling of a sense of entitlement through encouraged dialogue. Laureau contends that low-income families are excluded from this movement, creating a sense of limitation in their children. Thus, a schism in educational performance results from these two disparities in child rearing. According to Gachathi (1976), occupational prestige is a component of socioeconomic standing that includes both income and educational accomplishment.
Occupational status represents the educational requirements for the work and the salary levels associated with different jobs and occupational rankings. Additionally, it demonstrates mastery of job-related abilities. Occupational status is a social position indicator that describes work features, decision-making power and control, and job-related psychological demands (Erick &Nyakundietal, 2012). As a result, this study focuses on the impact of socioeconomic status on the academic performance of secondary school students.