THE PERCEPTION OF TEACHERS ON THE EFFECT OF DIVORCE ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF A CHILD (EDUCATION PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Marriage is part of our daily lives through marriage new rights, roles and new social relationship are formed only between the spouses and also between the kinsmen of the spouses. Marriage is the relationship between a man and woman to become husband and wife. It is also a social institution through which the family is established. (Oxford advanced learners dictionary).
Married couples are expected to live together until one or both of them die, but there are instances where couples live separately not because their partner were transferred by work to other region different from theirs or due to natural crises but due to misunderstanding. They separate legally in the court of law and the process is known as “Divorce”.
Divorce is a legal termination of valid marriage if a marriage is not valid when contacted, there cannot be a divorce because there was not really a marriage (Amato et. al., 1995). Marital unhappiness is only a result of the various factors that predispense marital instability. Marital conflict is inevitable in any society as long as husband and wife are different individuals and their actions are important to each others with such view, divorce is a mechanism for cheating with the pressure and problem inevitably caused by marriage because without marriage there would be no divorce.
Divorce or marriage failure is evident in a case whereby only one partner is responsible for the upbringing of child/children produced in a marital union. This result in dysfunctional development for the child/ children because the responsibilities which are to be shared between two people is shouldered by one to be shared between the people is shouldered by one person and the roles meant to be played by two is taken over by such person, this involves the child’s upbringing to be balanced.
Marriage failure otherwise known as divorce is one of the major problems common in our contemporary Nigeria setting. The rate at which marriage are reported to have failure is so high that two out of six marriages are reported to have failure in recent times. (The Punch May 5 2004).
Many factors have been highlighted to be responsible for this societal menace, one of such factor is early marriage some people marry without being mature, this make them lack the basic understanding needed to live with each other successfully, this always results to breakdown and collapse of the marriage.
Divorce or marriage failure has diverse effects on the child, the effect of parental divorce upon children depend on factors like the age of the child, the financial background of the family and so on. The age of the child is affected by divorce when the child is still very young or at adolescence.
Adolescence is a transitory period between childhoods. During this period an individual is seen neither as a child nor as an adult. Hall (1999) claimed that adolescent are characterized by emotional instabilities and hyper activities which cause them to experiences storm or challenges during growth stage.
